1000 words by sunday 4pm pst

See attached instructions, grading rubric sand class notes to be used

I need an essay, with no grammatical errors.

News Program Analysis Assignment x
News Program Analysis Assignment Options

· Due Feb 05, 11:59 PM

· Not Submitted

· POINTS 10

· Assignment Option

· 2

Objectives:

· 3.1

· 3.2

Please read all the directions thoroughly and the rubric.

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·
Instructions

·
Assignment Files

·
Grading

Watch produced news coverage of the same story from three different television networks to compare and contrast how the stories were presented. Sheelect coverage that inherently offers different views; an essay that says, “They were all the same” suggests student has not fully understood how to select appropriately.

News means, by definition, what is
new. Stories that happened a year ago or 10 years ago are not appropriate.

No celebrity or entertainment industry stories, unless these intersect with a public issues, such as celebrity whose troubles highlight sexual or racial issues.

Do not select editorials and opinion coverage, such as discussion panels. Select stories that involve a reporter out covering a news event.

We are specifically looking at television news coverage; written news articles are not acceptable for this assignment.

Consider the following:

· What was the headline of the news story shown on the screen? How does the headline affect the viewer’s perception of the story? Who was the target audience for this story?

· What images were shown on the screen? Was there a reporter live on the scene? Were there other speakers being interviewed? How was the credibility of the speakers established during the story? What social groups did they belong to?

· Was the story reported at face value (see this week’s theories for how we can dig deeper and beneath the surface of news reports)? Was there evidence of sensationalism for entertainment value (for example, use of emotional words or shocking images)? What type of ethical considerations were required for the station’s coverage of the story? Was there evidence of bias in the coverage?

· Finally, analyze the similarities and differences in the stories you viewed. Applying your knowledge of media-related communication theories, what conclusions can you offer that a smart media consumer should consider as he or she views produced news segments?

Cite at least
two peer-reviewed sources other than your textbook,
Introducing Communication Theory. Please ask questions if you are not sure what a peer-reviewed reference is.

Cite the news reports in-text and in the reference list using APA style.

Format your assignment according to appropriate course-level APA guidelines.

Submit your assignment to the Assignment Files tab.

Alternatively, you may
create a 12- to 15-slide Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation, with detailed speaker’s notes, that describes the coverage from each source. The speaker’s notes must be as complete as the 1000-word paper. You must still use citations in APA style and have a reference list. Let me be frank: The slide shows I have seen have not fulfilled the assignment at a high level of excellence. I removed this option for a while. I received one good PowerPoint last time I taught this course and several poor ones. I am adding an additional option: If you would like to provide audio narration for your PowerPoint slides — this is completely voluntarily — I am willing to see what talented students might do with this. You still have to submit your detailed speaker’s notes with citations. The rubric is the same; I will adapt it if I need to on a case-by-base basis.

Format your assignment according to appropriate course-level APA guidelines.

NewsRubrictoPost x

Grading Criteria for News Analysis Essay (Week 5)

Content

60 Points

Points Earned

xx/70

Additional Comments:

All key elements of the assignment are covered in a substantive way.

· Paper is 750 to 1050 words in length; I prefer the essay form, excluding title page and reference list. Please include word count at end of essay.

· The work is analytical and addresses all the questions asked by the assignment. Checklist:

__ Headline, affect on viewer’s perception, most likely target audience.

__ Images shown on screen? Reporter? Other speakers? How was credibility of speakers established? What social groups did they represent?

__ Just the fact or sensationalism for entertainment value? What images and language support your conclusion?

__ Ethical considerations for the station’s coverage of the story? Evidence of bias in the coverage?

__ Analyze the similarities and differences in the reports.
Applying your knowledge of media and public communication theories, what conclusions can you offer that a smart media consumer should consider as he or she views produced news segments?

· Paper is written in third-person point of view or limited first-person narration.

Be sure these are news reports, not opinion commentaries.

The three news reports that you analyze must have APA in-text citations and appear in the reference list with a working link that I can follow.

The assignment requires two peer-reviewed sources and a reference to West and Turner (2014). -2 pts for each source that is missing.

Content is comprehensive, accurate, and/or persuasive.

Paper links theory to relevant examples of current experience and uses the vocabulary of theory correctly.

· All discussion areas are substantively covered.

· Terms and concepts are defined or explained accurately as needed.

· Major points are stated clearly and are supported by specific details, examples, or analysis, and the paper includes at least two peer-reviewed citations.

· The news reports are cited in the paper using APA style and in the reference list. I MUST HAVE WORKING LINKS to the videos in the reference list. Please check these.

Organization / Development

20 Points

Points Earned

xx/15

Additional Comments:

Paper has a structure that is clear, logical, and easy to follow.

Please be sure your paper has an introduction with a thesis. Ideally, the thesis establishes a theory that you will use for your analysis in the concluding paragraph. We often must write the introduction last, after all our conclusions are in place.

Paper develops a central theme or idea, directed toward the appropriate audience.

Introduction provides sufficient background on the topic and previews major points.

Major points are stated clearly and are supported by specific details, examples, or analysis.

Conclusion is logical, flows from the body of the paper, and reviews the major points.

Transitions between sentences, paragraphs, and sections aid in maintaining the flow of thought.

Tone is appropriate to the content and assignment.

Mechanics

20 Points

Points Earned

Xx/15

Additional Comments:

The paper, including the title page, reference page, tables, and appendices, follows APA guidelines for format.

Be sure to check your essay for:

Spelling

Grammar: pronoun agreement of number

Grammar: verb tense and verb conjugation

Comma after an introductory clause

Comma before a coordinating conjunction

Title page error

In-text references

Reference list errors

Citations of original works within the body of the paper follow APA guidelines.

Paper is laid out with effective use of headings, font styles, and white space.

Rules of grammar, usage, and punctuation are followed.

Sentences are complete, clear, concise, and varied.

Spelling is correct.

Total

100 Points

Points Earned

xx/100

Additional Comments:

Chapter 18 x

Chapter 18

The
Rhetoric

Based on the writings of
Aristotle

Camille Ramirez

Camille Ramirez knew that she would have to take a public speaking course for her major. Although she had been active in high school—serving as treasurer for the student council and playing on the lacrosse team—she had never done any public speaking. Now that she was in her second semester, she wanted to get the required course out of the way, so she had enrolled in Public Speaking 101.

The class seemed to be going quite well. She felt fairly confident about her speaking abilities; she had received two As and one B on her speeches so far. The final speech, however, would be her most challenging. It was a persuasive speech, and she decided that she would speak on the dangers of drinking and driving. The topic was a personal one for Camille because she would talk about her Uncle Jake, a wonderful man who had died last year in an accident with a drunk driver. As she prepared for the speech, she thought that she would blend both emotion and logic into her presentation. Camille also thought that she would have to identify both sides of the drinking issue—the desire to let loose and the need to be responsible.

On the day of her speech, Camille took several deep breaths before the class started; it was a strategy that had worked before her previous speeches. As she approached the lectern, she could feel the butterflies well up in her stomach. She reminded herself about the topic and its personal meaning. So, as planned, she began with a short story about her favorite time with Uncle Jake—the time they went to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell. Camille then talked about the night—two weeks after her trip—that her uncle died; he was driving home from his daughter’s soccer game, and a drunk driver slammed his car from behind, forcing Jake to the embankment. His car then slid into a pond where he drowned.

The room was silent as Camille finished the story. She proceeded to identify why she was speaking on the topic. She told the group that considering their classroom was filled with people under the age of 25, it was important that they understand how fragile life is. Her words resonated with the group. For the next five minutes, Camille mentioned her Uncle Jake several times as she repeated the importance of not drinking and getting behind the wheel of a car.

Camille felt relieved as she finished her speech. She thought that she had done a decent job with her assignment, and she also felt that it helped her to be able to talk about her uncle again. After class, several of Camille’s classmates came up and congratulated her. Many of them posted words of sympathy on her Facebook page. They told her that it took a lot of guts to talk about such a personal subject in front of so many people. A few of them also commented that they felt her topic was perfect for the audience; in fact, one of her classmates said that he wanted Camille to give the same speech to his fraternity brothers. As Camille walked to her dorm, she couldn’t help but think that she had made a difference and that the speech was both a personal and a professional success.

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Contemporary life provides us scores of opportunities to speak in front of others. Politicians, spiritual leaders, physicians, custodian supervisors, and investment brokers are examplars of the types of people who spend much of their time speaking to others—in both formal and informal ways. Especially as members of the academy, and whether by choice or by accident, we find ourselves speaking in the classroom, in our organizations, with our professors, on our dorm floors, among many other locations.

Studying public speaking and communication in general is important in U.S. society for several reasons. First, for over a decade now, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (naceweb.org/so12082010/college_skills/) has identified “communication skills” as paramount to securing and maintaining a job. Second, public speaking, by definition, suggests that as a society we are receptive to listening to views of others, even views that may conflict with our own. Deliberation and debate in the United States are hallmarks of a democracy (West, 2012). Third, when one speaks before a group, the information resonates beyond that group of people. For instance, when a politician speaks to a small group of constituents in southwest Missouri, what she says frequently gets told and retold to others. When a minister consoles his congregation after a fatal shooting at a local middle school, the words reverberate even into the living rooms of those who were not present at the service. Finally, effective communication is identified as paramount in communication among individuals from various parts of the globe (Holliday, 2013); it is not just a topic that resonates solely in the United States. Clearly, effective public speaking has the ability to affect individuals beyond the listening audience, and it is a critical skill for us as citizens of a democratic society.

Despite the importance of public speaking in our lives, it remains a dreaded activity. In fact, some opinion polls state that people fear public speaking more than they fear death! Comedian Jerry Seinfeld reflects on this dilemma: “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that seem right? This means to the average person, if you have to go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy” (youtube.com/watch?v=kL7fTLjFzAg).

Public speaking is not so funny to people like Camille Ramirez. She must work through not only her anxiety about speaking before a group, but also her anxiety about discussing a very personal topic. For Camille, having a sense of what to speak about and what strategies to adopt are foremost in her mind. Based on her classmates’ reactions, her speech remains effective. Camille may not know that the reasons for her success may lie in the writings of Aristotle, published more than 25 centuries ago.

Aristotle is generally credited with explaining the dynamics of public speaking.
The Rhetoric consists of three books: one primarily concerned with public speakers, the second focusing on the audience, and the third attending to the speech itself. His
Rhetoric is considered by historians, philosophers, and communication experts to be one of the most influential pieces of writing in the Western world. In addition, many still consider Aristotle’s works to be the most significant writing on speech preparation and speech making. In a sense, Aristotle was the first to provide the “how to” for public speaking. Lane

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Theory at a Glance
•

The Rhetoric

Rhetorical Theory centers on the notion of rhetoric, which Aristotle calls the available means of persuasion. That is, a speaker who is interested in persuading his or her audience should consider three rhetorical proofs: logic (logos), emotion (pathos), and ethics/credibility (ethos). Audiences are key to effective persuasiveness, and rhetorical syllogisms, requiring audiences to supply missing pieces of a speech, are used in persuasion.

Cooper (1932) agrees. More than 80 years ago, Cooper observed that “the rhetoric of Aristotle is a practical psychology, and the most helpful book extant for writers of prose and for speakers of every sort” (p. vi). According to Cooper, people in all walks of life—attorneys, legislators, clergy, teachers, and media writers—can benefit in some way when they read Aristotle’s writings. That is some accolade for a man who has been dead for over 2,500 years!

To understand the power behind Aristotle’s words, it’s important first to understand the nature of the
Rhetoric. In doing so, we will be able to present the simple eloquence of rhetorical theory. First, in order for you to understand the historical context of the theory, we present a brief history of life in Aristotle’s day followed by a discussion of his definition of rhetoric.

The Rhetorical Tradition

The son of a physician, Aristotle was encouraged to be a thinker about the world around him. He went to study with his mentor, Plato, at the age of 17. Aristotle and Plato had conflicting worldviews; therefore, their philosophies differed as well. Plato was always in search of absolute truths about the world. He didn’t care much whether these truths had practical value. Plato felt that as long as people could agree on matters of importance, society would survive. Aristotle, however, was more interested in dealing with the here and now. He wasn’t as interested in achieving absolute truth as he was in attaining a logical, realistic, and rational view of society. In other words, we could argue that Aristotle was much more grounded than Plato, trying to understand the various types of people in Athenian society.

Because he taught diverse groups of people in Greek society, Aristotle became known as a man committed to helping the ordinary citizen—at the time, a land-owning male. During the day, common citizens (men) were asked to judge murder trials, oversee city boundaries, travel as emissaries, and defend their property against would-be land collectors (Golden, Berquist, Coleman, & Sproule, 2011). Because there were no professional attorneys at that time, many citizens hired

Sophists

, teachers of public speaking, to instruct them in basic principles of persuasion. These teachers established small schools where they

Sophists teachers of public speaking (rhetoric) in ancient Greece

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taught students about the public speaking process and where they produced public speaking handbooks discussing practical ways to become more effective public speakers. Aristotle, however, believed that many of these handbooks were problematic in that they focused on the judicial system to the neglect of other contexts. Also, he thought that authors spent too much time on ways to arouse judges and juries: “It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger or envy or pity—one might as well warp a carpenter’s rule before using it,” Aristotle observes (cited in Rhys & Bywater, 1954, p. 20). Aristotle reminds speakers not to forget the importance of logic in their presentations.

The
Rhetoric could be considered Aristotle’s way of responding to the problems he saw in these handbooks. Although he challenges a number of prevailing assumptions about what constitutes an effective presentation, what remains especially important is Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric: the available means of persuasion. For Aristotle, however, availing oneself of all means of persuasion does not translate into bribery or torture, common practices in ancient Greece, where slavery was institutionalized. What Aristotle envisions and recommends is for speakers to work beyond their first instincts when they want to persuade others. They need to consider all aspects of speech making, including their audience members. When Camille prepared for her speech by assessing both her words and her audience’s needs, she was adhering to Aristotle’s suggestions for successful speaking.

For some of you, interpreting rhetoric in this way may be unfamiliar. After all, the word has been tossed around by so many different types of people that it may have lost Aristotle’s original intent. For instance, Jasper Neel (1994) comments that “the term
rhetoric has taken on such warm and cuddly connotations in the postmodern era” (p. 15) that we tend to forget that its meaning is very specific. For people like Neel, we must return to Aristotle’s interpretation of rhetoric or we will miss the essence of his theory. Politicians often indict their opponents by stating that their “rhetoric is empty” or that they’re all “rhetoric, with little action.” These sorts of criticisms only trivialize the active and dynamic process of rhetoric and its role in the public speaking process. Indeed, rhetoric is an “art of using language” (Cuddon, 2013, p. 606) and therefore, simply because someone talks or chats aimlessly does not mean that person is using rhetorical discourse. Consider this important caveat as you review this chapter.

Assumptions of the
Rhetoric

To this end, let’s examine two primary assumptions of Rhetorical Theory as proposed by Aristotle. You should be aware that Rhetorical Theory covers a wide range of thinking in the communication field, and so it is nearly impossible to capture all of the beliefs associated with the theory. Nonetheless, Aristotelian theory is guided by the following two assumptions:

• Effective public speakers must consider their audience.

• Effective public speakers employ a number of proofs in their presentations.

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The first assumption underscores the interpretation of communication that we presented in

Chapter 1
: Communication is a transactional process. Within a public speaking context, Aristotle suggests that the speaker–audience relationship must be acknowledged and even primary in the speaking process. Speakers should not construct or deliver their speeches without considering their audiences. Speakers need to be audience centered. They should think about the audience as a group of individuals with motivations, decisions, and choices and not as some undifferentiated mass of homogeneous people. The effectiveness of Camille’s speech on drinking and driving derived from her ability to understand her audience. She knew that students, primarily under the age of 25, rarely think about death, and, therefore, her speech prompted them to think about something that they normally would not consider. Camille, like many other public speakers, engaged in

audience analysis

, which is the process of evaluating an audience and its background (e.g., age, sex, educational level, etc.) and tailoring one’s speech so that listeners respond as the speaker hopes they will.

audience analysis an assessment and evaluation of listeners

Aristotle believed that audiences are crucial to a speaker’s ultimate effectiveness. He observes, “Of the three elements in speech-making—speaker, subject, and person addressed—it is the last one, the hearer, that determines the speech’s end and object” (rhetoric.eserver.org/aristotle/rhet1-3.html). Each listener, however, is unique, and what works with one listener may fail with another. Expanding on this notion, Carnes Lord (1994) observes that audiences are not always open to rational argument. Consider Camille’s speech on drinking and driving. Her speech may have worked wonderfully in the public speaking classroom, but she might have different results with a group of alcohol distributors. As you can see, understanding the audience is critical before a speaker begins constructing his or her speech.

The second assumption underlying Aristotle’s theory pertains to what speakers do in their speech preparation and their speech making. Aristotle’s proofs refer to the means of persuasion, and, for Aristotle, three proofs exist: ethos, pathos, and logos.

Ethos

refers to the perceived character, intelligence, and goodwill of a speaker as they become revealed through his or her speech. Eugene Ryan (1984) notes that ethos is a broad term that refers to the mutual influence that speakers and listeners have on each other. Ryan contends that Aristotle believed that the speaker can be influenced by the audience in much the same way that audiences can be influenced by the speaker. Interviewing Kenneth Andersen, a communication ethicist, Pat Arneson (2007) relates Andersen’s thoughts about Aristotle and ethos. Ethos, according to Andersen, is “something you create on the occasion” (p. 131). To that end, a speaker’s ethos is not simply something that is brought into a speaking experience; it is the speaking experience. Melissa Waresh (2012) contends that ethos must necessarily take into consideration the relationship between speaker and audience. She states: “Ethos is character. Character implicates trust. Trust is based on relationship. Relationship persuades” (p. 229).

ethos the perceived character, intelligence, and goodwill of a speaker

Aristotle felt that a speech by a trustworthy individual was more persuasive than a speech by an individual whose trust was in question. Michael Hyde

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(2004) contends that Aristotle felt that ethos is part of the virtue of another and, therefore, “can be trained and made habitual” (p. xvi).

Logos

is the logical proof that speakers employ—their arguments and rationalizations. For Aristotle, logos involves using a number of practices, including using logical claims and clear language. To speak in poetic phrases results in a lack of clarity and naturalness.

Pathos

pertains to the emotions that are drawn out of listeners. Aristotle argues that listeners become the instruments of proof when emotion is stirred in them; listeners judge differently when they are influenced by joy, pain, hatred, or fear. Let’s return to our example of Camille to illustrate these three Aristotelian proofs.

logos logical proof; the use of arguments and evidence in a speech

pathos emotional proof; emotions drawn from audience members

The ethos that Camille evokes during her presentation is important. Relating a personal account of her relationship with her Uncle Jake and describing his subsequent death at the hands of a drunk driver bolster perceptions of her credibility. Undoubtedly, her audience feels that she is a credible speaker by virtue of her relationship with Jake and her knowledge of the consequences of drinking and driving. Logos is evident in Camille’s speech when she decides to logically argue that although drinking is a part of recreation, mixing it with driving can be deadly. Using examples to support her claims underscores Camille’s use of logical proof. The pathos inherent in the speech should be apparent from the subject matter. She chooses a topic that appeals to her college listeners. They most likely will feel for Camille and reflect on how many times they or their friends have gotten behind the wheel after having a few drinks. The proofs of Aristotelian theory, therefore, guide Camille’s effectiveness.

Each of these three—ethos, logos, and pathos—is critical to speech effectiveness. But each, alone, may not be sufficient. Keep in mind Kenneth Burke’s belief that according to Aristotle, “an audience’s confidence in the speaker is the most convincing proof of all” (Burke, 2007, p. 335).

For Aristotle, logos is much more than offering evidence in a speech. He delineates this proof in more detail in his writings. In his discussion, he notes that speakers who consider logos must necessarily consider syllogisms. We now turn our attention to this critical Aristotelian principle.

Syllogisms: A Three-Tiered Argument

We noted that logos is one of the three proofs that, according to Aristotle, create a more effective message. Nestled in these logical proofs is something called syllogisms. The term requires clarification because there is some debate among scholars on its precise meaning.

Communication scholars have studied the
Rhetoric and its meaning for years and have attempted to untangle some of Aristotle’s words. We look here at the term syllogism, defined as a set of propositions that are related to one another and draw a conclusion from the major and minor premises. Typically, syllogisms contain two premises and a conclusion. A

syllogism

is nothing more than a deductive argument, a group of statements (premises) that lead to

syllogism a set of propositions that are related to one another and draw a conclusion from the major and minor premises

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another group of statements (conclusions). In other words, premises are starting points or beginners used by speakers. They establish justification for a conclusion. In a syllogism, both major and minor premises exist. Symbolically, a syllogism looks like this:

A → B

B → C

Therefore, A → C

Consider this classic example of a syllogism:

Major Premise:

All people are mortal.

Minor Premise:

Aristotle is a person.

Conclusion:

Therefore, Aristotle is mortal.

Let’s use the beginning story about Camille and construct a syllogism that she might employ in her speech:

Major Premise:

Drunk driving can kill people.

Minor Premise:

College students drink and drive.

Conclusion:

Therefore, college students can kill others (by drinking and driving).

As a speaker, you might (unwittingly) incorporate syllogisms to persuade your audience. However, in an often complex and convoluted society, drawing such a clear conclusion from preliminary premises may not be appropriate. Syllogistic reasoning may undercut a point you’re making. For example, it is usually difficult to draw a clear conclusion when dealing with the behaviors of close friends or family members. Personality, relational history, and timing all intersect to make drawing a simple conclusion quite difficult. Further, syllogistic reasoning is, like many issues in this book, impacted by culture. Audience members do not always share a speaker’s logical progression of ideas. Therefore, speakers need to be cautious in expecting audience members to draw conclusions in similar ways.

Syllogisms are a critical part of the speaking process for Aristotle. Speakers use them to enhance effectiveness in their speeches. In addition, speakers also incorporate other techniques that are labeled
canons.

Canons of
Rhetoric

Aristotle was convinced that, for a persuasive speech to be effective, speakers must follow certain guidelines or principles, which he called
canons. These are recommendations for making a speech more compelling. Classical rhetoricians have maintained Aristotle’s observations, and to this day, most writers of public speaking texts in communication follow canons for effective speaking that early Greeks and Romans advocated.

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Table 18.1 Aristotle’s Canons of
Rhetoric

CANON

DEFINITION

DESCRIPTION

Invention

Integration of reasoning and arguments in speech

Using logic and evidence in speech makes a speech more powerful and more persuasive.

Arrangement

Organization of speech

Maintaining a speech structure-introduction, Body, Conclusion—bolsters speaker credibility, enhances persuasiveness, and reduces listener frustration.

Style

Use of language in speech

Incorporating style ensures that a speech is memorable and that a speaker’s ideas are clarified.

Delivery

Presentation of speech

Delivering an effective speech complements a speaker’s words and helps to reduce speaker anxiety.

Memory

Storing information in speaker’s mind

Knowing what to say and when to say it eases speaker anxiety and allows a speaker to respond to unanticipated events.

Although his writings in the
Rhetoric focused on persuasion, these canons have been applied in a number of speaking situations. Five prescriptions for effective oratory exist and we now discuss these canons, which are highlighted in

Table 18.1
.

Invention

The first canon is invention. This term can be confusing because invention of a speech does not mean invention in a scientific sense.

Invention

is defined as the construction or development of an argument that is relevant to the purpose of a speech. Invention is discovering all the proofs a speaker plans to use. Invention is broadly interpreted as the body of information and knowledge that a speaker brings to the speaking situation. This stockpile of information can help a speaker in his or her persuasive approaches.

invention a canon of rhetoric that pertains to the construction or development of an argument related to a particular speech

Suppose, for instance, you are presenting a speech on DNA testing. Invention associated with this speech would include appeals woven throughout your speech (e.g., “DNA helps living organisms pass along information to their offspring,” “DNA is the fundamental blueprint for all life,” or “DNA testing has proven to be instrumental in capturing rapists”). In constructing your arguments, you may draw on all these examples.

Aids to invention are identified as topics.

Topics

, in this sense, refer to the lines of argument or modes of reasoning a speaker uses in a speech. Speakers may draw on these invention aids as they decide which speaking strategy

topics an aid to invention that refers to the arguments a speaker uses

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will persuade their audiences. Topics, therefore, help speakers enhance their persuasiveness.

Speakers look to what are called

civic spaces

, or the metaphorical locations where rhetoric has the opportunity to effect change, “where a speaker can look for ‘available means of persuasion’” (Kennedy, 1991, p. 45). Recall, for instance, Camille’s decision to talk about drinking and driving in her public speaking class. As she speaks, she defines her terms, looks at opposing arguments, and considers ideas similar to her own. That is, she identifies a “location” in her speech where she is able to adapt to an audience that may be losing attention. Camille does whatever it takes to ensure that she has the chance to persuade her audience.

civic spaces a metaphor suggesting that speakers have “locations” where the opportunity to persuade others exists

Arrangement

A second canon identified by Aristotle is called arrangement.

Arrangement

pertains to a speaker’s ability to organize a speech. Aristotle felt that speakers should seek out organizational patterns for their speeches to enhance the speech’s effectiveness. Artistic unity among different thoughts should be foremost in a speaker’s mind. Simplicity should also be a priority because Aristotle believed that there are essentially two parts to a speech: stating the subject and finding the proof, or what he calls “demonstrating it” (Kennedy, 1991, p. 258). At the time, he felt that speakers were organizing their speeches haphazardly, making them less-effective speakers.

arrangement a canon of rhetoric that pertains to a speaker’s ability to organize a speech

Aristotle, however, is very clear in his organizational strategy. Speeches should generally follow a threefold approach: introduction, body, and conclusion. The

introduction

should first gain the audience’s attention, then suggest a connection with the audience, and finally provide an overview of the speech’s purpose.

introduction part of an organizational strategy in a speech that includes gaining the audience’s attention, connecting with the audience, and providing an overview of the speaker’s purpose

Introductions can be quite effective in speeches that are intended to arouse emotionally. Gaining attention by incorporating emotional wording is an effective persuasive technique. Consider Camille’s introductory words. She obviously captures the audience’s attention by personalizing a very difficult subject. She then suggests her relationship with the topic, followed by an overview of her speaking purpose:

Jake McCain was killed by someone he didn’t know. Jake was a wonderful man and the person who killed him never knew that. Yet, Jake’s death could have been prevented. You see, he was killed by someone who was drunk. The driver may have a future, but Jake will never have a chance to see his grandchild grow up or see his sister get married. I know about Jake McCain: He’s my uncle. Today, I wish to discuss the dangers of drunk driving and identify how you can avoid becoming one of the many thousands who get behind a wheel after drinking too much.

Arrangement also includes the body and conclusion of the speech. The

body

includes all of the arguments, supporting details, and necessary examples to make a point. In addition to the entire speech being organized, the body of the speech also follows some sort of organizational structure. Aristotle states that audiences need to be led from one point to another.

body part of an organizational strategy in a speech that includes arguments, examples, and important details to make a point

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Finally, the

conclusion

or epilogue of a speech is aimed at summarizing the speaker’s points and arousing emotions in the audience. Conclusions should be arrived at logically and should also attempt to reconnect with listeners. Camille’s conclusion clearly demonstrates her desire to leave her listeners with a message:

So I leave you today after examining the prevalence of drunk driving, the current laws associated with this behavior, and what you and I can personally do to help rid our society of this terrible and overlooked part of being a college student. The next time you go and have a drink, don’t forget to give your keys to a friend. Or get a cab. I’m sure your family will thank you. Do it for me. Do it for my Uncle Jake.

conclusion part of an organizational strategy in a speech that is aimed at summarizing a speaker’s main points and arousing emotions in an audience

We can feel Camille’s passion for a topic that is both personal and personally difficult.

Style

The use of language to express ideas in a certain manner is called

style

. In his discussion of style, Aristotle includes word choice, word imagery, and word appropriateness. He believes that each type of rhetoric has its own style, yet style is often overlooked. He notes that strange words or

glosses

(e.g., antiquated words and phrases, such as “colored person” or “girl Friday”) should be avoided. Speaking in terms that are too simplistic will also turn off an audience. To bridge this gap between the unfamiliar and the too familiar, Aristotle introduces the notion of

metaphor

, or a figure of speech that helps to make the unclear more understandable. Metaphors are critical devices to employ in speeches, according to Aristotle, because they have the capacity to change the perceptions and the minds of listeners (Moran, 1996).

style a canon of rhetoric that includes the use of language to express ideas in a speech

glosses outdated words in a speech

metaphor a figure of speech that helps to make the unclear more understandable

Style can be better understood through an example from Camille’s speech on drunk driving. If Camille were concentrating on style, her speech would have the following passage:

Drinking is often viewed as a means to release. After a very long day at work or at school, there may be nothing better than having a cold beer. So they say. Yet, too often, one beer turns into two, which by the end of a few hours, has turned into a six-pack. And the result can be tragic: How many times have you watched your friend or family member get into a car after a six-pack? This person can be as dangerous as a bullet, unleashed from a gun that is randomly pointed at someone. If you must drink, it’s not only your business; but, it’s my business, too.

Camille’s words evoke some strong imagery; mentally, we can recreate the scene that she has laid out. Her word choice is unmistakable in that she uses familiar words. Finally, she uses the compelling metaphor of a bullet.

Memory

Storing invention, arrangement, and style in a speaker’s mind is

memory

. In contrast to the previous four canons, Aristotle does not spend significant time delineating the importance of memory in speech presentation. Rather, he alludes

memory a canon of rhetoric that refers to a speaker’s effort in storing information for a speech

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Theory in Popular Press
•

Excellent Public Speeches

Writer Helen Coster tackles, in
Forbes magazine (a business-anchored publication), one of the most ubiquitous of all topics in the corporate world: How to prepare and deliver public speeches. Coster begins her essay by invoking commencement speakers and their ability to present messages that engage audiences. She presents some simple, but important, recommendations that adhere to Aristotle’s thinking. In particular, Coster notes: “Forget fancy PowerPoint presentations and loads of data. Instead, keep your speech simple, with a clear beginning, middle and end.” Further, in what amounts to a clear nod to Aristotle’s speaking values, Coster states: “Be relevant to your audience.” Indeed, audience analysis is identified as critical to being an effective public speaker. The essayist encourages speakers to use stories and to be atune to one’s body language as both can convey credibility, one of the principle proofs of Aristotle. In sum, Coster encourages public speakers to “try to enjoy the experience.”

Source: Coster, H. (2010, August 16). How to give a great speech, forbes.com/2010/08/16/public-speaking-speeches-communication-leadership-careers-advice.html.

to memory in his writings. Throughout the
Rhetoric, for instance, Aristotle reminds us to consider a number of issues prior to the presentation (e.g., examples, signs, metaphors, delivery techniques, etc.). He further notes that to speak persuasively, a speaker has to have a basic understanding of many of these devices when constructing and presenting a speech. In other words, speakers need to have memorized a great deal before getting up to speak.

Today, people interpret memory in speech-making differently from Aristotle. Memorizing a speech often means having a basic understanding of material and techniques. Although other rhetoricians like Quintilian made specific recommendations on memorizing, Aristotle felt that familiarizing oneself with the speech’s content was understood. When Camille presents her speech on drinking and driving, for example, she has some parts of her speech committed to memory and other parts overviewed on notes.

Student Voices

Vlad

I know that I’m probably oversimplifying a great theory, but a lot of the
Rhetoric is something that I remember from my public speaking class. I was always told to keep my speeches organized and to persuade people by getting to them emotionally. I did my persuasive speech on organ donation because my sister was waiting for a kidney. I know my delivery was pretty smooth because I believed in what I was saying. That probably also improved my ethos.

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Delivery

Thus far we have concentrated on how a speech is constructed. Aristotle, however, was also interested in how a speech is delivered. In this case,

delivery

refers to the nonverbal presentation of a speaker’s ideas. Delivery normally includes a host of behaviors, including eye contact, vocal cues, pronunciation, enunciation, dialect, body movement, and physical appearance. For Aristotle, delivery specifically pertains to the manipulation of the voice. He especially encouraged speakers to use appropriate levels of pitch, rhythm, volume, and emotion. He believed that the way in which something is said affects its intelligibility.

delivery a canon of rhetoric that refers to the nonverbal presentation of a speaker’s ideas

Aristotle believed that delivery could not be easily taught, yet it is crucial for a speaker to consider. He also taught that speakers should strive to be natural in their delivery. Speakers should not use any vocal techniques that may detract from the words and should strive to capture a comfortable presence in front of an audience. In other words, speakers should avoid being “gimmicky” in their presentations and strive for authenticity.

The canons of rhetoric are incorporated into a number of different persuasive speeches. Our exploration of Aristotle’s Rhetorical Theory concludes with a discussion of the three types of rhetoric.

Types of Rhetoric

You will recall that during Aristotle’s time citizens were asked to take part in a number of speaking activities—from judge to attorney to legislator. It was in this spirit that Aristotle identified different speaking situations for citizens to consider when conversing on trade, finance, national defense, and war. He denoted three types of rhetoric, or what he called three types of oratory: forensic, epideictic, and deliberative.

Forensic rhetoric

pertains to establishing a fact; at the core of forensic rhetoric is justice.

Epideictic rhetoric

is discourse related to praise or blame.

Deliberative rhetoric

concerns speakers who must determine a course of action—something should or should not be done. The three types refer to three different time periods: forensic to the past, epideictic to the present, and deliberative to the future. We discuss these three rhetorical types next and illustrate them in

Figure 18.1
.

forensic rhetoric a type of rhetoric that pertains to speakers prompting feelings of guilt or innocence from an audience

epideictic rhetoric a type of rhetoric that pertains to praising or blaming

deliberative rhetoric a type of rhetoric that determines an audience’s course of action

Forensic oratory, or judicial rhetoric, specifically refers to speaking in courtrooms. Its intent is to establish guilt or innocence; in Aristotle’s day, forensic speakers directed their presentation to courtroom judges. Aristotle examined forensic rhetoric within a legal framework, and thus many of his beliefs on the law are found in the
Rhetoric. Amelie Rorty (1996) notes that forensic speaking requires focusing on arguments that tap into judges’ psyches, including their beliefs about why certain criminals act the way they do and which types of circumstances tempt people to break the law. Because past actions are frequently indicative of a person’s current behavior, forensics orators rely on previous behaviors.

Aristotle recognized that a person’s character is critical in forensic rhetoric. He interprets character as both status (i.e., whether a person is young or old, rich

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Figure 18.1 Types of Rhetoric

or poor, fortunate or unfortunate) and morality (i.e., whether a person is just or unjust, reasonable or unreasonable). If people act voluntarily, Aristotle argued, the choices they make have consequences. To establish guilt, the forensic speaker needs to establish motivation for doing wrong. In speaking before an audience, then, speakers will invoke what Aristotle called the “moral habits” of a person.

Examples of forensic rhetoric abound in our society. Forensic speakers have played prominent roles in U.S. courtrooms. Attorneys, in particular, have effectively and persuasively used their forensic rhetoric over the years. One of the most memorable forensic presentations in history took place in the closely watched trial of football legend O. J. Simpson. Prosecutors tried to implicate Simpson’s morals by playing a tape recording of a 911 call in which Simpson could be heard yelling at his wife and by showing pictures of her beaten body to the jury. More recent forensic efforts by prosecutors include the legal proceedings of corruption charges by former Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, the Bernie Madoff investment scandal, and the trial of home décor guru Martha Stewart, who was found guilty of lying to government agents about stock trading. In all these cases, forensic speaking was used to undercut the moral integrity of the defendant and to establish guilt (Stewart, 2012).

The second type of rhetoric, epideictic, is also called ceremonial speaking. Speeches during Aristotle’s time were given in public arenas with the goal of praising, honoring, blaming, or shaming. Epideictic rhetors include people, events, organizations, or nations in their speeches. These speeches usually focus on social issues because, according to Aristotle, people are interested in the here and now. Epideictic speaking cannot be separated from ethos, Aristotle stated. He believed that by understanding the need to praise or blame, epideictic speakers understand the importance of their own character. For instance, a speech criticizing prison conditions may not resonate deeply with an audience if the speaker is on death row for rape and murder.

At times, there are speeches that simply are generic in nature and yet, the target of blame is implied. In 2012, for instance, the Sandy Hook Elementary

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School killings of more than 20 school children and staff resulted in many epideictic speeches about the need for stricter gun laws and the lax oversight of semiautomatic weapons. While many speeches did not name the National Rifle Association by name, it was clear that many speakers were blaming this organization for its influence on restricting gun legislation.

Epideictic speaking is greatly informed by the study of virtues or values—a theme that Aristotle borrowed from Plato. The epideictic speaker must be able to relate the virtues of the topic to a diverse audience. Aristotle felt that courage and justice ranked above all virtues, but virtue is defined according to the law of the land.

Epideictic rhetoric is exemplified in funeral practices in our country. Eulogies, which are commonplace at many funerals, usually laud the life of the deceased. Commenting on contemporary values, the epideictic speaker at a funeral frequently compares the virtues of the dead person with those of society. For instance, after the death of his grandmother, one of your authors was asked to give the eulogy at the funeral. During his speech, he talked about his grandmother’s uplifting spirit and how she rarely complained about her ailments or about her financial situation. He evoked images of contemporary society in his speech, noting how unusual it is today for someone to refrain from self-centered complaining. His speech centered on a prevailing virtue of his grandmother—her selflessness—and also commented on society as a whole.

The third type is deliberative rhetoric, also called political rhetoric, and it was the focus of much of Aristotle’s comments on rhetorical discourse. As we mentioned earlier, deliberative rhetoric is associated with the future—what an audience will do or think as a result of a speaker’s efforts. Deliberative speaking, then, requires the speaker to be adept at understanding how his or her thoughts are aligned with those of the audience. The deliberative speaker should be prepared to consider subjects that are relevant to the audience and to which the speaker can personally relate. Aristotle identified five subjects on which people deliberated in his day: revenue, war and peace, the defense of the country, commerce, and legislation (san.beck.org/EC22-Aristotle.html). Today’s list of deliberative topics might include health insurance, taxes, relationships, education, and civil rights. Deliberative speakers might try to raise interest in these topics, and once interest is piqued, they might find that listeners are more prone to being persuaded.

Larry Arnhart (1981) comments that the deliberative rhetorician needs to know not only the actual subject of deliberation but also the elements of human nature that influence deliberation. There are a number of topics, therefore, which are suited for deliberation and others that are not. Aristotle focused on what deliberative speakers can say to an assembly (a body of legislators, for example), and today this deliberative oratory continues. Consider the following example. When asked to give a short presentation to her state’s legislative committee on health insurance, Beverly, a 64-year-old mother of four, spoke about the health insurance of elderly people. As the caretaker of her 90-year-old mother-in-law, a patient in a local nursing home, Beverly knew precisely the kinds of persuasive strategies to use with the group of politicians. Her speech focused on the difficulties of being old and how these problems are

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amplified by not having enough insurance. She asked the legislators to consider their own aging parents in their discussions. She outlined five points of action for the committee to follow. Three of the points could be undertaken immediately: establishing a task force, interviewing elderly citizens, and setting up a toll-free number to solicit citizen concerns and complaints. The remaining two required funding from the legislature. At the conclusion of her brief speech, Beverly was satisfied that her suggestions would not be ignored.

Aristotle would have approved of Beverly’s rhetoric. Her recommendations were doable (the committee enacted three of the five), and she made her experiences relevant to her audience by asking the group to think about their own parents. This approach elicited personal identification, which is an important tactic in deliberative speaking. By eliciting these feelings, Beverly knew that she would be able to get her audience to agree with her thinking.

Integration, Critique, and Closing

Aristotle’s
Rhetoric remains an influential theoretical foundation in communication studies. You can pick up any public speaking text and find discussions on delivery, organization, and style. Students of public speaking have benefited greatly from the words and values of Aristotle, and for this reason the theory will resonate deeply for years to come. The evaluative criteria for communication we wish to discuss center on three primary areas: logical consistency, heurism, and test of time.

Integration

Communication Tradition

Communication Context

Approach to Knowing

Positivistic/Empirical |
Interpretive/Hermeneutic |
Critical

Critique

Evaluation
Criteria

Logical Consistency

Critics of Aristotle’s theory have taken issue with some tenets of the theory. For instance, Aristotle has been criticized for contradiction and incoherence. Charles Marsh (2006), for instance, reports on one critic who undercut the

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notion of ethos as proposed by Aristotle: “In a society so small, where everyone knew one another, how could [Aristotle] think—was he really that dumb—that a person of bad character could hoodwink the other leaders of society?” (p. 339). Lord (1994) contends that in developing his theory, Aristotle blasts his contemporaries for focusing too much on the audience’s emotions. Although Aristotle encourages speakers to avoid focusing on emotions while making their points, he proceeds to do just that when he stresses the importance of presenting emotions and invoking audience passions (pathos) during a speech. This makes the theory somewhat inconsistent.

John Cooper (1996) challenges Lord’s critique. He argues that Aristotle was simply responding to the Sophists’ messages of the day. Because most of the speeches in ancient Greece were directed to judges and rulers, Aristotle indicated that speakers should try to elicit feelings of pity in the courtroom. To do that, Aristotle felt that speakers should try to view judges in congenial ways.

Further criticism of the logical consistency of the theory has been offered. First, scholars agree that the
Rhetoric is a rather unorganized undertaking; in fact, the theory is assembled from Aristotle’s lecture notes (Neel, 2013). It is not surprising, then, that Aristotle seems to discuss topics in a random and arbitrary manner. At times, Aristotle introduces a topic and then drops it, only to return to it later. His terminology is especially problematic for some scholars. You may not find this too earth-shattering, but recall that researchers need clear foundations of terms before they can embark upon testing or clarifying theory. Larry Arnhart (1991) concludes that Aristotle defined his terms in less than precise ways so that audiences (readers) would have a broader understanding of his words and ideas. Arnhart believes that this conscious decision to remain unclear does not mean that Aristotle’s thoughts should be discarded.

Finally, the logical consistency is further challenged by an examination of how Aristotle views the audience. Critics charge Aristotle with ignoring the critical nature of listeners. For instance, Jasper Neel (1994) states, “Aristotle makes clear that the introduction [of a speech] has nothing to do with the ‘speech itself.’ It exists only because of the hearer’s weak-minded tendency to listen to what is beside the point” (p. 156). Eugene Ryan (1984) is more blunt: “Aristotle is thinking of listeners who have some difficulty keeping their minds on the speaker’s business, are easily distracted, tend to forget what has gone on before, [and] are not absorbed with abstract ideas” (p. 47). From these writers, we get the impression that Aristotle perceived audiences to be incapable of being discriminating listeners or critical thinkers. It’s important to note, though, that Aristotle was writing at a time when people were rather passive listeners; they did not watch the evening news and did not have access to information about world events. Furthermore, when one considers that the
Rhetoric is based on lecture notes and that students back then were not accustomed to openly challenging their mentors, Aristotle’s view of the audience is not so implausible.

Heurism

Few would argue that Aristotle’s
Rhetoric is one of the most heuristic theories found in communication. Scholars in political science, medicine, English

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Student Voices

Ned

When I gave my first speech in public speaking, I was pretty amazed that the three proofs of Aristotle worked so well. I gave my speech on physician-assisted suicide. My aunt wanted her doctor to help her commit suicide, and my whole family was against it. I was, too. So I was trying to persuade the class that we should never allow this to happen anywhere. I had credibility because it was right in my family (ethos), I used emotion and caused emotion in my speech (pathos), and I offered some statistics on how many people try to get their doctors to help in suicides (logos). I had a lot of students come up to me after the speech and tell me how effective my speech was. And all of that was thanks to Aristotle!

composition, and philosophy have studied Rhetorical Theory and incorporated Aristotelian thinking in their research. The theory has spawned a number of subareas in the communication discipline, such as communication apprehension, and has generated research. In fact, much of the writing in public speaking is based on the writings of Aristotle. Some interesting research has discussed the deliberative rhetoric of an African American activist (McClish, 2007). Much of the discussion related to preaching in churches can be directly attributed to Aristotle’s thinking (Broadus, 2012). Aristotelian proofs have been employed to student umbilical cord blood banking (White, 2006), and in the analyses of environmental reports (Higgins & Walker, 2012). Aristotle’s theory will continue to resonate with scholars across disciplines and in a variety of contexts.

Test of Time

No other theory in the communication discipline has withstood the test of time as well as Aristotle’s
Rhetoric. With more than 2,000 years behind it and public speaking textbooks, teachers, and researchers communicating Aristotelian principles, it’s hard to believe that any other theory in the field of communication will ever achieve such longevity!

As the twenty-first-century continues, we are in an informed position to reflect on some of the greatest written works of all time. The
Rhetoric is clearly such a work. Aristotle’s words continue to resonate in a society that is far different from his day. Some people may reject his thoughts as outdated in an age in which multiple ways of knowing are embraced. Particularly given the technology that pervades nearly every culture across the globe, Aristotle’s theory may be viewed by some as irrelevant. Still, a theory focusing on how speakers use and engender emotions, logic, and trustworthiness cannot be ignored. And, it’s fair to say that despite Facebook, Skype, or other technologies, public speaking will continue to be instrumental across cultures.

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Discussion Starters

TECH QUEST: Aristotle never could envision social media as he was discussing public speaking. Considering the vast availability of various social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram, discuss how public speeches can be both enhanced and undermined by social media.

1. In the chapter-opening scene, Camille Ramirez relied on Aristotle’s view of public speaking. Do you believe that she could have been more effective? In what way? Use examples in your response.

2. Aristotle’s critics have focused on the fact that his theory is simply a collection of lecture notes that are contradictory, vague, and often narrow. Do you agree or disagree, based on the information in this chapter? What examples can you point to for support?

3. Employ syllogistic reasoning for and against each of the following topics: physician-assisted suicide, same-sex marriage, and medicinal marijuana use.

4. Discuss what canon of rhetoric is most important when politicians speak to their constituents. Use examples to defend your view.

5. If Aristotle were alive today and you were his student, what additional suggestions would you offer him for a new edition of the
Rhetoric? Why do you believe your suggestions are important to address in public speaking? Incorporate examples in your response.

6. Aristotle spent a great deal of time discussing the role of the audience. If you were giving a speech on safety to a group of convenience store employees, what sort of audience analysis would you undertake?

7. Explain how principles from the
Rhetoric relate to job interviews.

Online Learning Center

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Visit the Online Learning Center at

www.mhhe.com/west5e
for chapter-specific resources, such as story-into-theory and multiple-choice quizzes, as well as theory summaries and theory-connection questions.

Chapter 19 x

Chapter 19

Dramatism

Based on the research of
Kenneth Burke

Karl Nelson

Karl Nelson really looked forward to this part of his morning routine. He settled down with his first cup of coffee and the morning paper. He allowed himself an hour to read all the news of the day and savor his caffeine fix. In many ways this was his favorite part of the day, and he got up extra early to make sure he would have enough time for it after his workout and before he left for the office. But, today he was not happy. He looked at the headlines with disgust. He was so sick of reading about politicians who had no common sense. Today he was reading about Alan Spector, the mayor of Grenada, New Mexico, where Karl lived. The article was about the fact that Spector had campaigned on a “clean” platform, claiming that he would make government respectable again, and now he was apologizing to his wife for having had an affair with their babysitter. Undoubtedly he would never have confessed, but the tabloids had just revealed that he’d had a child, who was now 10, with this woman!

Karl looked up from his paper just as his partner, Max, came into the breakfast room. Karl asked, “Max, have you read about Alan Spector? That man is such an incredible low-life hypocrite. How could he pretend to be Mr. Clean during his campaign, talking all about family values, when he’s cheating on his wife with their babysitter?”

Max just shrugged and laughed. He was used to seeing Karl getting worked up over current events. It didn’t seem all that important to him, but Karl certainly cared about this stuff. Max grabbed a cup of coffee and left to go to work. Karl went back to reading the paper.

The article described how Spector admitted the affair and had apologized profusely to his family and to his constituents. The babysitter hadn’t made a public statement. Karl thought the story in the paper made Spector look pretty bad, and he wondered if he should be impeached. He hoped Spector wouldn’t be able to escape punishment because he really felt let down and deceived.

Karl noticed that it was getting late, so he put the rest of the newspaper in his briefcase and left for work. When he got to the office, a couple of people were talking about Alan Spector. His colleague Diane agreed with him, saying that Spector was a hypocrite. But another colleague, Randy, disagreed, saying that we are always forgiving people for mistakes, and that the United States was a country of second chances. Randy said that this was really between Spector and his wife anyway.

As Karl drove home from work that night, he listened to the local news on the radio. A commentator said that people in the United States loved to build up public figures, but then they loved even more to see them fall. The commentator agreed with Karl’s coworker, Randy. She said that we are a nation that loves a comeback, and maybe Spector would be back in political life someday. Karl disagreed. He thought Spector deserved disapproval because he’d done the wrong thing and because he’d been so judgmental about other people who made mistakes in the past. This Spector case was disgusting, Karl thought, and he hoped the guy never got into public office again.

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Some rhetoricians might analyze Alan Spector’s problems and Karl’s responses to them using Dramatism, a theoretical position seeking to understand the actions of human life as drama. Kenneth Burke is known as the originator of Dramatism, although he did not initially use that term himself. Burke, who died in 1993 at the age of 96, was a fascinating person, and he was unlike many of the other theorists covered in this book. Burke never earned an undergraduate degree, much less a Ph.D. He was self-taught in the areas of literary criticism, philosophy, communication, sociology, economics, theology, and linguistics. He taught for almost 20 years at several universities, including Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Chicago. His breadth of interests and perhaps his lack of formal training in any one discipline made him one of the most interdisciplinary theorists we will study. His ideas have been applied widely in various areas including literature, theater, communication, history, and sociology. No doubt one reason Burke is so widely read and applied has to do with his focus on symbol systems. As Kathleen German (2009) observes, “[D]ramatism seeks to understand the human world as a symbolic world of drama in which language is a strategic, motivated response to specific situations” (p. 320). This makes Dramatism a compatible theory for most researchers working in the humanities, and especially for rhetoricians who focus on the symbolic use of language. Dramatism provides researchers with the flexibility to scrutinize an object of study from a variety of angles.

Dramatism, as its name implies, conceptualizes life as a drama, placing a critical focus on the acts performed by various players. Just as in a play, the acts in life are central to revealing human motives. Dramatism provides us with a method that is well suited to address the act of communication between a text (e.g., the newspaper story about Alan Spector), and the audience for that text (e.g. Karl), as well as the inner action of the text (e.g., Spector’s motives and choices). When Karl reads about Spector’s case, it is as if he sees him as an actor. In Burke’s terms, Karl understands Spector as an actor in a scene, trying to accomplish purposes because of certain motives. Thus, he comments on his motives as he evaluates his act of cheating on his wife with their babysitter. Burke’s theory of Dramatism allows us to analyze both Spector’s rhetorical choices in this situation (how he framed his case) and Karl’s responses to his choices.

Drama is a useful metaphor for Burke’s ideas for three reasons: (1) Drama indicates a grand sweep, and Burke does not make limited claims; his goal is to theorize about the whole range of human experience. The dramatic metaphor is particularly useful in describing human relationships because it is grounded in interaction or dialogue. In its dialogue, drama both models relationships and illuminates relationships (Daas, 2011). (2) Drama tends to follow recognizable types or genres: comedy, musical, melodrama, and so forth. Burke feels that the very way we structure and use language may be related to the way these human dramas are played out. Drama is always addressed to an audience. In this sense, drama is rhetorical. Burke views literature as “equipment for living,” which means that literature or texts speak to people’s lived experiences and problems and provide people with responses for dealing with

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Theory at a Glance
•

Dramatism

Burke’s theory compares life to a play and states that, as in a theatrical piece, life requires an actor, a scene, an action, some means for the action to take place, and a purpose. The theory allows a rhetorical critic to analyze a speaker’s motives by identifying and examining these elements. Furthermore, Burke believes, guilt is the ultimate motive for speakers, and Dramatism suggests that rhetors are most successful when they provide their audiences with a means for purging their guilt.

these experiences (Winslow, 2010). In this way, Dramatism studies the ways in which language and its usage relate to audiences (French & Brown, 2011).

Assumptions of Dramatism

Assumptions provide a sense of a theorist’s beliefs. As we discussed in

Chapter 3
, some ontological issues concern how much choice and free will humans possess. The assumptions we make about human nature are articles of faith about basic reality. Kenneth Burke’s thinking is so complex that it is difficult to reduce it to one set of assumptions or to a specific ontology. Some of the assumptions that follow illustrate the difficulty of labeling Burke’s ontology. Researchers such as Brummett (1993) have called Burke’s assumptions a symbolic ontology because of his emphasis on language. Yet, as Brummett cautions, “The best one can do, in searching for the heart of Burke’s thought, is to find a partial ontology, a grounding-for-the-most-part. For Burke, people
mainly do what they do, and the world is
largely the way it is, because of the nature of
symbol systems themselves” (p. xii; emphasis in original). Brummett’s comment prefigures the following three assumptions of Burke’s Dramatism Theory:

• Humans are animals who use symbols.

• Language and symbols form a critically important system for humans.

• Humans are choice makers.

The first assumption speaks to Burke’s realization that some of what we do is motivated by our animal nature and some of what we do is motivated by symbols. Recall the semiotic tradition we discussed in

Chapter 2
to understand this notion. For example, when Karl drinks his morning coffee, he is satisfying his thirst, an animal need. When he reads the morning paper and thinks about the ideas he encounters there, he is being influenced by symbols. The idea that humans are animals who use symbols represents a tension in Burke’s thought. As Brummett (1993) observes, this assumption “teeters between the realizations that some of what we do is motivated by animality and some of it by symbolicity” (p. xii). Of all the symbols that humans use, language is the most important for Burke.

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In the second assumption (the critical importance of language), Burke’s position is somewhat similar to the concept of linguistic relativity known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Sapir, 1921; Whorf, 1956). Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf noted that it is difficult to think about concepts or objects without words for them. Thus, people are restricted (to an extent) in what they can conceive by the limits of their language. For Burke, as well as for Sapir and Whorf, when people use their language, they are used by it as well. When Karl tells Max that Spector is a hypocrite, he is choosing the symbols he wishes to use, but at the same time his opinions and thoughts are shaped by hearing himself use these symbols. Furthermore, when a culture’s language does not have symbols for a given motive, then speakers of that language are unlikely to have that motive. Thus, because English does not have many symbols that express much nuance of opinion about Spector’s behavior and motivations, our discussions are often polarized. When Karl talks with his colleagues Diane and Randy, the discussion is focused on whether Spector was right or wrong. There is not much choice in between, and Burke would argue that this is a direct result of our symbol system. Think back to other controversies you have talked about (e.g., the moral implications of cloning, stem cell research, contrasts between presidential candidates, invading Iraq, etc.). You may remember the discussions as either/or propositions—positions were cast as either right or wrong. Burke’s response is that symbols shape our either/or approach to these complex issues.

Burke asserts that words, thoughts, and actions have extremely close connections with one another. Burke’s expression for this is that words act as “terministic screens” leading to “trained incapacities,” meaning that people cannot see beyond what their words lead them to believe (Burke, 1965). For example, despite educational efforts, U.S. public health officials still have difficulty persuading people to think of the misuse of alcohol and tranquilizers when they hear the words
drug abuse. Most people in the United States respond to “drug abuse” as the misuse of illegal drugs, such as heroin and cocaine (Brummett, 1993). The words
drug abuse are “terministic screens,” screening out some meanings and including others. For Burke, language has a life of its own, and “anything we can see or feel is already
in language, given to us
by language, and even produced
as us by language” (Nelson, 1989, p. 169; emphasis in original). This explanation is somewhat at odds with the final assumption of Dramatism.

The second assumption suggests that language exerts a determining influence over people, but the final assumption states that human beings are choice makers. Burke persistently suggests that behaviorism has to be rejected because it conflicts with human choice. Thus, as Karl reads about Alan Spector, he forms his opinions about his behavior through his own free will. Much of what we discuss in the rest of the chapter rests on the conceptualization of agency, or the ability of a social actor to act out of choice.

As Charles Conrad and Elizabeth Macom (1995) observe, “The essence of agency is choice” (p. 11). Yet, as Conrad and Macom go on to discuss, Burke grappled with the concept of agency throughout his career, largely because of the difficult task of negotiating a space between complete free will

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and complete determinism. Despite this, Burke kept agency in the forefront of his theorizing. More recently (French & Brown, 2011) researchers continue to struggle with how agency affects people’s symbolic actions and allocations of blame.

To understand Burke’s scope in this theory, we need to discuss how he framed his thinking relative to Aristotelian rhetoric.

Dramatism as New Rhetoric

In his book A
Rhetoric of Motives (1950), Burke is concerned with persuasion, and he provides an ample discussion of the traditional principles of rhetoric articulated by Aristotle (see

Chapter 18
). Burke maintains that the definition of rhetoric is, in essence, persuasion, and his writings explore the ways in which persuasion takes place. In so doing, Burke proposes a new rhetoric (Nichols, 1952) that focuses on several key issues, chief among them being the notion of identification. In 1952, Marie Nichols said the following about the difference between Burke’s approach and Aristotle’s: “The difference between the ‘old’ rhetoric and the ‘new’ rhetoric may be summed up in this manner: whereas the key term for the ‘old’ rhetoric was persuasion and its stress was upon deliberate design, the key term for the ‘new’ rhetoric is identification and this may include partially ‘unconscious’ factors in its appeal” (p. 323; emphasis in original). Yet, Burke’s purpose was not to displace Aristotle’s conceptualizations, but rather to supplement the traditional approach.

Identification and Substance

Burke asserts that all things have

substance

, which he defines as the general nature of something. Substance can be described in a person by listing demographic characteristics as well as background information and facts about the present situation, such as talents and occupation. Thus, from our opening scenario, we may understand Karl’s substance by noting he is a 38-year-old Polish American male, high school math teacher, collector of rare coins, tennis player, and crossword puzzle enthusiast. In addition, Karl has been in a relationship with Max for seven years and lives in Grenada, New Mexico. Of course, many other pieces of information make up Karl’s substance as well, but these facts give us a starting point.

substance the general nature of something

Burke argues that when there is overlap between two people in terms of their substance, they have

identification

. The more overlap that exists, the greater the identification. The opposite is also true, so the less overlap between individuals, the greater the

division

that exists between them. For instance, the fact that Alan Spector is a wealthy, Jewish, married man who is the mayor of Grenada, New Mexico, and appears in the media frequently provides little in terms of identification between him and Karl. They are both white, male professionals who live in the United States, but they overlap on little else.

identification when two people have overlap in their substances

division when two people fail to have overlap in their substances

However, it is also the case that two people can never completely overlap with each other. Burke recognizes this and notes that the “ambiguities of substance”

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Student Voices

Marlene

I think Burke was on to something with the identification idea. It seemed pretty obvious in the 2012 Presidential election that most working-class people identified with Barack Obama. But, it is odd that some poorer and working-class people identified with Romney because he’s the opposite of working-class himself. He must have done something in his speeches to make it seem like he was “consubstantial” with low-income folks. I’m thinking that would be a good study to use Burke’s theory.

dictate that identification always rests on both unity and division. As Shane Borrowman and Marcia Kmetz (2011) note, identification and division are inevitably paired, and it is difficult to talk about one without the other. Burke observed that individuals will unite on certain matters of substance, but at the same time remain unique, being “both joined and separated” (Burke, 1950, pp. 20–21). Furthermore, Burke indicates that rhetoric is needed to bridge divisions and establish unity. Rukhsana Ahmed (2009) demonstrated in a rhetorical analysis of a political speech made by Begum Zia in Bangladesh, that the Burkean concept of identification has applications in non-Western discourse. In Ahmed’s analysis Zia was able to make rhetorical appeals convincing her audience that the divisions between them could be bridged. Theodore Sheckels (2009) used Burke’s concept of identification to make a similar argument about Thabo Mbeki’s 1996 speech in South Africa. Burke refers to this process as

consubstantiation

, or increasing their identification with each other.

consubstantiation when appeals are made to increase overlap between people

The Process of Guilt and Redemption

Consubstantiality, or issues of identification and substance, are related to the guilt/redemption cycle because guilt can be assuaged as a result of identification and divisions. For Burke, the process of guilt and redemption undergirds the entire concept of symbolizing.

Guilt

is the central motive for all symbolic activities, and Burke defines guilt broadly to include any type of tension, embarrassment, shame, disgust, or other unpleasant feeling. Central to Burke’s theory is the notion that guilt is intrinsic to the human condition. Because we are continuously feeling guilt, we are also continuously engaging in attempts to purge ourselves of guilt’s discomfort. This process of feeling guilt and attempting to reduce it finds its expression in Burke’s cycle, which follows a predictable pattern: order (or hierarchy), the negative, victimage (scapegoat or mortification), and redemption.

guilt tension, embarrassment, shame, disgust, or other unpleasant feeling

Order or Hierarchy
Burke suggests that society exists in the form of an

order

, or

hierarchy

, which is created through our ability to use language. Language enables us to create categories like richer and more powerful—the haves and the

order or hierarchy a ranking that exists in society primarily because of our ability to use language

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have-nots. These categories form social hierarchies. Often we feel guilt as a result of our place in the hierarchy. If we are privileged, we may feel we have power at the expense of those with less wealth and power. This feeling prompts guilt.

The Negative

The negative

comes into play when people see their place in the social order and seek to reject it. Saying no to the existing order is both a function of our language abilities and evidence of humans as choice makers. When Burke penned his often-quoted definition of Man, he emphasized the negative:

the negative rejecting one’s place in the social order; exhibiting resistance

Man is
the symbol-using inventor of the negative
separated from his natural condition by instruments
of his own making goaded by the spirit of hierarchy
and rotten with perfection. (1966, p. 16)

When Burke coined the phrase “rotten with perfection,” he meant that because our symbols allow us to imagine perfection, we always feel guilty about the difference between the real state of affairs and the perfection that we can imagine. Further, “rotten with perfection” also means that our ability with symbols allows us to get stuck in symbolic “ruts” and fail to see the fact that we are merely constructing our perspectives. This leads us to believe in the “rightness” of our perspectives so strongly that we become closed minded, which is detrimental to ourselves and others (Steiner, 2009).

Victimage

is the way in which we attempt to purge the guilt that we feel as part of the human condition. There are two basic types of victimage, or two methods to purge our guilt. Burke calls the type of victimage that we turn in on ourselves

mortification

. When we apologize for wrongdoing and blame ourselves, we engage in mortification. When Alan Spector said he did the wrong thing and apologized, he was engaging in mortification. In 1998, Republican leaders said they would have felt more sympathetic about President Clinton’s sex scandal if he had admitted he was wrong and had not perjured himself. Clinton refused to engage in mortification. Instead he turned to another purging technique called
scapegoating.

victimage the way we attempt to purge the guilt we feel as part of being human

mortification one method of purging guilt, by blaming ourselves

scapegoating

, blame is placed on some sacrificial vessel. By sacrificing the scapegoat, the actor is purged of sin. Clinton attempted to scapegoat the Republicans as deserving the real blame for the country’s problems after confessing to an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky. When the news of the sex scandal first broke in 1998, before Clinton admitted his relationship with Lewinsky, Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared on television suggesting that the rumors about her husband were the result of a complex “right-wing conspiracy” that was out to get her and her husband. This type of rhetoric illustrates Burke’s concept of scapegoating.

scapegoating one method of purging guilt, by blaming others

Redemption
The final step in the process is

redemption

, which involves a rejection of the unclean and a return to a new order after guilt has been temporarily purged. Inherent in the term
redemption is the notion of a redeemer. The redeemer in the Judeo-Christian tradition is the Savior (Christ) or God. When

redemption a rejection of the unclean and a return to a new order after guilt has been temporarily purged

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politicians blame problems on the media or on the opposing party, they offer themselves as potential redeemers—those who can lead the people out of their troubles. A key in the redemption phase is the fact that guilt is only temporarily relieved, through the redeemer or any other method. As any order or hierarchy becomes reestablished, guilt returns to plague the human condition.

The Pentad

In addition to devising the theory of Dramatism, Burke (1945) created a method for applying his theory toward an understanding of symbolic activities. He called his method the

pentad

because it consists of five points for analyzing a symbolic text like a speech or a series of articles about a particular topic, for instance. The pentad may help determine why a speaker selects a particular rhetorical strategy for identifying with an audience. The five points that make up the pentad include the act, the scene, the agent, agency, and purpose. Almost 20 years after creating this research tool, Burke (1968) added a sixth point, attitude, to the pentad, making it a hexad, although most people still refer to it as the pentad (

Figure 19.1
). We will examine each of the points in turn.

pentad Burke’s method for applying Dramatism

The Act
Burke considered the

act

to be what is done by a person. In the case of Alan Spector, the act would be getting caught having an affair that resulted in a child while he was married.

act one prong of the pentad; that which is done by a person

The Scene
The

scene

provides the context surrounding the act. In Spector’s case, the scene would include a time period in which American politicians are under fire for corruption and hypocrisy. We don’t have much information about the way Alan Spector would contextualize the scene because he has provided very limited information publicly about any contributing factors to the act.

scene one prong of the pentad; the context surrounding the act

The Agent
The

agent

is the person or persons performing the act. In the case of Alan Spector, he is the agent. However, if a researcher wished to analyze Karl’s act of deciding he did not support Spector, then Karl would be the agent.

agent one prong of the pentad; the person performing the act

Figure 19.1 Burke’s Pentad

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Agency

refers to the means used by the agent to accomplish the act. Possible forms of agency include message strategies, storytelling, apologies, speech making, and so forth. In Spector’s case, the agency included the justifications and apologies he made publicly.

agency one prong of the pentad; the means used to perform the act

Purpose
The

purpose

refers to the goal that the agent had in mind for the act—that is, why the act was done. In Spector’s case, the purpose was unclear. He provided no reasons. Karl believed he did it because he was weak.

purpose one prong of the pentad; the goal the agent had for the act

Attitude

refers to the manner in which an actor positions himself or herself relative to others. Again, in Spector’s case, this is a contested point. Karl might say that he acted from an attitude of superiority. Many of the articles he read commented that Spector believed himself to be above the law.

attitude a later addition to the pentad; the manner in which the agent positions himself or herself relative to others

When using the pentad to analyze a symbolic interaction, the analyst first determines all the elements of the pentad and identifies what occurred in a particular act. After labeling the points of the pentad and fully explicating each, the analyst then examines the

dramatistic ratios

, or the proportions of one element relative to another. By isolating any two parts of the pentad and examining their relationship to each other, we determine a ratio. An agent–act ratio, for instance, is at issue when we attempt to understand how a good person might do a bad thing. In analyzing the ratios in this manner, the researcher is able to discover a dominant element. Is the agent emphasized more than the situation or vice versa? An examination of the dramatistic ratio suggests something about point of view and rhetorical strategies (e.g., Fine, 2009; Meisenbach, Remke, Buzzanell, & Liu, 2008; Tell, 2010). Steven Hunt (2003) calls dramatistic ratios the “interaction effects of two or more elements” (p. 379) and argues that observing these interactions is one criterion by which to judge the worth of a piece of rhetorical criticism.

dramatistic ratios the proportions of one element of the pentad relative to another element

Theory in Popular Press
•

Burke’s Ideas in Political Persuasion

Writing about the 2012 Massachusetts Senate race between Scott Brown (R, incumbent) and Elizabeth Warren (D), the challenger, David Cantanese explains the importance of identification and division to the campaign rhetoric. He notes that Warren was able to stage a big comeback in the polls because of her ability to convince women voters that Brown was not consubstantial with them while she was. Cantanese states that Warren was persuasive to Massachusetts’ independent women voters by shifting the focus from Brown’s message of working together across differences to her message of identifying with women’s issues.

Source: Catanese, D. (2012, November 3). How Elizabeth Warren staged her comeback. Politico.com, politico.com/news/stories/1112/83253.html.

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Integration, Critique, and Closing

There is no question that Kenneth Burke has made an immeasurable contribution to the field of communication with his theory of Dramatism. Various researchers have praised Burke in the following terms: “He has become the most profound student of rhetoric now writing in America” (Nichols, 1952, p. 331); “Kenneth Burke is more than a single intellectual worker; he is the ore for a scholarly industry” (Brummett, 1993, p. xi); “Few critics have revealed the scope, imagination, insights, and dazzling concern for symbol using which Kenneth Burke possesses” (Chesebro, 1993, p. xii); and in 1981, the
New York Times recognized Burke as a leading American critic, saying he was “the strongest living representative of the American critical tradition, and perhaps the largest single source of that tradition since its founder, Ralph Waldo Emerson” (cited in Chesebro, 1993, p. xi). Burke’s work is widely praised and frequently cited. In fact, the National Communication Association, one of the main organizations for communication teachers, researchers, and professionals, has an entire division devoted to Burkean criticism. Several of the regional associations also have interest groups that focus on Burkean analysis. No other single theorist is similarly represented in our associations.

As we analyze Dramatism, four criteria become relevant: scope, parsimony, utility, and heurism.

Integration

Communication Tradition

Communication Context

Approach to Knowing

Positivistic/Empirical |
Interpretive/Hermeneutic | Critical

Critique

Evaluation
Criteria

Scope

Dramatism has been criticized for being too wide in scope. Burke’s goal is no less than to explain the whole of human experience with symbolic interaction. This is an extremely broad and ambitious goal, and some critics believe it renders the theory too broad to be meaningful. When you contrast Dramatism with a theory like Uncertainty Reduction Theory, which we discussed in

Chapter 8
, you can see the two extremes of theoretical scope. URT seeks to explain the first few minutes of an initial encounter between strangers. Dramatism encompasses all

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human symbolic interaction. Some critics might suggest that when a theory attempts such a lofty goal it is doomed to be overly complex and obtuse. Whether or not you see the range of Dramatism’s goal as a weakness is somewhat subjective. Interestingly, for Burke and many who followed him, the wide scope of Dramatism is part of its appeal.

Parsimony

Some critics complain that Burke’s theory is too unclear and obtuse to be useful. Dramatism is seen by some as overly complex and confusing (Foss, Foss, & Trapp, 1991). Even proponents of Burke acknowledge that he is difficult to read. Marie Hochmuth Nichols concluded her 1952 essay on Burke’s Dramatistic Theory of Rhetoric by saying,

Burke is difficult and often confusing. He cannot be understood by casual reading of his various volumes. In part the difficulty arises from the numerous vocabularies he employs. His words in isolation are usually simple enough, but he often uses them in new contexts. To read one of his volumes independently, without regard to the chronology of publication, makes the problem of comprehension even more difficult because of the specialized meaning attached to various words and phrases. (p. 330)

However, Nichols also provides a rebuttal to some of these criticisms by concluding that some of the difficulty arises from “the compactness of his writing, the uniqueness of his organizational patterns, the penetration of his thought, and the breadth of his endeavor” (p. 330). In other words, Burke is a genius and worth the effort it requires to understand his original thinking. When a student is diligent, Burke’s theory repays the hard work with many rewards.

Utility

Some researchers (Condit, 1992; Murray, 2003) observe that Dramatism falls short on the criterion of utility. This critique is lodged mainly because of what Burke leaves out of the theory. For example, Celeste Condit (1992) argues that the theory would be more useful if it addressed gender and culture more expansively. Condit observes that although Burke was supportive of feminism, his support came mainly in the form of including women under the sign of “man.” She notes that given the historical context in which Burke wrote, his support for women was not inconsequential. Many writers in Burke’s generation completely ignored women, so Burke was making a contribution by including women at all. Condit maintains, however, that now the scene has altered, and it is inappropriate to subsume women under the word man. Here Condit is talking both about the use of the generic man to represent all people and about our ability as a society to begin to think in new ways about sex and gender.

As Condit notes, “We must extend our language beyond duality to a broad ‘humanity’ and to ‘human beings,’ discovering ways to speak that emphasize human plurality” (p. 351). Condit says the definition of man that Burke provides, which we discussed earlier in the chapter, is not adequate to include

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women. She recasts the definition from the perspective of a radical feminist who would see the following as descriptive of man’s woman:

Woman is
the symbol-receiving (hearing, passive) animal
inventor of nothing (moralized by priests and saints)
submerged in her natural conditions by instruments of man’s making
goaded at the bottom of hierarchy (moved to a sense of orderliness)
and rotted by perfection. (p. 351)

Then she recasts the definition to move beyond an essentialism defining men and women as opposite to each other and essentially the same as others of the same sex:

People are
players with symbols
inventors of the negative and the possibility of morality
grown from their natural condition by tools of their collective making
trapped between hierarchy and equality (moved constantly to reorder)
neither rotten nor perfect, but now and again lunging down both paths.
(p. 352)

Condit’s argument is that Burke’s approach needs to be broadened both to include women and to move past a focus on one sex or the other to be truly inclusive of both. But, she asserts that merely broadening the language of “man/his” to include “people/their” will not in itself be sufficient to challenge the hold that language exerts as a terministic screen against women in the United States. We need to change both our language and our thinking about women, men, gender, and inclusivity for significant progress to occur.

Condit also suggests that Burke emphasizes universality among cultures at the expense of particularity. For Condit, this is especially the case in the matter of Burke’s contention that victimage is a transcultural experience—a method for purging guilt in all cultures. She argues that cultures other than Western Christian ones (from which Burke draws almost exclusively) might not see victimage as the dominant motive for human conduct. For example, Buddhism might provide different motives than Christianity does. Furthermore, if we examine trickster tales from Native American or African American cultures, we might see victimage characterized in a strikingly different fashion from what Burke describes. The trickster is in a low power position relative to the rest of the society, but is able to triumph through wits and cleverness. The trickster is not a victim in the Christian sense that we see in Dramatism; rather, the trickster emerges victorious by turning the rules of the system against those in power.

In sum, Condit’s critique does not deny the enormous contribution made by Burke’s theory. Instead, she simply suggests some extensions and modifications for improving the theory. Jeffery Murray (2003) agrees with Condit, asserting that although Burke’s theory continues to be widely used, it is necessary to expand it to include the voices of those who have been marginalized. Murray uses what he calls an “Other-Burkean” frame to analyze Nazi propaganda and a speech Ted Kennedy made after the 1969 death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a passenger in his car who died when he drove off a bridge in Massachusetts. In both

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cases, Murray argues that paying attention to what was omitted in the rhetoric and to “Others” whose concerns are not highlighted by the pentad (such as the Jews in relationship to the Nazis, and Mary Jo Kopechne) provides a rich analysis.

Heurism

With regard to heurism, most critics agree that Dramatism is very successful. For instance, Dramatism was originally used in rhetorical analyses of speeches, but now the focus has widened to other discourse in the public sphere such as “editorials, pamphlets and monographs, books, docudramas, radio and television news, movies, music, and even the Internet” (Hunt, 2003, p. 378). For instance, Jordi Castelen, Andrè Mottart, and Kris Rutten (2009) analyze Facebook using the pentad. And Kyle Jensen (2011) applies some of Burke’s concepts to the practice of phishing, tying it to a rhetoric of national insecurity.

Furthermore, Catherine Fox (2002) finds Dramatism to be a useful frame for application to professional communication, specifically, technical writing in a transportation organization. And Peter Smudde (2004) advocates applying Dramatism to the practice of public relations. Gregory Clark (2004) uses the theoretical framework of Dramatism and the pentad, specifically, Burke’s concept of scene, to explore how tourism in the United States creates a sense of national identity. Clark argues that Dramatism shows us how sharing particular places in the landscape through tourism accomplishes the identification of a common culture. Furthermore, he notes that these sites have already accomplished the work of differentiation by showing tourists how they are uniquely American and unlike any other culture. Meisenbach, Remke, Buzzanell, & Liu (2008) illustrate that the pentad can be applied to interview data in their study of women’s talk about taking maternity leave.

Student Voices

Amber

I can see applying Dramatism for real. When I look at President Bush’s speeches about invading Iraq, I see how he’s the agent and the U.S. public is the audience. The act would be invading Iraq itself—although there are a lot of subacts involved, like going after (and capturing) Saddam Hussein. I am pretty sure Bush had a lot of purposes going on there too. For one thing, there are the purposes he stated in his speeches. First he said that Iraq harbored terrorists and so had something to do with 9/11, and that they were hiding weapons of mass destruction. Now he’s changed the purpose to how bad Hussein was and how cruel he was to the people of Iraq. Then there are all the reasons that other people say are going on. Like, maybe he wanted to do it for oil or to get revenge for his father’s problems with Saddam. This whole situation is pretty confusing, but I think using Dramatism to sort it out might really help clarify it. I guess we’ll never really know why public figures like the president do what they do, but a rhetorician can really go to town trying to figure it out.

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Thus, there is general consensus that Burke’s theory provides us with imaginative and innovative insights into human motives and interaction. Dramatism provides us with a theory that models the big picture. It allows an analysis of human motivations and behavior, and its focus on language as the critical symbol system makes it especially attractive to communication researchers.

Discussion Starters

TECH QUEST: Ronald Placone and Michael Tumolo (2011) say that Burke reminded us that when the world is in need of change, we need to think about how to best communicate with one another. How do you think the Internet and social media will impact our ability to do this? Will the Internet’s capacity to connect people across space and time create more ways to see our similarities with one another or will individuated chat rooms on specific topics actually create more divisions? And, in the final analysis, how does all this impact our ability to persuade one another?

1. How could Karl talk about Alan Spector’s situation in a less polarized fashion? What are the linguistic barriers to such a discussion? Does a feminist critique of Burke’s theory enable you to think of less polarized language? Explain your answer.

2. Use the pentad to analyze a public figure and the discourse surrounding some current controversy involving this figure.

3. How do you understand the use of the pentad as a method relative to Dramatism as a theory? Do all theories have specific methods that are used only with them? Why or why not?

4. Do you agree with Burke that guilt is the primary human motive? If not, what do you think is the primary human motive?

5. Burke believes that symbols, and language, in particular, are critical in life. When he says that symbolic action is more than mere physical or material reality, what do you think he means?

6. Do you agree with Condit that Burke’s theory is culture specific rather than universal? Explain your answer.

7. Apply any element of Dramatism to your life.

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Visit the Online Learning Center at

www.mhhe.com/west5e
for chapter-specific resources, such as story-into-theory and multiple-choice quizzes, as well as theory summaries and theory-connection questions.

Chapter 20 x

Chapter 20

The Narrative Paradigm

Based on the research of
Walter Fisher

Miles Campbell

Miles Campbell rolled over in bed and turned off his screaming alarm. He burrowed under the covers for a minute before he realized he’d better get up or he would miss his chem lab. He was tempted to sleep in, but a vision of his mother’s face flashed before him, and he thought about how hard she had worked to help him get to college. He didn’t want to disappoint her by not doing his very best now that he was here. So Miles sighed and shrugged off the covers. He slipped out of bed and splashed cold water on his face. By the time he was dressed and headed for the kitchen, he felt better about his day and about life in general.

In the kitchen he heard his housemates, Robert and Carlos, arguing about something. Seems like a normal morning, Miles thought. Those two can never get along. “What has got you guys up and yelling so early in the morning?” Miles asked as he began making his breakfast. Both Robert and Carlos looked up and grinned at Miles. “You won’t think it’s a big deal, Miles,” Carlos said, “but we are discussing the candidates who are running for president of the Student Multicultural Association.” “Yeah, you’re right, Carlos,” Miles laughed. “That doesn’t seem like something worth arguing about to me!”

Robert handed Miles a copy of two campaign flyers. “Well, you might not think it’s all that big a deal, but look at the difference between these two and tell me that Laura Huyge doesn’t make more sense than Jorge Vega.” Miles glanced at the two flyers that Robert had given him. Huyge was an Asian American graduate student, and she had presented a list of 10 points that represented her platform. She stated her interest in promoting cultural sensitivity and appreciation for diversity within the student body. Her flyer also listed a few ways that she planned to accomplish her goals. Her first big initiative, if she were elected, would be to sponsor a workshop with outside speakers and several hands-on activities to get students of different ethnicities talking to one another about difference and respect.

Miles looked up at Robert and Carlos and said, “Well, Laura sounds reasonable enough.” Robert clapped Miles on the back, smiling broadly. Carlos interrupted, saying, “Hey, man, you haven’t even looked at what Jorge has to say. Keep reading, man.”

Miles put Laura’s flyer aside and took up Jorge’s. Jorge had chosen a completely different presentation style for his campaign flyer. Instead of laying out a specific platform point by point as Laura had, Jorge’s flyer told a series of short stories. In the first one, Jorge related an incident in class when an African American woman could not get the professor’s attention for anything she had to say. Every time she tried to contribute in class, the professor ignored her and asked a European American’s opinion. Because she was the only Black person in the class, this woman believed the professor was prejudiced, but she wasn’t sure what she could do about it. Another story in the flyer described a classroom situation in which the only two

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Latino students believed that they were called on to give the “Latin perspective” on every issue the professor raised. They were both really tired of being tokens. A third story talked about how certain bars on campus were considered “Black” and others were “Latino” and others were “White.” This story told of two African American students who went to a White bar and felt really isolated.

As Miles read these stories, he thought that Jorge had it down cold. His description of life at the university was totally accurate. He himself had been ignored in classes and wondered if it had been because of his race. He’d also experienced being asked for the “Black” opinion, and he really resented that. Also, his social life rarely included people outside his own race, except for Carlos and a couple of Carlos’s friends who were also Latinos. He never socialized with the Whites on campus. Jorge had given Miles a lot to think about, and he decided he would vote for Jorge.

Throughout this book we have begun each chapter with a story about a person or several people who experience something through which we can illustrate the chapter’s theory. The reason we have made this choice may be found within the theory of narration that Walter Fisher calls the Narrative Paradigm. The Narrative Paradigm promotes the belief that humans are storytellers and that values, emotions, and aesthetic considerations ground our beliefs and behaviors. In other words, we are more persuaded by a good story than by a good argument. Thus, Fisher would explain Miles’s decision to vote for Jorge on the basis of the stories Jorge presented in his campaign flyer. Fisher asserts that the essence of human nature is storytelling.

Fisher is not alone in this belief. Other researchers (e.g., Ramsey, Venette, & Rabalais, 2011) have examined what they call “narrative malleability” of constructs observing that people’s minds can be changed about something based on good stories told by a credible storyteller. Robert Rowland (1989) comments that the idea that people are essentially storytellers has been adopted by many different disciplines including history, biology, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, psychology, and theology. Communication studies has also been influenced by the interest in narration. John Lucaites and Celeste Condit (1985) assert “the growing belief that narrative represents a universal medium of human consciousness” (p. 90). Kirsten Theye (2008) agrees, arguing that “narratives are crucial in human communication as a way of explaining the world” (p. 163). In addition, some scholars (e.g., Burns, 2009) assert that stories do more than explain the world, they shape our world.

It is notable that Fisher calls his approach a paradigm rather than a theory. Fisher uses that term to signal the breadth of his vision because a paradigm is considered broader than a theory. Fisher states that “there is no genre, including technical communication, that is not an episode in the story of life” (1985, p. 347). Thus, Fisher has constructed an approach to theoretical thinking that is more encompassing than any one specific theory. Fisher states that his use of the term
paradigm refers to an effort to formalize and direct our understanding of the experience of all human communication (Koenig-Kellas, 2008).

Furthermore, the use of the term
paradigm indicates that Fisher’s thinking represents a major shift from the thinking that had supported most previous

356

theories of communication. Fisher believes he is capturing the fundamental nature of human beings with the insight that we are storytellers and that we experience our lives in narrative form. He contrasts his approach with what he calls the rational paradigm, which characterized previous Western thinking. In this way, Fisher presents what can be called a

paradigm shift

, or a significant change in the way people think about the world and its meanings.

paradigm shift a significant change in the way most people see the world and its meanings

Fisher (1987) explains the paradigm shift by recounting a brief history of paradigms that have guided Western thinking. He notes that originally
logos meant a combination of concepts including story, rationale, discourse, and thought. Fisher explains that this meaning held until the time of Plato and Aristotle, who distinguished between logos as reason and mythos as story and emotion. In this division, mythos, representing poetical discourse, was assigned a negative status relative to logos, or reason. The concept of rhetoric fell somewhere between the elevated logic of logos and the inferior status of poetics or mythos. Ranking mythos, logos, and rhetoric in this way reinforced the concept that not all discourse is equal. In fact, according to Aristotle (see

Chapter 18
), some discourse is superior to others by virtue of its relationship to true knowledge. Only logos, Aristotle asserted, leads to true knowledge because it provides a system of logic that can be proven valid. Logos was found in the discourse of philosophy. Other forms of discourse lead to knowledge, but the knowledge they produce is probabilistic, not true in an absolute, invariable sense.

This Aristotelian distinction did not prevent Aristotle himself from valuing all the different forms of communication equally, but it did provide a rationale for later theorists’ preference for logic and reason over mythos, or story, and rhetoric. Much subsequent scholarship has focused on a struggle over these forms of discourse. Beginning at the end of the Renaissance period in Europe, the scientific revolution changed people’s way of thinking about the world. It dethroned philosophy as the source of logic, placing logic instead within science and technology. But Fisher contends that this change was not a far-reaching one because both philosophy and science privilege a formal system of logic that continues to leave poetics or rhetoric in a devalued position. The mind-set, employed by many scholars, that regards logical thinking as primary is what Fisher calls the

rational world paradigm

rational world paradigm a system of logic employed by many researchers and professionals

Struggles among these different branches of knowledge continue today, but Fisher asserts that the Narrative Paradigm finds a way to transcend these struggles. Fisher argues that “acceptance of the narrative paradigm shifts the controversy from a focus on who ‘owns’ logos to a focus on what specific instances of discourse, regardless of form, provide the most trustworthy, reliable, and desirable guides to belief and to behavior, and under what conditions” (1987, p. 6). Thus, the Narrative Paradigm represents a different way of thinking about the world than that posited by the rational world paradigm. With narrative, Fisher suggests, we move away from an either/or dualism toward a more unified sense that embodies science, philosophy, story, myth, and logic. The Narrative Paradigm presents an alternative to the rational world paradigm without negating traditional rationality.

Fisher argues that the Narrative Paradigm accomplishes this shift through recognizing that “some discourse is more veracious, reliable, and trustworthy

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Theory at a Glance
•

The Narrative Paradigm

This approach is founded on the principle that humans are storytelling animals. Furthermore, narrative logic is preferred over the traditional logic used in argument. Narrative logic, or the logic of good reasons, suggests that people judge the credibility of speakers by whether their stories hang together (have coherence) and ring true (have fidelity). The Narrative Paradigm allows a democratic judgment of speakers because no one has to be specially trained in persuasion to be able to draw conclusions based on the concepts of coherence and fidelity.

in respect to knowledge, truth, and reality than some other discourse, but no
form or
genre has final claim to these virtues” (1987, p. 19; emphasis in original). In asserting this, Fisher lays the groundwork for reclaiming the importance of the narrative, or story, without denigrating logic and reason, and he establishes a new way of conceptualizing rhetoric. Furthermore, Fisher asserts that story, or mythos, is imbued in all human communication endeavors (even those involving logic) because all arguments include “ideas that cannot be verified or proved in any absolute way. Such ideas arise in metaphor, values, gestures, and so on” (1987, p. 19). Fisher thus attempts to bridge the divide between logos (rational argument) and mythos (story or narrative).

Assumptions of the Narrative Paradigm

Despite Fisher’s attempt to show the Narrative Paradigm as a fusion of logic and aesthetic, he does point out that narrative logic is different from traditional logic and reasoning. We will discuss how these two differ throughout the chapter because this is an important distinction for Fisher and one that he continually refined as his thinking about the Narrative Paradigm evolved. An important aspect of the assumptions of the Narrative Paradigm is that they contrast with those of the rational world paradigm, just as the two logics differ. Fisher (1987) stipulated five assumptions:

• Humans are naturally storytellers.

• Decisions about a story’s worth are based on “good reasons.”

• Good reasons are determined by history, biography, culture, and character.

• Rationality is based on people’s judgments of a story’s consistency and truthfulness.

• We experience the world as filled with stories, and we must choose among them.

We can see how these clearly contrast to the parallel assumptions Fisher highlights in the rational world paradigm. This contrast is revealed in

Table 20.1
.

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Table 20.1 Contrast Between Narrative and Rational World Paradigms

NARRATIVE PARADIGM

RATIONAL WORLD PARADIGM

1. Humans are storytellers.

1. Humans are rational beings.

2. Decision making and communication are based on “good reasons.”

2. Decision making is based on arguments.

3. Good reasons are determined by matters of history, biography, culture, and character.

3. Arguments adhere to specific criteria for soundness and logic.

4. Rationality is based in people’s awareness of how internally consistent and truthful to lived experience stories appear.

4. Rationality is based in the quality of knowledge and formal reasoning processes.

5. The world is experienced by people as a set of stories from which to choose among. As we choose, we live life in a process of continual re-creation.

5. The world can be reduced to a series of logical relationships that are uncovered through reasoning.

We will briefly discuss each of the assumptions of the Narrative Paradigm, comparing them with their opposites in the rational world paradigm.

First, the Narrative Paradigm assumes that the essential nature of humans is rooted in story and storytelling. As our opening example of Miles illustrates, stories persuade us, move us, and form the basis for our beliefs and actions. Miles had not heard much about the election for the president of the Multicultural Student Association on campus. In fact, Miles was rather apathetic about the election and had no real interest in, or opinions about, either candidate. Yet, after reading the compelling stories that Jorge included in his campaign literature, Miles decided to vote for Jorge. Miles found Laura’s campaign material interesting but not nearly as involving as Jorge’s. If the assumption of the rational world paradigm held true, we would expect the more rational argument to hold sway over Miles, and he should have decided to vote for Laura. The Narrative Paradigm explains his preference for Jorge.

Fisher also believes in this first assumption because he observes that narrative is universal—found in all cultures and time periods. Fisher asserts, “Any ethic, whether social, political, legal, or otherwise, involves narrative” (1984, p. 3). This universality of narrative prompts Fisher to suggest the term
Homo narrans as the overarching metaphor for defining humanity. Fisher was influenced in his approach by reading moral theory espoused by Alasdair MacIntyre (1981). MacIntyre observes that “man [sic] is in his actions and practice, as well as in his fictions, essentially a story-telling animal” (p. 201).

Fisher used MacIntyre’s ideas as the foundation for the Narrative Paradigm. James Elkins (2001) agrees with Fisher’s assumption about the centrality

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of stories for humans. Elkins observes that people “turn to stories to both survive and to imagine, as well as for a host of instrumental purposes, for pleasure, and because we must. Stories are part of our human inheritance” (p. 1). Other researchers (e.g., Bute & Jensen, 2011) concur noting stories provide humans the means to account for their own experiences and behaviors.

The second assumption of the Narrative Paradigm asserts that people make decisions about which stories to accept and which to reject on the basis of what makes sense to them, or good reasons. We will discuss what Fisher means by good reasons later in the chapter, but he does not mean strict logic or argument. This assumption recognizes that not all stories are equally effective; instead, the deciding factor in choosing among stories is personal rather than an abstract code of argument, or what we traditionally call reason. From Fisher’s point of view, in our chapter-opening vignette, Laura has told a story in her campaign flyer, too. Miles simply chooses to reject her story and accept Jorge’s because it is more personally involving to him. Recent events—ranging from politicians’ remarks about rape, to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, to the controversies over gay marriage, to the most recent presidential campaign—show us the reality of competing stories.

As people listen to these conflicting stories, they choose among them. Their choices do not stem from traditional logic but from narrative logic. When people shift from traditional logic to narrative logic, Fisher believes their lives will

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be improved because narrative logic is more democratic than formal logic. As Fisher (1984) asserts, “All persons have the capacity to be rational in the narrative paradigm” (p. 10). Whereas formal logic calls for an elite trained in the complexities of the logical system, the Narrative Paradigm calls on the practical wisdom that everyone possesses.

The theory’s third assumption deals with what specifically influences people’s choices and provides good reasons for them. The rational world paradigm assumes that argument is ruled by the dictates of soundness (Toulmin, 1958). For Stephen Toulmin, the anatomy of an argument is the movement from data to a conclusion. This movement needs to be judged by soundness, or an examination of the formal logic that guides the conclusion. In contrast, the Narrative Paradigm suggests that soundness is not the only way to evaluate good reasons. In fact, soundness may not even be an accurate way of describing how people make this judgment. The Narrative Paradigm assumes that narrative rationality is affected by history, biography, culture, and character. Thus, Fisher introduces the notion of context into the Narrative Paradigm. People are influenced by the context in which they are embedded. Therefore, the material that appears persuasive to Miles is the material that is specifically relevant to him personally. It is not material that adheres to a code of formal logic and persuasion.

The fourth assumption forms a core issue of the narrative approach. It asserts that people believe stories insofar as the stories seem internally consistent and truthful. We will discuss this further in the next section when we describe the concept of narrative rationality.

Finally, Fisher’s perspective is based on the assumption that the world is a set of stories, and as we choose among them, we experience life differently, allowing us to recreate our lives. Miles’s choice to support Jorge may cause him to cast his own life story differently. He may no longer see himself as a loner. He may change his sense of political action based on his choice of Jorge’s story. You can see how the Narrative Paradigm contrasts with the rational world paradigm, which tends to see the world as less transient and shifting and which discovers truth through rational analysis, not through narrative logic’s emotional responses to compelling stories.

A study illustrating these assumptions in a courtroom context examined the Narrative Paradigm’s utility for professional communication. Christine Kelly and Michele Zak (1999) assert that former football player O. J. Simpson’s acquittal was due to the triumph of narrative argument over rational argument. The defense was victorious because it framed Simpson’s story in a manner that resonated with the jury whereas the prosecution relied on the rational world paradigm, directed more toward the judge and the opposing lawyers. Kelly and Zak note that the prosecutors “drew on the language of technical expertise and took responsibility for presenting a careful case in a court of law without reference to the lives of the jury” (p. 301). Other research examines how narratives exert influence in health care settings (e.g., Gray, 2009; Wamucii, 2011), with reference to tabloid news (e.g., McCartha & Strauman, 2009), and political campaigns (e.g., Falk, 2009; Underation, 2009).

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Key Concepts in the Narrative Approach

Tracing the assumptions of the Narrative Paradigm leads us to a consideration of some of the key concepts that form the core of the theoretical framework: narration, narrative rationality (which includes coherence and fidelity). Coherence is made up of three types: structural, material, and characterological; and fidelity leads to the logic of good reasons.

Narration

is often thought of simply as a story, but for Fisher, narration is much more than a plotted story with a beginning, middle, and end. In Fisher’s perspective, narration includes any verbal or nonverbal account with a sequence of events to which listeners assign a meaning. Specifically, Fisher states, “When I use the term ‘narration,’ I do not mean a fictive composition whose propositions may be true or false and have no necessary relationship to the message of that composition. By ‘narration,’ I mean symbolic actions—words and/or deeds—that have sequence and meaning for those who live, create, or interpret them” (1987, p. 58). This definition implies the need for a storyteller and a listener.

narration an account to which listeners assign meaning

Fisher’s definition is extremely broad and parallels what many people think of as communication itself. This, of course, is Fisher’s point: All communication is narrative. He argues that narrative is not a specific genre (stories as opposed to poems, for example), but rather, it is a mode of social influence. Furthermore, it is his contention that all life is composed of narratives. When you listen to a class lecture, when you give an excuse to a professor for not turning in a paper on time, and when you read the newspaper, send a Tweet, talk to your friends, you are hearing and shaping narratives.

Narrative Rationality

Given that our lives are experienced in narratives, we need a method for judging which ones to believe and which to disregard. This standard can be found in

narrative rationality

, which provides us with a means for judging narratives that is quite different from the traditional methods found in the rational world paradigm. As we mentioned previously, traditional tests of rationality include whether claims correspond to actual facts, whether all relevant facts have been considered, whether arguments are internally consistent, and whether the reasoning used conforms to standards of formal and informal logic (Fisher, 1978). Narrative rationality, in contrast to traditional logic, operates on the basis of two different principles: coherence and fidelity.

narrative rationality a standard for judging which stories to believe and which to disregard

Coherence
The principle of coherence is an important standard for assessing narrative rationality, which will ultimately determine whether or not a person accepts a particular narrative or rejects it.

Coherence

refers to the internal consistency of a narrative. When judging a story’s coherence, the listener would ask whether the narrative seemed to hang together in a consistent manner. Narratives possess coherence when all the pieces of the story are present; we do

coherence a principle of narrative rationality related to the internal consistency of a story

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not feel that the storyteller has left out important details or contradicted elements of the story in any way. Coherence is the standard of sensemaking applied to a given narrative. This sensemaking is usually obtained when the characters in a story behave in relatively consistent ways.

When Miles read the narratives contained in Jorge’s campaign literature, he saw a consistent thread running through them: His university has racial problems. If Jorge had presented some problems based on race and then shaped the narrative to conclude that all was well with race relations at the university, Miles would have rejected the story for being inconsistent.

Coherence is often measured by the organizational and structural elements of a narrative. When a storyteller skips around and leaves out important information, interrupts the flow of the story to add elements forgotten earlier, and generally is not smooth in structuring the narrative, the listener may reject the narrative for not possessing coherence. Coherence is based on three specific types of consistency: structural coherence, material coherence, and characterological coherence.

STRUCTURAL COHERENCE The type of consistency Fisher calls

structural coherence

rests on the degree to which the elements of the story flow smoothly. When stories are confusing, when one part does not seem to lead to the next, or when the plot is unclear, then they lack structural coherence. If a friend tells you a story about breaking up with her boyfriend on email, but she fails to explain any of the events leading up to the breakup or why she chose to send an email, and then skips back to telling you how she and her boyfriend first met, you would think her story lacked structural coherence.

structural coherence a type of coherence referring to the flow of the story

MATERIAL COHERENCE

Material coherence

refers to the degree of congruence between one story and other stories that seem related to it. For example, you may have heard several stories about why two friends of yours have stopped speaking to each other. If all the stories but one attribute the problem to one friend having misled the other, causing an embarrassing situation, you are unlikely to believe the one unique story. You would believe that the different story lacked material coherence.

material coherence a type of coherence referring to the congruence between one story and other related stories

CHARACTEROLOGICAL COHERENCE

Characterological coherence

refers to the believability of the characters in the story. For instance, you may have a professor whom you dislike a great deal. This professor ridicules you and other students in the class whenever anyone contributes to class discussions. In addition, the professor makes racist, homophobic, and sexist jokes in class. Your impression is that this professor is a thoroughly objectionable person. Given this background, you would be unlikely to accept a story in which this professor was shown in an admirable or even heroic light. You would reject the story for not possessing characterological coherence.

characterological coherence a type of coherence referring to the believability of the characters in the story

Fidelity The other critical standard for assessing narrative rationality is

fidelity

, or the truthfulness or reliability of the story. Stories with fidelity ring true to a listener. When Miles reads the stories that Jorge has in his campaign

fidelity a principle of narrative rationality judging the credibility of a story

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Student Voices

Justin

I understand Fisher’s point about coherence and how hard it is to accept a story about someone you really dislike doing something great. But I’m wondering how the theory explains a story that makes you change your mind about someone. If I didn’t like a professor but then found out that he was doing some great things for the planet like starting some big recycling center or something, I might change my mind and start liking him a little bit more. I know in the past, learning more information about someone has made me like them more (if it was good information). When I first met my girlfriend, I didn’t like her right off the bat, but the more I learned about her, the better I liked her. I don’t see that idea explained in the theory.

literature, he thinks to himself that those events have happened to him at the university. Miles wonders if Jorge has been following him around campus, watching what goes on in his life. This makes the stories powerful to Miles. They possess a great deal of fidelity for him. Fisher (1987) notes that when the elements of a story “represent accurate assertions about social reality” (p. 105), they have fidelity.

THE LOGIC OF GOOD REASONS Related to Fisher’s notion of fidelity is the primary method that he proposes for assessing narrative fidelity: the logic of

good reasons

. Fisher asserts that when narratives possess fidelity, they constitute good reasons for a person to hold a particular belief or take an action. For example, Miles sees Jorge’s stories as possessing fidelity, which makes the stories persuasive; the stories form good reasons for Miles to vote for Jorge.

good reasons a set of values for accepting a story as true and worthy of acceptance; provides a method for assessing fidelity

Fisher (1987) explains his concept of logic by saying that it means “a systematic set of procedures that will aid in the analysis and assessment of elements of reasoning in rhetorical interactions” (p. 106). Thus, logic for the narrative paradigm enables a person to judge the worth of stories. The logic of good reasons presents a listener with a set of values that appeal to her or him and form warrants for accepting or rejecting the advice advanced by any form of narrative. This does not mean that any good reason is equal to any other; it simply means that whatever prompts a person to believe a narrative is bound to a value or a conception of what is good.

As Fisher describes it, this logic is a process consisting of two series of five questions that the listener asks about the narrative. The first five questions are the following:

1. Are the statements that claim to be factual in the narrative really factual?

2. Have any relevant facts been omitted from the narrative or distorted in its telling?

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3. What are the patterns of reasoning that exist in the narrative?

4. How relevant are the arguments in the story to any decision the listener may make?

5. How well does the narrative address the important and significant issues of this case?

These questions constitute a logic of reasons. To transform this into a logic of good reasons, there are five more questions that introduce the concept of values into the process of assessing practical knowledge. These questions are as follows:

1. What are the implicit and explicit values contained in the narrative?

2. Are the values appropriate to the decision that is relevant to the narrative?

3. What would be the effects of adhering to the values embedded in the narrative?

4. Are the values confirmed or validated in lived experience?

5. Are the values of the narrative the basis for ideal human conduct?

Fisher illustrates the logic of good reasons with a book written by Jonathan Schell (1982).
The Fate of the Earth, which was a very popular book in the 1980s, argues that the nuclear weapons race must cease. Fisher asserts that even though experts found the book inaccurate on technical grounds, the narrative it espoused was extremely popular with the general public. Fisher argues that this was because the book tells a story that meets the criteria of coherence and fidelity. It focuses on a set of values that many people found relevant at that point in history. As the Narrative Paradigm predicts, the well-told story—consisting of narrative rationality—was more compelling to readers than the expert testimony that refuted the factual accuracy of the narrative. The relationship among the elements making up narrative rationality is illustrated by

Figure 20.1
.

Figure 20.1 Elements of Narrative Rationality

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Theory in Popular Press
•

Political Debates and the Narrative Paradigm

After the vice presidential debate in 2012 between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, the
New York Times online opinion editors asked frequent contributors to their pages to comment on the performances of the debaters, as well as on the campaign in general. Gary Gutting, a professor at Notre Dame, noted that aside from how Biden performed as a debater, a striking difference existed in how Democrats responded to Biden’s debate in comparison to their response to Obama’s performance in the first presidential debate, which was considered poor and unenthusiastic by most observers. Gutting asserts that “debates are often won or lost in the first hour of post-game analysis. Democrats gave up on Obama immediately and let their opponents construct the narrative of a weak president run over by a forceful challenger. They could have, for example, put forward a counternarrative of a calm and reflective president, quietly demolishing the flagrant misrepresentations of an arrogant opponent” (n.p.). Gutting’s comments lend support to the Narrative Paradigm’s assertions of narrative logic holding sway over rational logic.

Source: Debating points, vice presidential edition, (2012, October 11).
New York Times online, campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/debating-points-vice-presidential-edition/?emc=eta1.

Integration, Critique, and Closing

Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm offers new insights into communication behavior and directs our attention to democratic processes in the area of rhetorical criticism. Fisher contributes the idea that people’s lived experiences make them capable of analyzing rhetoric. Furthermore, the Narrative Paradigm helps us to see the nature of multiple logics at work in our communication encounters. Thus, the Narrative Paradigm has made a substantial contribution to our understanding of human communication and human nature in general.

As you think about the Narrative Paradigm, consider the criteria of scope, logical consistency, utility, and heurism.

Integration

Communication Tradition

Communication Context

Approach to Knowing

Positivistic/Empirical |
Interpretive/Hermeneutic | Critical

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Critique

Evaluation
Criteria

Scope

The critique that the Narrative Paradigm is too broad mainly focuses on Fisher’s claim that all communication is narrative. Researchers object to that claim for two reasons: First, some have questioned the utility of a definition that includes everything. How meaningful is the definition of narrative if it means all communication behavior? Critics have directed us to consider the question: Is there value in treating a ritual greeting (“Hi, how was your day?”) and an involved narrative explaining one’s desire for a divorce in the same way? Second, some researchers, notably Robert Rowland (1987, 1989), suggest that some forms of communication are not narrative in the way that Fisher maintains. According to Rowland, science fiction and fantasy do not conform to most people’s values. Rather, these genres often challenge existing values. Rowland also questions the utility of considering a novel (such as Arthur Koestler’s
Darkness at Noon) and a political pamphlet (such as one produced by the Committee on the Present Danger) both as narratives as Fisher does. Although both tell stories about the repressive character of the Soviet system, they do so in such different ways that Rowland believes it does a disservice to both writings to place them in the same category. Furthermore, it complicates our understanding of the definition of narrative when two such disparate examples can both be labeled as narrative.

Logical Consistency

The Narrative Paradigm has been faulted for failing to be consistent with some of the claims that Fisher makes about it. For instance, Rowland (1987) finds that the narrative approach does not actually provide a more democratic structure compared with the hierarchical system espoused by the rational world paradigm, nor does it completely offer an alternative to that paradigm. Rowland says that Fisher overstates the problem of domination of the public by the elite, or by the expert, in the rational world paradigm. In addition, Rowland argues that “there is nothing inherent in storytelling that guarantees that the elites will not control a society” (p. 272).

Utility

The Narrative Paradigm has critics who find it less than useful due to what they consider its conservative bias. K. McClure (2009) argues that the Narrative Paradigm is an overly conservative theory because its focus on fidelity actually weds it to normative conceptions of rationality rather than freeing us from

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Student Voices

Colin

I understand exactly what Fisher meant with the terms
coherence and
fidelity. I have a friend named Marco who constantly tells crazy stories, and I spend a lot of time trying to figure out whether to believe him or not. And I do use coherence and fidelity to decide if he’s being truthful or just trying to get me to fall for a bunch of bull. When he told me about how he got trapped in his car the other day in a parking ramp—I guess the locks froze and he couldn’t open the doors—I first thought about the stories he’s told me before (which I believed) to see if this one fit with those. Then I considered him as a character and whether this was something likely to happen to him. I also tried to judge how well the story hung together—I asked him a bunch of questions to see if he’d contradict himself or anything. Finally, I decided to believe him. It was a pretty funny story.

them as Fisher proposes he will do. William Kirkwood (1992) observes that Fisher’s logic of good reasons focuses on prevailing values and fails to account for the ways in which stories can promote social change. In some ways, both Kirkwood and Fisher agree that this observation is more of an extension to the theory than a punishing critique. Fisher (1987) claims that humans are inventive and that we can accept new stories when they appeal to us. In this process we can change our values rather than demand that stories simply confirm our existing values. To a degree, Miles changed his values regarding the importance of voting and involvement in student life as a result of Jorge’s narratives.

Afsheen Nomai and George Dionisopoulos (2002) imply the same critique in their study of how the media advance the narrative of the American Dream. Nomai and Dionisopoulos analyze the story of Joe Cubas, an American sports agent who has brought more than 20 Cuban defectors to the United States to play baseball. They call this the “Cubas Narrative” and argue that the media coverage of Cubas and the ballplayers “illuminates a most benign and inviting myth of American capitalism . . . [while obscuring] the uncomfortable reality that the needs of the capitalist system bifurcate the Cuban refugees into two classes” (p. 109). The Narrative Paradigm may not easily allow access to marginalized or less popular stories in the culture.

Kirsten Theye (2008) argues that her analysis of Vice President Dick Cheney’s apologies, after shooting his friend in a hunting accident in 2006, shows that Fisher’s distinction between narrative coherence and narrative fidelity is not useful. She states that it’s impossible to separate the two. Her suggestion is to forget the two components as separate concepts and instead focus on the basic question underlying narrative rationality: “whether a story rings true to the audience based on their experiences” (p. 174).

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Heurism

Despite criticisms, which primarily urge refinements of the theory, not its abandonment, Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm has contributed a great deal to the study of human communication. For one thing, the idea of people as storytellers has proved captivating and heuristic. Storytelling seems an apt metaphor for understanding how humans use communication to make sense of the world (Barker, Rimler, Moreno, & Kaplan, 2004; Fiese, 2003; Langellier & Peterson, 2004; Roberts, 2004). Fisher has provided a new paradigm for understanding human nature, squarely located in the symbolic realm of communication. Further, some research (Dubbelman, 2011) suggests that the concept of storytelling has application in computer games, many of the most popular of which are story driven.

Future scholarship will extend the framework of the Narrative Paradigm to remediate its shortcomings and capitalize on its strengths. In constructing the Narrative Paradigm, Fisher has provided a rich framework for such scholarship to take place.

Discussion Starters

TECH QUEST: With Twitter and other forms of social media, many people are becoming involved quickly in stories for which they may not have firsthand knowledge. What do you think this might mean for the Narrative Paradigm? If many storytellers elaborate and change a story, does that make it more or less likely to have coherence and fidelity? Or do you think these two elements might be less important in an age of social media?

1. Can you think of any other explanations besides the Narrative Paradigm for Miles’s preference for Jorge’s candidacy after he read the campaign flyers?

2. Do you agree with Fisher that humans are storytellers? What does that mean to you in a practical sense?

3. When you listen to others’ stories, do you evaluate them based on coherence and fidelity? Can you think of any other criteria that you use to evaluate the stories that you hear?

4. What support does Fisher have for his contention that all communication is narration? Can you think of some communication that is not narrative in nature? If all communication is narration, do you think the theory is too broad in scope?

5. The Narrative Paradigm suggests that when an expert argument is compared to a good story, the expert argument will fail because it will lack the coherence and the fidelity that a narrative possesses. Do you agree or disagree with this claim? Give an example where expert testimony failed to persuade you. Give an example of a good story that failed to persuade you.

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6. Choose a story that has been in the news recently and analyze it for narrative rationality.

7. If Fisher discards the rational world paradigm, why does he advocate narrative rationality? How are they different?

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Chapter 21 x

Chapter 21

Agenda Setting Theory

Based on the research of Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw

Sally D’Amato

Sally was fixing dinner for her extended family and she had the TV playing in the background. She was only half listening, but she stopped peeling carrots when the news came on and she heard the story of Manti Te’O. Sally couldn’t remember having heard of him before, but she paused in her dinner preparations to listen. Te’O was a star football player at Notre Dame who came from Hawaii. The newscaster spoke of how Te’O had told people that his grandmother and girlfriend, both living in Hawaii, had died on the same day. His grandmother had been ill, and his girlfriend had been in a car accident and then contracted leukemia. This story was especially remarkable because on the day they died, Notre Dame had a game and Te’O went on to play well despite his sorrow. Now it was being revealed that the girlfriend had never existed, and all of Te’O’s interactions with her had taken place online. Either Te’O had been the victim of a cruel hoax or he, himself, had participated in fooling the public about this. Sally thought that was a very weird story. All during dinner, she talked to her family about how such a thing could happen. They debated back and forth as to whether Te’O had been a part of the hoax or if he’d been fooled along with others. Sally was pretty sure Te’O had to be in on it.

A few weeks later, Sally was at the nursing home where she worked as an aide. She was in the break room and the radio was on; she stopped to listen as she sipped her coffee. The commentator was talking about President Obama’s inaugural celebration the other day, and most of the discussion was on the question of whether Beyonce had lip-synched the national anthem. Just then, Sally’s friend and colleague, Nathan, came into the break room and Sally asked him what he thought about Beyonce’s performance at the inauguration. They spent their break discussing whether she should have sung the anthem live or if lip-synching was appropriate for the occasion.

The following night, Sally was at her computer at home working on a paper for her class in Contemporary Problems at the local college. Sally was trying to finish the BA she had started 15 years ago so she could go on to become a registered nurse. This class satisfied a social-cultural core requirement, and she was actually enjoying it even though it didn’t seem to have anything to do with nursing. The professor had asked the class to write about what they thought had been one of the most compelling social problems of the past 10 years. Sally typed in “social problems in the U.S.” for a Google search and she was amazed at the results. She stopped counting the various problems after she got to 100. Sally realized there were a lot of issues in the world that she hadn’t thought about much, and wondered a bit about why that was the case. She thought back over the past few weeks and considered some of the issues she had been thinking

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and talking about. Upon reflection, she had to admit some of them weren’t too significant. Sally doubted that Manti Te’O’s fake girlfriend or Beyonce’s lip-synching the national anthem would even make the list for the top 200 social issues! And yet these things had been given a lot of coverage in the media. Sally got to work on her paper. She thought she would enjoy writing it.

Sally’s interactions with the media and her subsequent conversations with friends and family about topics she found there can be explained by the theory we profile in this chapter: Agenda Setting. Agenda Setting Theory explains that media set the agenda for the public; they tell people what is important by the number of times a story is reported and, by implication, if they do not report on a story (or bury it on the back pages of the newspaper), they indicate what stories are unimportant. Media sources also tell the public what is important by what features of a story they emphasize and which they do not. For example, the story about Te’O focused on whether he was in on the hoax or not, and this question structured the conversations that Sally had with others about the story. Newscasters could have emphasized other issues such as online relationships in general, the media spotlight that is on student athletes, or the culture of Hawaii, but because they didn’t Sally didn’t spend too much time talking about those aspects of the story. Agenda Setting Theory argues that the media exert an influence over their consumers in these ways. However, the theory also suggests that the influence isn’t all one way, and Sally (and other members of the public) also have an impact on the media.

Over time scholars have had various ideas about how influential the media are in people’s lives. In the early days of mass media, people were seen as helpless victims of the powerful mass media. This notion was eventually discredited and replaced by what is called a limited effects model of the mass media. Limited effects models acknowledge that media influence people, but also they assert that media’s influence is minimized or limited by certain aspects of individual audience members’ personal and social lives. In addition, researchers argue, audience members, themselves, play a role in the mass communication process (see our more complete discussion of this history of media effects in our chapter on Uses and Gratifications Theory,

Chapter 23
). Agenda Setting research began with a belief in the powerful effects of the media, but later refinements put it into the camp of limited effects (McCombs, 2004; McCombs & Bell, 1996; McCombs & Shaw, 1993). Early conceptualizations of Agenda Setting also located it in the arena of limited effects because it famously suggests that the media tell people what to think
about, not what to think (Cohen, 1963).

History of Agenda Setting Research

The history of agenda setting research can be conceptualized in two stages: (1) pretheoretical conceptualization, and (2) the establishment of the theory. We will discuss each of these two historical stages briefly.

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Pretheoretical Conceptualizing

Most researchers (e.g., Dearing & Rogers, 1996) talk about the first stage of agenda setting research as consisting of the conceptualizations of several scholars in different fields beginning to think and write about the relationships among the media, the audience, and the policymakers in the United States. The first person to contribute to this line of thought according to James Dearing and Everett Rogers was Robert E. Park. Park was a sociologist at the University of Chicago (1915–1935), and he is thought to be the first scholar of mass communication. He devised the notion of media gatekeeping and began to discuss some of the issues that are now incorporated into Agenda Setting Theory. Park noted that editors are gatekeepers because they have the power to “kill” stories and to promote other stories that are submitted to them by correspondents, reporters, and news agencies. This statement related to the later developments in Agenda Setting Theory because Park distinguished between issues that become public and those that do not come to the public’s attention.

After Park’s contributions, Walter Lippmann was a pioneer of the pretheoretical stage. Walter Lippmann was a scholar of propaganda and public opinion as well as an influential newspaper columnist and presidential adviser. In 1922, he wrote a book called
Public Opinion, and he titled the first chapter “The World Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads.” He made the argument that the mass media connect the two. According to Lippmann, the events that happen in the world are brought to people by the mass media and the way these events are reported shape how people structure the images of these events in their minds. Lippmann did not use the term
agenda setting, but his writing was very influential in later development of the theory.

In 1948, Harold D. Lasswell, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, contributed an important chapter to an anthology about communication that had far-reaching implications for Agenda Setting Theory. In this chapter, Lasswell talked about two important functions of mass media: surveillance and correlation.

Surveillance

is the process of newspeople scanning the information that is in the environment and deciding which of the many events that are occurring deserve attention in their news outlets. In discussing this function, Lasswell was echoing Park’s notion of gatekeeping. Lasswell argued that news reporters, editors, and so forth decide which of the multitude of possible stories will be the ones to reach the public via their papers or other outlets. Obviously in this process the media do exert powerful effects—they are in charge of what the public gets information about and how that information is presented. People often complain that the news is all bad and that the good things that happen don’t get reported (the old adage “if it bleeds, it leads” refers to the likelihood that bad news will be featured in the media). This speaks to the surveillance process that is controlled by newspeople.

surveillance the process of newspeople scanning the information that is in the environment and deciding which of the many events that are occurring deserve attention in their news outlets

Lasswell (1948) describes the function of

correlation

as the way that media direct our attention to certain issues through communicating them to the public and policymakers. In this function, media synchronize the various groups in society to pay attention to the same things at the same time. Lasswell spoke of the “correlation of the parts of society in responding to the environment” (p. 38). The result of the media orchestration of our attention was “a correlation

correlation the way that media direct our attention to certain issues through communicating them to the public and to policymakers

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of attention on certain issues at the same time by the media, the public, and policymakers” (Dearing & Rogers, 1996, p. 11–12). This function is illustrated when there is a national/international event (like a presidential inauguration, the Super Bowl, or the Olympics) or a national catastrophe (like hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, or the bombing at the Boston Marathon). The media correlate our attention to these things in real time, so that we are all hearing about Michelle Obama’s new hairstyle and inaugural dress or the storm damage that was done on the East Coast at the same time.

Establishing the Theory of Agenda Setting

All of these ideas by earlier researchers came together in the second stage of agenda setting research. This stage is marked by the study that Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw (1972) published which took these early concepts and put them to an empirical test. This landmark study examined the public and the media’s agendas during the 1968 presidential election. Agenda Setting Theory was focused on issues of political import in its beginnings. McCombs and Shaw were interested to test the hypothesis, derived from the ideas of scholars like Lasswell, Park, and Lippmann, that the mass media create an agenda through their selection of what to include in the news, and this agenda influences public perception of what is important. In this first study, McCombs and Shaw hypothesized a causal relationship between the media and the public agendas, which stated that the media agenda would, over time, become the agenda for the public.

To test their hypothesis, they interviewed 100 undecided voters during the three weeks just prior to the presidential election in November of 1968. Although elements of their hypotheses changed in subsequent studies, one of the enduring contributions of this early work was the way they measured the two variables of interest: the public agenda and the media agenda. The public agenda for these undecided voters was measured by their responses to a survey question: “What are you
most concerned about these days? That is, regardless of what politicians say, what are the two or three
main things that you think the government
should concentrate on doing something about?” (McCombs & Shaw, 1972, p. 178). They ranked the issues based on the frequency with which they were mentioned and found five main issues—foreign policy, law and order, fiscal policy, public welfare, and civil rights, which were mentioned most frequently by the respondents. These five issues formed the public agenda.

They measured the media agenda by counting the number of news articles, editorials, and broadcast stories in the nine main mass-media outlets that served the area where the undecided voters lived. These mass-media sources included television, newspapers, and news magazines. McCombs and Shaw found an almost perfect correlation (.967) between the rank order of the five issues on the media agenda as measured by their content analysis of the media coverage of the election campaign, and the five issues on the public agenda as determined by their survey of the 100 undecided voters.

At this point in the history, the ideas articulated by Lippmann and others now had a name: “McCombs and Shaw named this transfer of salience from the media agenda to the public agenda the agenda setting influence of mass

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Theory at a Glance
•

Agenda Setting Theory

In choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping social and political reality. When readers and viewers consume news, they not only learn about a given issue, but they also learn how much importance to attach to that issue by the amount and position it’s given by the press. In thinking about what candidates are saying during a campaign, the mass media may well determine the important issues—that is, the media may set the “agenda” of the campaign. How influential the media are in this agenda setting function depends on several factors including media credibility, the extent of conflicting evidence, shared values, and the audience’s need for guidance.

communication” (McCombs & Bell, 1996, p. 96). The theory was launched and hundreds of articles, books, and monographs have followed. Since its inception, well over 400 studies have utilized Agenda Setting Theory in some form. In addition, the theory has undergone some expansions and refinements.

Expansions and Refinements to Agenda Setting Theory

The original study that McCombs and Shaw published in 1972, was predicated on a powerful effects model of the media. McCombs and Shaw’s hypothesis, that the media agenda impacts the public’s agenda, was founded on the image of a rather passive audience. The second phase of research on the theory moderated that stance. This phase merged Agenda Setting with some of the ideas of Uses and Gratifications Theory (see

Chapter 23
). In the Uses and Gratifications approach, the audience is pictured as a group of active seekers, employing media for specific uses, and to satisfy particular gratifications. This next phase of Agenda Setting incorporated that notion and began to ask about why some voters expose themselves to certain messages more than other voters do.

Further research (Weaver, Graber, McCombs, & Eyal, 1981) expanded Agenda Setting Theory beyond the public issues that McCombs and Shaw had begun exploring in 1972. Other key political elements were added to the agenda like candidate image and voter interest in campaigns. More recent research added the question: Who sets the media agenda? This is a complicated question and research has suggested a variety of answers. Steven Littlejohn and Karen Foss (2011) suggest that there are four types of power relations between the media and other sources that might provide an answer: (1) high-power source and high-power media; (2) high-power source and low-power media; (3) lower-power source and high-power media; and (4) both media and source are low power.

In the first case, a popular president could be a source to a well-funded media outlet with a good reputation like CNN. In this situation, the two would

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be equals in setting the agenda, which will work well for them if they see things similarly; but this will result in struggles if they are not on the same side of the important issues of the day. In the second scenario, the source (an influential politician) has more power than the media (a local paper), and so then the source will be able to set the agenda for the media. In the third relationship, the media are able to set their own agenda because the source is not considered to have much of a voice. In this case, the media may marginalize the source and the source will have trouble getting access to the public to discuss their issues. A welfare group who wants to have their agenda broadcast on national television may be in this situation. Finally, in the last relationship Littlejohn and Foss suggest that events will probably set the public agenda because neither the source nor the media have much power (a local official and a small town website).

In addition, researchers have examined what they call intermedia influence on the agenda setting process and have noted that news organizations affect one another’s agendas. For example, some research (Lim, 2011) has investigated the influence major news websites have on each other’s agendas. This study, which was set in South Korea, found that the major news websites there did influence the agendas of online newspapers as well as, to a certain extent, each other. Other studies (e.g., Johnson, 2011; Maier, 2010; Meraz, 2011; Ragas & Kiousis, 2010) found some support for the influence that various media have on one another. In addition, Maxwell McCombs and Tamara Bell (1996) observed that the intermedia effect can come from individual newsworkers as well as news organizations. As they note, journalists live in “an ambiguous social world” so they often rely on one another for confirmation and as a source of ideas. McCombs and Bell mention several studies of cases where journalists followed one another in reporting about specific issues. For instance, they cite a 1987 article (Prichard) that illustrates how in 1982,
USA Today didn’t put a story about a man who tried to blow up the Washington Monument on page one until Dan Rather led with the story on the
CBS Evening News. They refer to this agenda influence as

pack journalism

. More recently, McCombs and colleagues (e.g., McCombs & Funk, 2011) have suggested that intermedia influence is the wave of the future for agenda setting research.

pack journalism the phenomenon of journalists having their agendas influenced by other journalists

Assumptions of Agenda Setting Theory

Agenda Setting Theory rests on three basic assumptions:

• The media establish an agenda and in so doing are not simply reflecting reality, but are shaping and filtering reality for the public.

• The media’s concentration on the issues that comprise their agenda influence the public’s agenda, and these together influence the policymakers’ agenda.

• The public and policymakers have the possibility to influence the media’s agenda as well.

These three assumptions are woven into Agenda Setting Theory and suggest the interaction that the theorists specified among the media, the public, and

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Student Voices

Sophia

I agree with this theory. If we didn’t have the media telling us about stuff, how would we know about anything? I don’t have any friends who go to Notre Dame, so how would I have heard about Manti Te’O if the media didn’t tell me about him and his fake girlfriend? But, I also agree that I can form my own opinions about things I hear about in the media. They are just telling me what to think about—I can make up my own mind about the specifics of the topic. For instance, I’m sure that guy was in on the hoax—the media didn’t tell me that, but after hearing about the story, I’m making up my own mind. He had to know that there was no real girl—who would keep up an online relationship like that for so long without ever meeting in person?

policymakers. First, the media are portrayed as relatively powerful because their agenda is where the chain of influence generally begins. Further, mass media are seen as having the gatekeeping function that allows them to shape the news, such that the public never receives unfiltered information. Yet, the theory also assumes that the public and policymakers have some reciprocal influence in the process, and their agendas can affect the media agenda as well.

Two Levels of Agenda Setting

Agenda Setting Theory currently proposes that the agenda setting function has two levels. The original conception of the theory identified only the first level of agenda setting. This level focuses on the list of important issues that comprises the

agenda

as decided by some entity such as the media. More recently, a second level, sometimes called
attribute agenda setting, was added to the theory that focuses on which parts (or attributes) of those issues are most important. The first level speaks to the broad media agenda, and the second level refers to the process known as

media framing

or the way media depictions of events (that have made it onto the media agenda) influence and constrain how consumers can interpret them. Framing was first discussed by Todd Gitlin (1980) in his examination of how CBS television coverage of the 1960s student movement made it seem less important than it actually was.

agenda a list of the most important issues of the day as decided by an entity, such as the media

media framing how media depictions of events influence and constrain the way consumers can interpret the events

Researchers noted that framing could be accomplished in many ways. In newspapers things like the size of headlines, photographs included with the story, a story’s overall length and placement allow the editors to frame its importance and highlight the aspects of it that are deemed most important. On television, the visuals accompanying the story add to the ability of newspeople to frame a story. Some research (e.g., Miller & Roberts, 2010) has examined what they call visual agenda setting, which is concerned exclusively with visuals. This study asked 466 Louisiana State University students to respond to imagery about Hurricane Katrina six weeks after the storm. They found that

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most people chose the compelling, repetitious imagery shown in the dominant media. So they concluded that the principles of visual agenda setting were supported. However, they also found that that result was qualified by how close the respondent was to the news event. Students who were more personally affected by Katrina chose more personal images and abandoned the images that the media selected.

Other researchers expanded the notion of framing to include affect, for instance (e.g., Coleman & Wu, 2010; Entman, 1993), and also talked about a related process:

priming

(Iyengar & Kinder, 1987), a cognitive process whereby what the media present temporarily, at least, influences what people think about afterwards in processing additional information. For example, if you watch or hear news reports about the United States’ lack of protection for the embassy in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the deaths of four American embassy workers including the ambassador to Libya, you might be primed to think more negatively about Hillary Clinton’s performance as the Secretary of State than if you had not attended to those news reports.

priming a cognitive process whereby what the media present temporarily, at least, influences what people think about afterwards in processing additional information

Three-Part Process of Agenda Setting

The agenda setting process consists of three parts: setting the media agenda, setting the public agenda, and setting the policy agenda. The

media agenda

refers to the priority of issues to be discussed in mediated sources. The

public agenda

is the result of the media agenda interacting with what the public thinks. And, finally, the public agenda interacts with what is considered important by policymakers to create the

policy agenda

. In a simple format, the theory states that the media agenda affects the public agenda, which in turn, impacts the policy agenda. The results of studies examining the impact of the public and media agendas on policy agendas, however, has been mixed (Tan & Weaver, 2010). (See

Figure 21-1
).

media agenda the priority placed on issues discussed in mediated sources

public agenda the result of the media agenda interacting with what the public thinks

policy agenda the result of the public agenda interacting with what policy makers think

Figure 21.1 The Impact of Public and Media Agenda on Policy Agenda

Source: Rogers, and Dearing (1988).

In addition, this simple formulation is complicated by a few other factors. First, agenda setting is concerned with

salience

, or the degree to which an

salience the degree to which an agenda issue is perceived as important relative to the other issues on the agenda

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agenda issue is perceived as important relative to the other issues on the agenda (Kiousis, 2011). Agenda setting researchers are more interested in salience than in the usual concerns of public opinion researchers such as positive and negative attitudes toward an issue. Salience allows agenda setting researchers to capture what the media agenda is and what the media are telling the public to think about. Thus, how salient or important an issue is perceived to be by the audience will have an effect on the degree of influence felt. Further, Agenda Setting became a limited effects model in part because of the later recognition that the power of the media agenda is dependent on a variety of factors including: media credibility, the extent of conflicting evidence available to the consumer, the extent to which people share the values of the media, and the public’s need for guidance or orientation (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006).

If an audience member does not believe a media source is credible, he or she will likely dismiss the agenda promoted on that source. If Mandy is a liberal, she would be unlikely to believe much of what she might hear from a source like Glenn Beck on the radio, for example. And, if Samuel is conservative, he will probably dismiss most of the agenda promoted on
The Daily Show. Thus, the public agenda will be swayed only by the media sources they find credible. Conflicting information also complicates the tenets of Agenda Setting and provides a contingency that the theory has to incorporate. If Tina listens to several news programs and they all tell her something slightly different about the economy, for instance, the Agenda Setting function is complicated. Further, if Randy listens to talk shows that promote the value of the sanctity of marriage, he will likely be convinced by their agenda because he shares that value. However, if Marianne believes that marriage is an oppressive institution, she will probably not accept the agenda on those shows.

The contingency condition that Agenda Setting researchers have discussed the most is the need for guidance or orientation (McCombs, 2004). This factor explains why people sometimes do not adopt the media agenda by discussing two key variables: relevance and uncertainty.

Relevance

is defined as a motivation to seek orientation on an issue from the media due to the perception of personal importance that the issue holds for someone. If people believe they are not at all involved in an issue such as greenhouse gases, for instance, they will not look to the media for guidance on the issue and thus will not be affected by the media agenda.

Uncertainty

refers to how much information people think they have about an issue. If they believe they have a great deal of information about the two candidates in a presidential election, their uncertainty is low, and thus they will not have a need for guidance from the media. If, however, they are unsure if they have enough information, they need more guidance from the agenda the media present. These two variables work together to explain deviations from the general principles of Agenda Setting Theory. If relevance and uncertainty are both high, then Agenda Setting should be predictive. If relevance and uncertainty are both low, then these are contingency conditions that allow the theory to be more flexible.

relevance a factor explaining why people seek guidance from the media agenda. It refers to how personally affected they feel by an issue

uncertainty a factor explaining why people seek guidance from the media agenda. It refers to how much information a person believes they already possess about an issue

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Theory in Popular Press
•

Combatting the Media Agenda

In the
New York Times opinion pages online, Priscilla Gilman writes about how the media agenda posed a problem for her in the aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut, killings in 2012. Gilman, the mother of an autistic child, notes that the media seemed to be trying to explain the killer’s horrific behaviors by labeling him as suffering from autism. She writes, “It began as insinuation, but quickly flowered into outright declaration. Words used to describe the killer, Adam Lanza, began with “odd,” “aloof,” and “a loner,” shaded into “lacked empathy,” and finally slipped into “on the autism spectrum” and suffering from “a mental illness like Asperger’s.” By Sunday, it had snowballed into a veritable storm of accusation and stigmatization.” Gilman is using her column to try to counteract the framing that occupied many media stories about the tragedy in Newtown. She points out that there are factual errors in this framing: first, she argues that autism is not a mental illness, it is a neurodevelopmental disability or disorder. Further, those who are on the autism spectrum, according to Gilman, do not necessarily lack empathy. They can be very empathic although they may express their empathy and concern for others in unconventional ways.

Gilman concludes by stating that countless studies have shown that people with autism are no more likely than those without it to engage in violence, and to the contrary, are more likely to be the victims of violence (i.e., bullying behaviors) than the perpetrators. It remains to be seen if the media agenda, the public agenda, and the policy agenda will converge in policies that respect the value of each child as Gilman urges, or will take up the frame that Gilman disputes here.

Source: Gilman, P. (2012, December 17). Don’t blame autism for Newtown,
New York Times online, nytimes.com/2012/12/18/opinion/dont-blame-autism-for-newtown.html.

Integration, Critique, and Closing

Agenda Setting Theory is a venerable theory of mass communication; it has a history spanning back to the beginning of the twentieth century, and it is still being employed today in studies of media and public communication. Although it has its detractors, and some of its central concepts may need adaptation in an era of new media and fragmented publics, it still has many adherents and it fares well as measured against the traditional criteria for evaluating theories, especially empirical theories.

383

Student Voices

Christian

I like parts of this theory. It makes sense to me that what I talk about with my friends and family is influenced by what I hear and see in media. If that weren’t the case, I’d just be talking about stuff that actually happens in front of me here at school. So, that part of the theory seems right to me. But, I just can’t see how there can be a public agenda anymore. We all read and listen to such different sources, how can there be topics that occupy everyone at the same time? If I’m reading a blog about aviation and my sister is reading
Motherlode (because she has a new baby), I can’t see us having the same agenda. I think this theory was right when it was first developed in the 1970s, but it has to be changed to keep up with the times.

Integration

Communication Tradition

Communication Context

Approach to Knowing

Positivistic/Empirical | Interpretive/Hermeneutic | Critical

Critique

Evaluation
Criteria

Scope

Some researchers have critiqued the scope of Agenda Setting Theory. Occasionally, the complaint is that the scope is too large and sometimes the opposite is discussed. Some of the problems around this issue have to do with the concept of framing. First, some research (e.g., Takeshita, 2006) asserts that framing is a separate theory from Agenda Setting, and could supersede it altogether. This is labeled an identity problem with Agenda Setting. Toshio Takeshita comments that some researchers believe Agenda Setting Theory, in adding the second level of attribute agenda setting (or framing), is actually colonizing other theories and overreaching the appropriate scope for the theory. Takeshita concludes that the two theories can coexist and more empirical work will determine which one provides the better explanation for media’s influence on the public. Further, Takeshita notes that Agenda Setting Theory has the advantage over framing theory in methodological terms because scholars have developed clear operational

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definitions of the media and the public agendas which work well in quantitative studies.

Utility

With regard to utility, some questions have been raised about whether the theory remains useful given the new media environment. When people have so much freedom in their quests for information and the media sources are multiple and fragmented, perhaps the tenets of Agenda Setting Theory will not be supported. Some studies have been conducted to test this question and the results have been somewhat mixed, although on the whole, they suggest that Agenda Setting Theory can still be applied in a media environment that is anything but monolithic. In a study exploring age-related differences in agenda setting (Coleman & McCombs, 2007), the researchers found that even though media use differentiated the generations (the youngest generation used newspapers and television significantly less than the older two generations and used the Internet significantly more), the agenda setting effect was still apparent regardless of which type of media was used.

Jennifer Brubaker (2008), however, found that television viewers and Internet users ranked a series of issues differently than the general media did. Brubaker concluded that Agenda Setting is not useful as a theoretical framework when people have so much more freedom in their media choices. Still other research (e.g., Ragas & Kiousis, 2010) did find evidence of first- and second-level agenda setting relationships. This study examined the agenda setting effects among explicitly partisan news media coverage, political activist groups, citizen activists, and official campaign advertisements on YouTube, all in support of the same candidate, Barack Obama, in 2008. The authors concluded that Agenda Setting Theory is applicable across a variety of new media.

Sharon Meraz (2011) found a slightly more complicated result in that her study revealed that traditional media were unable to set the agenda for political blogs. Yet, she also found that ideologically diverse political blog networks were able to have an impact on traditional media’s online news agenda, and, to a lesser extent, their newsroom blog agenda. She concluded that there was a reduction of traditional media’s agenda setting influence. But, she also argued that Agenda Setting Theory could work to explain the greater interdependence between traditional media and political blogs, and in fact, noted that some blogs like the Huffington Post were operating like the traditional media and may exert an agenda setting function of their own. Other studies (e.g., Johnson, 2011; Maier, 2010) concurred noting that although traditional news media have less of an ability to set the public agenda than in the past, they still perform an agenda setting function, and what is found on news websites and in citizen-journalists’ postings often correlates strongly with what appears on mainstream media’s agenda.

Finally, a study in 2010 (Weeks & Southwell) used a novel approach to test the agenda setting effects of the traditional media (television and newspapers) on the use of newer media (Google searches). This study examined the relationship of television and newspaper coverage of the rumor circulating during the 2008 presidential campaign that Barack Obama was actually a Muslim.

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The results showed, as Agenda Setting Theory would predict, that the more this rumor was covered in traditional media the more Google searches there were on the topic.

Heurism

With respect to heurism, Agenda Setting Theory certainly has been successful. It has supported hundreds of studies since 1972, and these studies have been situated in a wide variety of fields and topics. Although many Agenda Setting studies focus on politics, they are not confined to that topic, and they are not confined to political issues in the United States as evidenced by recent studies set in Sweden (e.g., Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2010) and Chile (e.g., Valenzuela & Arriagada, 2011). As we have discussed throughout the chapter, Agenda Setting research examining new media, traditional media, political issues, and responses to visual stimuli among other issues, attest to the robust, heuristic quality of this theory.

Discussion Starters

TECH QUEST: Agenda Setting Theory was created in a time when there were only three television channels, relatively few radio stations, and a limited number of big city newspapers. Now, of course, the media landscape is totally different. The chapter presents some studies that have tested how effective Agenda Setting Theory is in this new media environment. The results are somewhat mixed in terms of their support for the theory. How could you design a study that you think would contribute to answering whether online news media operate in the manner that Agenda Setting Theory predicts?

1. Does Sally’s situation ring true for you? Are the topics that she hears about through media actually charting an agenda for her to think about? Have you ever had the experience that Sally has of realizing that there are a lot of issues in the world that you haven’t thought about before? Do you think that is the case because the media haven’t directed you to these issues or is it due to some other reasons? If there are other reasons, what are they?

2. (Why) do you think it’s important to know the history of Agenda Setting Theory? (How) does it help you to understand and/or apply the theory to know about its evolution over time?

3. Pick a recent news event and discuss how the second level of agenda setting might have been at work during the reporting of it. For instance, how did the media cover the 2012 Presidential election? What were the issues that emerged as important and what elements of media framing were used to establish their importance?

4. Do you agree that framing is a part of Agenda Setting Theory or do you think that it is a competing theory that suggests Agenda Setting is no longer useful?

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5. Discuss a news event that has gone through the three-stage process suggested by Agenda Setting Theory: first it is placed on the media agenda, then the public’s agenda, and finally it reaches the policymakers’ agenda where actual policy is made that relates to the news event.

6. Do you agree that Agenda Setting is a limited effects model? As the chapter notes the theory’s originator, Maxwell McCombs has alternated in how he has framed the type of effects claimed by Agenda Setting. What do you think? Explain your answer.

7. Who do you think sets the agenda for the media? Do you agree with the material in the chapter about how the media agenda gets established? Explain your answer.

Online Learning Center

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Visit the Online Learning Center at

www.mhhe.com/west5e
for chapter-specific resources, such as story-into-theory and multiple-choice quizzes, as well as theory summaries and theory-connection questions.

Chapter 22 x

Chapter 22

Spiral of Silence Theory

Based on the research of
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann

Carol Johansen

Each morning, Carol Johansen eats at the “Eldergarten” breakfast at the local senior center. She certainly can afford to go out to a restaurant, but she likes the center because she enjoys the company since her husband died. Carol encounters a rambunctious cast of characters each breakfast, including Earl, a World War II veteran who sings Broadway songs; Nancy, a former nurse who tells lively stories about former patients; and Nick, a tech-savvy New England lobsterman who is an avid newspaper reader and blogger. This morning’s breakfast was especially interesting because the conversation quickly turned to an article on spanking children that Nick read online.

After reading the brief article to the group, Nick offered his opinion on the topic: “I agree with this writer. I don’t see anything wrong with spanking a kid. Look at this survey in the paper. Over 60 percent of the state believes it’s okay to spank, but only 40 percent of the country does. Nowadays, you can’t lay a hand on a kid. They’re ready to sue you, or you’ll get some state worker to come into your own house and take your kid away. It’s not right.”

“I agree,” said Nancy. “I can tell you that my neighbor’s daughter is almost 8 and a holy terror. But, noooo, her mother won’t touch her! I don’t get it. If that was my child, I wouldn’t mind putting her over my knee and giving her a good wallop! The girl’s mom and dad don’t want to send ‘the wrong message’ to her so she gets away with a lot.”

Earl became more interested in the subject as Nancy spoke. Like the others, Earl had a strong opinion on the subject: “Look. How many people at this table were spanked when they were little?” All raised their hands. “And how many of you think that you’re violent people?” None showed any response. “There. That’s my point. Today, they tell you that if you spank your own kid, then that kid is going to end up violent. But look at us. We aren’t violent. We don’t hurt anyone. There’s just too much of this political correctness out there, and too many parents simply have no rights anymore.”

Carol continued glancing at one of the center’s flyers on the table. She, like the others, had an opinion on the subject. But her thoughts differed from those of the others. She did not believe in spanking a child at all. She had been spanked like the rest of her friends, but her dad didn’t know when to stop. Carol had often been physically abused. She thought about the number of parents who are not able to stop at just one slap on the behind. She also thought about what hitting accomplished. Children can be taught right and wrong, she thought, without being hit.

“Hey, Carol,” Nick interrupted, “you’re pretty quiet. What’s your take on all this?”

Carol thought for a quick moment. Should she disagree with the rest of them? What about all the people in her community who also agree with spanking? Carol recalled seeing a news program on the topic about a month ago, and the reporter had interviewed several adult children who had been abused. She wondered how many of them were

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spanked when they were young and yet, all of them stated that they spank their children and they don’t feel it’s abuse in any way.

Carol knew that she disagreed with her breakfast colleagues, but how could she begin to explain all of her thoughts? They wouldn’t understand. It’s probably better simply to go with the flow, she surmised.

“Oh, I don’t know. I can see how some kids need special attention. But sometimes, parents get too angry.”

“C’mon Carol,” Nancy interrupted. “There are a lot of . . .”

“Well, I guess I agree with it. I hope that it’s not done that often, though.” As the volunteer arrived at the table to pour more coffee, the conversation quickly turned to other news. Privately, Carol thought about why she had deferred to the group’s will. She didn’t want to be alone in her viewpoint, nor did she want to explain the personal and sordid details of her past. As Nick began to talk about last night’s city council meeting, Carol wondered whether she would ever speak up on the subject again.

Our opinions of events, people, and topics change periodically in our lives. Consider, for example, your opinions about dating when you were a 15-year-old and your opinions about dating now. Or consider the opinions you held of your family members during your adolescence and those you hold today. Your opinions on various topics—including premarital sex and raising children—have likely evolved over the years. Opinions are not static and frequently change over the years.

One important influence on our opinions is the media. As this section of the text emphasizes, media help to shape who we are today. Often, this influence is subtle; at other times it is more direct. The media’s influence on public opinion is what Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann studied, dating back to the 1930s and 1940s. It was in the early 1970s, however, that she conceptualized the Spiral of Silence Theory. And, yet, as we will learn later, today scholars continue to discuss this theory in many ways.

Although Noelle-Neumann’s theory is pre-Internet age, her interpretation of the media’s influence still holds true. Today, given the popularity in usage of blogs, email, Twitter, and YouTube, we are bombarded with mediated messages. The messages emanating from websites, television news, and e-commentary have contributed to our cultural discourse. Indeed, today, these media have even affected the direction of public discourse (langerresearch.com/uploads/Langer_Research_Briefing_Paper-Social_Media_and_Public_Opinion_Oct2012_update ). And, we cannot ignore the fact that social media play an increasingly important role in global perceptions of war, politics, border security, terrorism, the environment, among many other areas (de Zúñiga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012). In sum, the theory’s application to social media cannot be ignored (Lemin, 2010).

Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence theory is important to address because “it directly relates to speech freedom, which is the cornerstone of our democracy” (Liu, 2006). Further it is a theory that weaves communication and public opinion, two critical areas in virtually any democracy around the globe (Donsbach, Salmon, & Tsfati, 2013). Finally, Spiral of Silence scholars have

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made efforts to make their theory culturally relevant in societies where media remain important and influential (Neill, 2009). To this end, while the theory resonates with those interested in public opinion, it also has relevancy for those interested in the effect that media has upon us.

Noelle-Neumann focuses on what happens when people provide their opinions on a variety of issues that the media have defined for the public (for more information on how the media influence public discourse, look at

Chapter 21
). The Spiral of Silence Theory suggests that people who believe that they hold a minority viewpoint on a public issue will remain in the background where their communication will be restrained; those who believe that they hold a majority viewpoint will be more encouraged to speak. Noelle-Neumann (1983) contends that the media will focus more on the majority views, underestimating the minority views. Those in the minority will be less assertive in communicating their opinions, thereby leading to a downward spiral of communication. Interestingly, those in the majority will overestimate their influence and may become emboldened in their communication. Subsequently, the media will report on their opinions and activities. This theory, then, adheres to the belief that we alluded to in

Chapter 2
: Groups are highly influential in our lives.

Theory at a Glance
•

Spiral of Silence Theory

Because of their enormous power, media have a lasting and profound effect on public opinion. Mass media work simultaneously with majority opinion to silence minority beliefs on cultural and social issues in particular. A fear of isolation prompts those with minority views to examine the beliefs of others. Individuals who fear being socially isolated are prone to conform to what they perceive to be the majority view. Every so often, however, the silent majority raises its voice in activist ways.

The minority views of Carol Johansen and the behavior of her breakfast friends underscore the gist of the Spiral of Silence Theory. Listening to her colleagues’ opinions on spanking, Carol feels that she is alone in thinking that spanking is wrong. The theory suggests that Carol is influenced by media reports of over 60 percent of the state supporting spanking for discipline and also by her own recollection of a television news show featuring abused children who as grownups spanked their own children and who did not believe it was abusive. Carol perceives her opinion to be a minority view, and consequently she speaks less. Conversely, those in our sample who agree with spanking as discipline (Nick, Nancy, and Earl) are no doubt inspired by the state survey responses; this prompts even more assertive communication on their part.

The difference between this majority and minority view at the senior center is further clarified by Noelle-Neumann (1991). She believes that those in the majority have the confidence to speak out. They may even display their convictions

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by wearing buttons, brandishing bumper stickers, and emblazoning their opinions on the clothes they wear. Today, these individuals will likely be blogging about their convictions. Holders of minority views, however, are usually cautious and silent, which reinforces the public’s perceptions of their weakness. Nick, Nancy, and Earl are clearly confident in their opinions, whereas Carol fosters a sense of nonassertiveness by her lack of assertiveness in expressing her opinion.

The Spiral of Silence Theory uniquely intersects public opinion and media. To understand this interface better, we first unravel the notion of public opinion, a key component of the theory. We then examine three assumptions of the theory.

The Court of Public Opinion

As a researcher, Noelle-Neumann was interested in clarifying terms that may have multiple meanings. At the core of the Spiral of Silence Theory is a term that is commonly accepted but one that she felt was misconstrued: public opinion. As a founder and director of the Allensbach Institute, a polling agency in Germany, Noelle-Neumann contended that interpretations of public opinion have been misguided. In fact, although she identified more than 50 definitions of the term since the theory’s inception, none satisfied her.

Although many years have passed since the theory’s original expression, the concept of public opinion “is particularly encumbered by the thicket of confusion, misunderstandings, and communication problems” (Noelle-Neumann & Petersen, 2004, pp. 339–340). Further, writers continue to state that public opinion is more important than ever (Drum, 2011). Attempting to provide some understanding of this key term in the theory, Noelle-Neumann (1984, 1993) has provided some clarity. She separates public opinion into two discrete terms: public and opinion.

She notes that there are three meanings of
public. First, there is a legal association with the term.

Public

suggests that it is open to everyone, as in “public lands” or “public place.” Second, public pertains to the concerns or issues of people, as in “the public responsibility of journalists.” Finally, public represents the social-psychological side of people. That is, people not only think inwardly but also think about their relationships to others. The phrase “public eye” is relevant here. Noelle-Neumann concludes that individuals know whether they are exposed to or sheltered from public view, and they adjust themselves accordingly. She claims that the social-psychological side of public has been neglected in previous interpretations of public opinion, and yet, “this is the meaning felt by people in their sensitive social skin” (1993, p. 62).

public legal, social, and social-psychological concerns of people

opinion

is an expression of an attitude. Opinions may vary in both intensity and stability. Invoking the early French and English interpretation of opinions, Noelle-Neumann notes that opinion is a level of agreement of a particular population. In the spiral of silence process, opinion is synonymous with something regarded as acceptable.

opinion expression of attitude

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Putting all of this together, Noelle-Neumann defines

public opinion

as the “attitudes or behaviors one must express in public if one is not to isolate oneself; in areas of controversy or change, public opinions are those attitudes one can express without running the danger of isolating oneself” (p. 178). So, for Carol Johansen, her opinion on spanking would not be regarded as acceptable by her breakfast club. Because she fears being isolated from her particular early-morning community, she silences her opinions.

public opinion attitudes and behaviors expressed in public in order to avoid isolation

Noelle-Neumann and Petersen (2004) argue that public opinion is a dynamic process and limited by time and place. To that end, they note that “a spiral of silence only holds sway over a society for a limited period of time” (p. 350). So, there are both short- and long-term components to public opinion. For instance, in 2008, there was a difference between the public’s opinion of having the first African American as a U.S. presidential candidate (short-term) and the public’s opinion pertaining to race relations. In fact, Noelle-Neumann and Petersen note that in the United States, public opinion pertaining to race may pose a threat to “social cohesion” (p. 350). To be sure, a month prior to the 2012 reelection of President Obama, 56 percent of respondents expressed “antiblack” sentiments, up from 49 percent in 2008. Whether such an increase has influenced the social fabric of the United States remains to be seen, but some experts contend that such racist sentiments have already influenced social policy (huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/27/racial-views-new-polls-sh_n_2029423.html).

Essentially,

public opinion

refers to the collective sentiments of a population on a particular subject. Most often, the media determine what subjects will be of interest to people, and the media often make a subject controversial. For example, the drug Viagra, used to treat impotence, was considered a medical marvel until the media discovered that many health plans covered this drug but did not cover female contraceptives. Many media outlets subsequently reported that this was an overtly sexist practice.

Noelle-Neumann (1991) notes that public opinion may be influenced by who approves or disapproves of our views. In 2011, for instance, President Obama instructed the Department of Justice not to defend the Defense of

Student Voices

Carmine

I read about the Spiral of Silence Theory. At first, I thought it was too old a theory for someone like me (20 years old) to relate to. But I thought about how, when I’m around my fraternity brothers, I don’t really speak up as I should. A few weeks ago, about five of us were talking about euthanasia. I felt that only God has the power to end a life; doctors should not be able to do that. Well, the other guys all said that it’s “their right” to tell a doctor to do it. And they were knocking down those of us who think that no one—but God—should terminate a life. I didn’t say a word, though, because they all were for it. This is, as I think about it, a lot like the Spiral of Silence. It certainly does apply to me today.

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Marriage Act, a law, at the time, that prohibited same-sex partners to marry. Your opinion on whether you support this congressional action will likely be shaped by spokespeople on both sides of the issue as well as by friends and family members. A spiral of silence is the response to the shifting opinions of others.

Assumptions of Spiral of Silence Theory

With public opinion as our backdrop to the theory, we now explore three assumptions of the Spiral of Silence Theory. Noelle-Neumann (1991, 1993) has previously addressed these assertions:

• Society threatens deviant individuals with isolation; fear of isolation is pervasive.

• This fear of isolation causes individuals to try to assess the climate of opinion at all times.

• Public behavior is affected by public opinion assessment.

The first assumption asserts that society holds power over those who do not conform through threat of isolation. Noelle-Neumann believes that the very essence of our society depends on people commonly recognizing and endorsing a set of values. And it’s public opinion that determines whether these values have equal conviction across the populations. When people agree on a common set of values, then their fear of isolation decreases. When there is a difference in values, fear of isolation sets in.

Like many theorists, Noelle-Neumann is concerned with the testability of this assumption. After all, she notes, are members of a society really threatened with isolation? How could this be? She believes that simple polling could not tap this area (e.g., How much do you fear isolation?). Questions such as these ask respondents to think too abstractly, because it’s likely that few respondents have ever thought about isolation.

Noelle-Neumann employs the research values of Solomon Asch (1951), a social psychologist in the 1950s. Asch conducted the following laboratory experiment more than 50 times with 8 to 10 research subjects:

Which of the following lines on the right is equal to the line on the left?

You are probably quick to say that line 3 is equal to the line provided in the question. The group of research subjects, however, disagreed. After going around the room, the experimenter’s assistants (who were in on the experiment) all named line 1 as the one that was equal to the line on the left. The unsuspecting subjects began to name line 1 as the correct response. In fact, Asch discovered that several times around, the unsuspecting subjects named the incorrect response. Asch believed that individuals frequently feel great pressure to agree with others, even

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though the others are incorrect. Borrowing from the theory, there is a very real fear of isolation.

Elizabeth Blakeslee (2005) of the
New York Times notes that Asch’s research conclusions on social conformity still exist today. She reports on the implications of following a group in many areas of society, including jury decisions and elections. She notes that “the unpleasantness of standing alone can make a majority opinion seem more appealing than sticking to one’s own beliefs” (p. D3). Others agree that particularly in the U.S., there may be more conformity than people either perceive or believe (Fischer, 2010).

Responding to primary criticisms of the Asch studies—that people did not have a real fear of isolation but rather a lack of confidence in their own judgment—Noelle-Neumann engaged in a more realistic threat-of-isolation test. She believed that requiring subjects to assess a moral or aesthetic conviction was more realistic than any laboratory experiments conducted by Asch. Indeed, these moral issues should be contemporary (in the public spotlight) and issues on which the public is divided. Think about same-sex marriage, abortion rights, human cloning, and other topics on which divergent points of view exist.

For Noelle-Neumann, freedom to smoke was (and continues to be) an issue “in the spotlight.” During interviews with smokers, she showed them a picture with a person angrily saying, “It seems to me that smokers are terribly inconsiderate. They force others to inhale their health-endangering smoke.” Respondents were asked to phrase responses to the statement. The results indicated that in the presence of nonsmokers, many smokers were less willing to support smokers’ rights overtly.

The second assumption of the theory identifies people as constant assessors of the climate of public opinion. Noelle-Neumann contends that individuals receive information about public opinion from two sources: personal observation and the media. First, let’s discuss how people are able to personally observe public opinion and then examine the role of the media.

Noelle-Neumann (1991) states that people engage in a quasi-statistical ability to appraise public opinion. A

quasi-statistical sense

means that people are able to estimate the strength of opposing sides in a public debate. They are able to do this by listening to the views of others and incorporating that knowledge into their own viewpoints. For instance, Carol Johansen’s quasi-statistical sense makes her believe that she is the only person at her breakfast table who opposes spanking. She can see that she is vastly outnumbered on the topic and therefore is able to assess the local public opinion on the subject. Noelle-Neumann calls this a quasi-statistical frequency “organ” in that she believes that people like Carol are able to numerically estimate where others fall on the topic. The theorist states that this organ is on “high alert” during periods of instability. So our quasi-statistical sense works overtime when we see that our opinions on a subject are different from those of the majority around us. This sense is, as a rule, an unconscious process.

quasi-statistical sense personal estimation of the strength of opposing sides on a public issue

Personal observations of public opinion can often be distorted and inaccurate. Noelle-Neumann (1993) calls the mistaken observations about how most people feel

pluralistic ignorance

. She notes that people “mix their own direct perceptions and the perceptions filtered through the eyes of the media into an

pluralistic ignorance mistaken observation of how most people feel

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indivisible whole that seems to derive from their own thoughts and experiences” (p. 169). Consider Carol’s assessment of the opinions on spanking. With the vast majority of people around her supporting this type of discipline, she may believe that she is clearly in the minority. One or both sides in the debate, however, can overestimate their ability to estimate opinion. Especially with such lopsided support on a topic (as with the group at the senior center), Noelle-Neumann believes that people can become disillusioned.

People not only employ their personal observations of public opinion, but also rely on the media. Yet, Noelle-Neumann insists that the media’s effects are frequently indirect. Because people are inherently social in nature, they talk about their observations to others. And, people seek out the media to confirm or disconfirm their observations and then interpret their own observations through the media. This can be illustrated through Carol’s future behaviors. First, if she returns home from the senior center and reveals her beliefs on spanking to others, she may encounter several neighbors who share her opinion. Next, if she watches the evening news and learns that the majority of the country oppose spanking, this will likely resonate deeply with her. She will also be affected by any media reports that disproportionately publicize opposition to spanking. Finally, later discussions that Carol might have on the subject may invoke the media. She may tell others that even the media reports tend to support her point of view.

The final assumption of the theory is that the public’s behavior is influenced by evaluations of public opinion. Noelle-Neumann (1991) proposes that public behavior takes the form of either speaking out on a subject or keeping silent. If individuals sense support for a topic, then they are likely to communicate about it; if they feel that others do not support a topic, then they maintain silence. She continues, “The strength of one camp’s signals, or the weakness of the other’s, is the driving force setting the spiral in motion” (p. 271). In sum, people seem to act according to how other people feel.

Noelle-Neumann believes that human beings have an aversion to discussing topics that do not have the support of the majority. To test this assumption, consider interviewing people on your campus about a controversial issue such as physician-assisted suicide. If straw polls in your campus newspaper show that almost 70 percent of the campus opposes this, then according to the theory, students, faculty, and staff may be less inclined to speak out in favor of the practice. A willingness to speak out may have more to do with one’s convictions and an assessment of overall trends in society. That is, if there is a liberal climate on your campus, there may be more willingness to speak out; if a conservative climate exists, people may feel less inclined to offer their opposition.

These three assumptions are important to consider as we further delineate Noelle-Neumann’s theory. In

Figure 22.1
, we illustrate several concepts and themes emerging from the theory’s assumptions.

Personal opinions, a fear of being alone in those opinions, and public sentiment lay the groundwork for discussing the remainder of the theory. Each of these areas is influenced by a powerful part of U.S. society: the media. Let’s now overview the powerful influence of the media in the Spiral of Silence Theory.

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PUBLIC OPINION AS COMMUNICATED BY THE MEDIA

Figure 22.1 The Spiral of Silence: Medicinal Marijuana

The Media’s Influence

As we have discussed, the Spiral of Silence Theory rests on public opinion. Noelle-Neumann (1993) cautions, however, that “much of the population adjusts its attitudes to the tenor of the media” (p. 272). Nancy Eckstein and Paul Turman (2002) agree. They claim that “the media may provide the force behind the spiral of silence because it is considered a one-sided conversation, an indirect public form of communication where people feel helpless to respond” (p. 173). Further, as Francis Delisay (2012) concludes, “[M]edia can influence the public’s perceptions of opinion climates” (p. 485). Finally, some authors boldly state that “media essentially tell the public which key policy issues to think about and to some degree how they should form opinions about those issues” (Spencer, Croucher, & McKee, 2011, p. 28).

A willingness to speak out depends greatly on the media. Without support from others for divergent views, people will remain consonant with the views offered in the media. In fact, Noelle-Neumann (1993) believes that the media even provide sometimes biased words and phrases so people can confidently speak about a subject. And, if certain words or phrases are favored by the media, then many people will fall silent (Consider the difference, for instance, if the media used “abuse” rather than the word “spanking”). The extent to which Carol Johansen in our chapter-opening scenario will offer her views

396

about spanking, then, will likely rest on what position the various media have taken on the subject. And, although many of us rely on the Internet, George Gerbner (Cultivation Analysis,

Chapter 24
) reminds us that television is the most influential of all media forms.

In explaining why the media have such influence, Noelle-Neumann believes that the public is not offered a broad and balanced interpretation of news events. Consequently, the public is given a limited view of reality. This restrictive approach to covering cultural events and activities narrows an individual’s perception.

Consider the theorist’s three characteristics of the news media: ubiquity, cumulativeness, and consonance.

Ubiquity

refers to the fact that the media are pervasive sources of information. Because media are everywhere, they are relied on when people seek out information. The morning television news, the Internet, the office gossip, and so forth, all point to the media’s ubiquity. Nick, a member of Carol Johansen’s morning group, is quick to talk about the recent surveys done in the state about perceptions of spanking. He has the source immediately at hand. Even Carol recalls a television program as she thinks about spanking.

ubiquity the belief that media are everywhere

The

cumulativeness

of the media refers to the process of the media repeating themselves across programs and across time. Frequently, you will read a story in the morning newspaper, listen to the same story on the radio as you drive to work, and then watch the story on the evening news. You may also pull up a website during the day and find the story there. Noelle-Neumann calls this a “reciprocal influence in building up frames of reference” (1993, p. 71). It can become problematic when the original source is left unquestioned, and yet, four media (newspaper, radio, television, and the Internet) rely on that source. The theory suggests that conformity of voice influences what information gets released to the public to help them develop an opinion.

cumulativeness the belief that media repeat themselves

Finally,

consonance

pertains to the similarities of beliefs, attitudes, and values held by the media. In fact, events or news items are frequently shared by multiple news agencies (e.g., the Associated Press, etc.). Noelle-Neumann states that consonance is produced from a tendency for newspeople to confirm their own thoughts and opinions, making it look as if those opinions were emanating from the public.

consonance the belief that all media are similar in attitudes, beliefs, and values

Each of these three qualities—ubiquity, cumulativeness, consonance—allows for majority opinions to be heard. Those wishing to avoid isolation will usually remain silent.

It is not surprising that the media are influential in public opinion. Many surveys have demonstrated that people consider the media to have too much power in U.S. society. Consider also that information is frequently filtered through news reporters and their agencies. As a result, what is presented—or in the case of this theory, what is perceived—may not be an accurate picture of reality. Imagine, for instance, the frustration of many unemployed disabled individuals as they read or listen to reports about the success of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Or, maybe you have watched stories about the many people who have been forced off of welfare, but you probably haven’t seen many stories describing the dire circumstances of many families as a result of funding cuts. And, although there have been news reports on employers hiring military

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Theory in Popular Press
•
Russian Internet Usage and the Spiral of Silence

A bill in the Russian parliament passed in 2012 that effectively shut down popular websites in the country. Author David Herszenhorn of the
International Herald Tribune, writes that because of the government’s steps to shut down popular Internet sites like Wikipedia, there will be unexpected repercussions from across the globe. Herszenhorn identifies a journalism professor at Moscow State University who stated, “[T]he Internet is the only thing that stands between Russia and the Spiral of Silence.” The author argues that the efforts to shut down various web content is an effort to repress free speech and protest, thereby making it difficult for those “at the end of the spiral” to speak up. Fearing isolation, Herszenhorn notes, people will likely silence their own (political) views. While some protection was needed to protect children from unsavory Internet content, Herszenhorn quotes the professor who believes that the Internet “has given life to political discourse in a very free and independent way.”

Source: Herszenhorn, D. (2012, July 12). In Russia, critics decry law to limit web content.
International Herald Tribune, p. 13.

veterans, this is hardly helpful to the many vets still looking for long-term employment. If the media report these “success” stories often enough, Noelle-Neumann says they are identifying what should be noticed, deciding what questions should be asked, and determining whether various social policies and programs are effective, a point we noted earlier. In other words, people experience the climate of public opinion through the mass media.

As you can see, then, when people look to media for a glimpse into the perceptions and beliefs of the population, they are likely to receive anything but an impartial representation.

Dual climates of opinion

often exist—that is, a climate that the population perceives directly and the climate the media report. For instance, Carol Johansen may compare her personal perceptions of spanking with those surveyed perceptions published in the newspaper. What is remarkable is that despite the differences in opinion, many people decide to remain silent. To understand what motivates people to speak out, Noelle-Neumann developed the train test.

dual climates of opinion difference between the population’s perception of a public issue and the way the media report on the issue

The Train Test

For Spiral of Silence theorists, examining whether or not people will speak out requires a methodology that is clear, testable, representative, and replicable. To support her claims, Noelle-Neumann conceptualized the train test (or plane or bus as well). The

train test

is an assessment of the extent to which people will speak out with their own opinion. According to the Spiral of Silence Theory, people on two different sides of an issue will vary in their willingness to express

train test an experiment used to assess the extent to which people will speak out

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views in public. To study this, the researchers gave respondents sketches showing two people in conversation. The researcher asked a respondent, “Which of the two would you agree with, Person A or Person B?” This question would then be followed up with a more pivotal question; for example, one that might test opinions pertaining to food safety. Essentially, the train test asks people a question such as the following:

Suppose that you have a five-hour train ride ahead of you and a person sits next to you and starts to discuss the problems of food safety. Would you talk or not talk about the topic to the person?

This question was repeated several times with various subjects. It focused on a number of topics, ranging from nuclear power plants to abortion to racial segregation. The test revealed a number of factors that help determine whether a person will voice an opinion. They include the following:

• Supporters of a dominant opinion are more willing to voice an opinion than those in the minority opinion.

• Because of a fear of isolation, people tend to refrain from publicly stating their position if they perceive that this perception will attract laughter, mockery, or similar threats of isolation.

• There are various ways of speaking out—for example, hanging posters, displaying bumper stickers, and distributing flyers.

• Men (ages 45–59) from large cities are more likely to speak out.

• People are more likely to voice an opinion if it agrees with their own convictions as well as fits within current trends and the spirit of the era.

• People will voice an opinion if it aligns with societal views.

• People tend to share their opinions with those who agree with them more than with those who disagree.

• People draw the strength of their convictions from a variety of sources, including family, friends, and acquaintances.

• People may engage in

last-minute swing

, or jumping on the bandwagon of the popular opinion during the final moments of conversation.

last-minute swing jumping on the bandwagon of popular opinion after opinions have been expressed

The train test proved to be an interesting approach to studying public opinion. The method simulates public behavior when two schools of thought exist on a subject. For those who are willing to speak out, there are opportunities to sway others. And there are times when the minority opinion speaks out loudly. We now examine this group.

The Hard Core

Every now and then, the silent minority rises up. This group, called the

hard core

, “remains at the end of a spiral of silence process in defiance of the threats of isolation” (Noelle-Neumann, 1993, p. 170). The hard core represents a group of individuals who know that there is a price to pay for their assertiveness. They try to buck the dominant way of thinking and are prepared to directly confront

hard core group(s) at the end of the spiral willing to speak out at any cost

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Figure 22.2 Examples of the “Hard Core” in the United States

anyone who gets in their way or who refuses to allow their voices to be heard (

Figure 22.2
).

Noelle-Neumann invokes the work of social psychologist Gary Shulman in attempting to understand the hard core better. Shulman argues that if the majority opinion becomes large enough, the majority voice becomes less powerful because no alternative opinions exist. Several years ago, for example, when AIDS first appeared in the United States, it was common for many to believe that those diagnosed with the disease should be quarantined (majority opinion). It didn’t take long, however, for people’s opinions to reject this narrow-minded view, primarily as a result of the hard core’s efforts to educate the public. In fact, ironically, the media were pressed into educating the public about AIDS. It was not long before this silent hard core discovered that others had adopted their view. In this situation, the hard core was instrumental in changing public opinion, although it is true that the hard core frequently engaged in both rational and irrational acts to make its point.

For further evidence of the hard core, let’s discuss an example pertaining to religion and religious opinion. Although we realize that not all people believe in God, God pervades our intellectual, political, and popular culture (people say “God Bless you” when others sneeze, we have “In God We Trust” on our dollar bills, politicians end their speeches with “God Bless America,” and etc.).

Despite pervasive references to God, many people do not believe in God. Some of these individuals contend that the country’s Constitution requires a separation between church and state, and therefore any religious references in tax-supported venues should be eliminated. However, this opinion may not be shared by the majority because over half of the country affiliates with an organized religion (Lindner, 2012). Whether the media report on visits by the Pope, present video clips of politicians leaving religious services each week, or solicit quotes for news stories from the clergy, they continue to imply that religion is an integral part of people’s lives.

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The minority—civil libertarians who advocate extracting religion from public-supported activities—have been vocal regarding their opinions; these hard-core dissenters have not blended into the background. For instance, over the past several years, atheist families, in particular, have sued in courts either to remove “under God” or to allow young children to abstain from the recitation. Although courts have almost always dismissed such cases, they have brought this issue to the forefront of cultural discourse. In fact, if you undertake a Google search for “Pledge of Allegiance ‘Under God’ debate,” you will see over 200,000 results. The hard core might also claim victory as they witness cities removing religious icons (nativity sets, crucifixes, etc.) from city parks during holidays. And, interestingly, with media outlets covering such legal victories, the hard core may be reconfiguring majority opinion.

If we think about more contemporary examples of the hard core, two groups seem particularly relevant: the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. Particularly during 2011–2013, these groups decided to defy expectations and cast themselves in unique, innovative, and controversial ways. The Tea Party—an offshoot of the Republican Party—worked aggressively to ensure that politicians they supported were aligned with their conservative values and practices. Occupy Wall Street, a protest movement that addressed social and economic inequality, greed, and corruption, advocated on behalf of the “99 percent,” or the people they claimed were paying for the errors of those in power—the 1 percent. Both groups clearly championed their goals and causes in the media and, despite not representing the majority of the population, both groups received great media attention and continued to do so in various ways.

Integration, Critique, and Closing

The Spiral of Silence Theory is one of the few theories in communication that focuses on public opinion. Indeed, the theory has been identified as an important foundation for examining the human condition (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991). Noelle-Neumann, as a scholar, is credited for introducing survey research in Germany and co-founded the
International Journal of Public Opinion Research (Petersen, 2012). To evaluate the theory, we draw attention to two areas: logical consistency and heurism.

Integration

Communication Tradition

Communication Context

Approach to Knowing

Positivistic/Empirical | Interpretive/Hermeneutic | Critical

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Critique

Evaluation
Criteria

Logical Consistency

Noelle-Neumann’s theory has not avoided substantial criticism. And much of that criticism pertains to the lack of logical consistency in several of the terms and concepts. Charles Salmon and F. Gerald Kline (1985) state that the Spiral of Silence fails to acknowledge a person’s ego involvement in an issue. At times, people may be willing to speak because their ego is involved in the topic (e.g., if a promotion at work depends on assertiveness). Carroll Glynn, Andrew Hayes, and James Shanahan (1997) raise the issue of various selectivity processes, such as cognitive dissonance, which we explored in

Chapter 6
. Individuals will avoid a topic that conflicts with their own views.

Carroll Glynn and Jack McLeod (1985) note two additional shortcomings pertaining to the logical consistency of the theory. First, they believe that the fear of isolation may not motivate people to express their opinions. They claim that Noelle-Neumann did not empirically test her belief that fear of isolation prompts people to speak out. Yet, some scholars have found a direct relationship between fear of isolation and an examination of opinion climates and opinion expression (Kim, 2012). Second, Glynn and McLeod were troubled by how the theory was developed, and relied extensively upon, West Germany media. They doubt whether the characteristics of the media then and there (ubiquitous, cumulative, and consonant) apply to the media in the United States today.

Noelle-Neumann has responded to several of her critics, notably in defending her emphasis on the media. She remains convinced that the media is instrumental in public opinion. She writes that “by using words and arguments taken from the media to discuss a topic, people cause the point of view to be heard in public and give it visibility, thus creating a situation in which the danger of isolation is reduced” (Noelle-Neumann, 1985, p. 80). She continues by noting that not once did the spiral of silence process contradict the media’s position on a topic (Noelle-Neumann, 1993). In terms of application across cultures, Noelle-Neumann agrees that any theory of public opinion must have cross-cultural applicability. However, she posits, it is important to note that most U.S. researchers desire a rational explanation for human behavior, but not all behavior can be explained sensibly.

Still, she does accept that the train test may be limited in cross-cultural adaptation. As a result, Noelle-Neumann updated the version to read:

Assume you are on a five-hour bus trip, and the bus makes a rest stop and everyone gets out for a long break. In a group of passengers, someone starts talking about whether we should support [insert topic] or not. Would you like to talk to this person, to get to know his or her point of view better, or would you prefer not to? (p. 217)

402

Student Voices

Marco

I can think of myself sometimes as that person at the “end of the spiral.” I was one of the students on campus that had a sit-in at my congressperson’s office because he supported the Afghanistan war. I was told I wasn’t a patriot and was told that I should “get a job” and not spend time wasting the time of others. I still decided to make my voice heard and I know it wasn’t popular because we are “supposed” to support our troops. Well, I did support the troops: I wanted them to come home so they could live and be with their families.

Of course, you may doubt whether simply changing a train test to a bus test broadens the cross-cultural application of the theory.

Heurism

The theory has attracted writers and scholars who have discussed its merits in a variety of ways. First, some writers (Simpson, 1996) have attempted to discredit the theory because of its lack of application beyond one culture; other scholars, however, have supported the cross-cultural application of the theory (Kim, 2012). This sort of scholarly dialogue enhances the heuristic appeal of the theory.

Researchers have employed the theory and many of its central concepts in their studies, including the following topics: a declaration to make English the official language of the United States (Lin & Salwen, 1997), religion in the classroom (Eckstein & Turman, 2002), communication apprehension (Neuwirth, Frederick, & Mayo, 2007), college student sexual values (Chia & Lee, 2008), chat rooms (McDevitt, Kiousis, & Wahl-Jorgensen, 2003), and computer-mediated communication (Schulz & Roessler, 2012). Two major research studies looked at social media platforms—including Tumblr, Facebook, and Digg (Chen, 2011; Lamin, 2012)—and their effects on several issues and concepts in the theory. Further, a compendium of essays that examine Spiral of Silence theory—over 50 years after its inception—has been published (Donsbach, 2013), suggesting further heuristic opportunities. Clearly, in the eyes of many, this theory is worth studying.

The Spiral of Silence will continue to generate discussion among media scholars. The theory has sustained considerable criticism, and with a central emphasis on political discussion, researchers will continue to assess the theory’s vitality. We live in a political world, dominated by a bold and intrusive Western (social) media. Whether people openly express majority or minority viewpoints on an issue may not be directly proportional to the media’s involvement on the issue, but it is clear that the public has come to rely on the media in the global society (e.g., past governmental uprisings in Syria, Egypt, and Libya were broadcast to the world via social media). The theory, therefore, will likely have lasting effects that have not yet been imagined.

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Discussion Starters

TECH QUEST: How would Spiral of Silence theorists respond to the following claim: “Social networking sites embolden even the shiest of individuals to feel emboldened.”

1. Carol Johansen feels embarrassed about offering her opinions to a group that does not share her beliefs. Consider a similar time in your life. Did you speak out, or did you decide to remain quiet? What motivated your decision?

2. Discuss the times that you have been part of the hard-core minority. How did you behave? How did your confidence and self-esteem influence your behavior?

3. Does it make a difference to you to learn that Noelle-Neumann was once a newspaper journalist for Nazi publications? Why or why not?

4. Do you believe that given all the different mediated sources available today, the U.S. media are ubiquitous, consonant, or cumulative? Exemplify your responses.

5. Noelle-Neumann believes that the media help to influence minority views. Based on your observations of the media over the past several years, do you agree or disagree with this claim? What examples can you provide to defend your position?

6. Comment on the influence of the Internet on public opinion.

7. What do you suppose influences the “last-minute swings” of people?

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Chapter 23 x

Chapter 23

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Based on the research of
Elihu Katz, Jay G. Blumler, and Michael Gurevitch

Ryan Grant

It was a dreary Friday night and 20-year-old Ryan Grant was trying to figure out what he wanted to do. He worked for his father part time in his hardware store, and without question, this had been a rough week. He had to put in a lot of extra hours because they were doing inventory and his dad needed him to help catalog the merchandise. This morning he took an exam in his communication class at the university. Because he hadn’t studied last week, Ryan crammed until 2 A.M. Now it was Friday, and time to escape both work and school.

Ryan felt exhausted and burned out. He wanted to be with others, but he knew he wouldn’t be the best company. He considered two choices: He could stay home and watch television, either with friends or alone, or he could try to get a group of friends together to go to the movies. It could be good to go out with people who would help him loosen up. But, he could also see being at home, and not exerting so much energy.

Ryan was faced with two opposing arguments. Here was the argument for watching television: First, he wouldn’t have to spend anything. He could dress and look how he wanted, and he could watch what he wanted when he wanted. There were a couple of shows on Fridays that Ryan liked. At home, he could also command the best seat in the house. If he wanted to, he could invite over friends, making the night more social.

But, the argument for going out to the movies seemed just as strong. He could see that new action/adventure movie he’d been waiting to see. Also, because Ryan was a “techie” who appreciated all technology, the movie theater’s excellent THX system and huge screen was far better than what he had at home. Finally, he could easily have fun going out. Although he had never really thought about it too seriously, he enjoyed sitting with his friends in the dark, sharing the same experience, and he loved movie popcorn!

Still, he was torn, so Ryan weighed the positives and negatives of each medium. If he chose television, he would have to deal with watching on a small screen. Also, if he did have friends over, he might have to endure fighting over what to watch. On the other hand, he could turn off the television if nothing good was on and simply hang out with his friends. The arguments for and against going to the movies seemed equivalent. On the plus side, he knew that watching a movie was a great escape from his real life, and he would be able to talk about the movie on Monday with his friends. But, it was also true that he’d have to drive to the multiplex and try to find a parking space. He also might have to stand in a long line, which he hated. To top it off, he would have to pay close to $15 for the movie ticket and popcorn. Ryan’s decision about what to do came down to a simple question: What does a movie offer versus what television offers? As Ryan considered this question, a third alternative occurred to him: going to bed early.

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Ryan is doing what we all do when dealing with the mass media: he is thinking about different media and making choices. Consider how many times you have found yourself in a situation similar to Ryan’s. You may have decided that you needed some relaxation and thought about all the options before making up your mind. The process may not have taken very long, but it was a process that required thinking about what was available.

In the early days of mass media (the era of the penny newspaper, radio, and silent movies),

Mass Society Theory

—the idea that average people are helpless victims of powerful mass media—defined the relationship between audiences and the media they consumed (see our discussion of the Spiral of Silence Theory in

Chapter 22
). This notion was eventually discredited, in large part because social science—and simple observation—could not confirm the notion of allpowerful media and media messages. Not only were most people not directly affected by media messages, but when they were influenced, they were not all influenced in exactly the same way.

Mass Society Theory the idea that average people are the victims of the powerful forces of mass media

In time, Mass Society Theory was replaced by what we now call the

limited effects

theories, conceptions of media influence that view it as minimized or limited by other aspects of individual audience members’ personal and social lives. Two approaches to the limited effects orientation have been identified. First, the

Individual Differences Perspective

sees media’s power as shaped by personal factors such as intelligence and self-esteem. For example, smart people and more secure people are better able to resist unwanted media impact. A second limited effects approach, the

Social Categories Model

, views media’s power as limited by audience members’ associations and group affiliations. For example, Republicans tend to spend time with other Republicans, who help them interpret media messages in a consistent, Republican-friendly manner. This effectively limits any influence media messages alone might have.

limited effects the perspective replacing Mass Society Theory; holds that media effects are limited by aspects of the audience’s personal and social lives

Individual Differences Perspective a specific approach to the idea of limited effects; concentrates on the limits posed by personal characteristics

Social Categories Model a specific approach to the idea of limited effects; concentrates on the limits posed by group membership

You may have noticed that neither of these views affords audience members much credibility. The first (Mass Society) suggests that people simply are not smart or strong enough to protect themselves against unwanted media effects. The second (limited effects) suggests that most people have relatively little personal choice in interpreting the meaning of the messages they consume and in determining the level of impact those messages will have on them. Eventually, in response to these unflattering views of typical audience members, theorists Elihu Katz, Jay G. Blumler, and Michael Gurevitch (1974) presented a systematic and comprehensive articulation of audience members’ role in the mass communication process. Their thinking was formalized as Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT). While it is still a limited effects model, researchers working in Uses and Gratifications believe its value lies in its ability to clarify how effects can and do happen.

Further, while granting the media some effects, the theory gives the audience more credibility and holds that people actively seek out specific media and specific content to generate specific gratifications (or results). Theorists in Uses and Gratifications view people as active because they are able to examine and evaluate various types of media to accomplish communication goals (Wang, Fink, & Cai, 2008). As we saw in our opening, Ryan not only identified the specific media that he was willing to consider, but was also able to determine

406

for himself the uses he could and would make of each, and the personal values of those uses. Researchers in Uses and Gratifications Theory ask the question, What do consumers do with the media?

Assumptions of Uses and Gratifications Theory

Uses and Gratifications Theory provides a framework for understanding when and how individual media consumers become more or less active and the consequences of that increased or decreased involvement. Many of the assumptions of UGT were clearly articulated by the founders of the approach (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974). They contend that there are five basic assumptions of Uses and Gratifications Theory:

• The audience is active and its media use is goal oriented.

• The initiative in linking need gratification to a specific medium choice rests with the audience member.

• The media compete with other sources for need satisfaction.

• People have enough self-awareness of their media use, interests, and motives to be able to provide researchers with an accurate picture of that use.

• Value judgments of media content can only be assessed by the audience.

The theory’s first assumption, about an active audience and goal-oriented media use, is fairly straightforward. Individual audience members can bring different levels of activity to their use of media. Audience members are also driven to accomplish goals via the media. Denis McQuail and his colleagues (1972) identify several ways of classifying audience needs and gratifications. They include

diversion

, which is defined as escaping from routines or daily problems;

personal relationships

, which occurs when people substitute the media for companionship;

personal identity

, or ways to reinforce an individual’s values; and

surveillance

, or information about how media will help an individual accomplish something. In

Table 23.1
we present additional categories of needs that are fulfilled by the media.

diversion a category of gratifications coming from media use; involves escaping from routines and problems

personal relationships a category of gratifications coming from media use; involves substituting media for companionship

personal identity a category of gratifications coming from media use; involves ways to reinforce individual values

surveillance a category of gratifications coming from media use; involves collecting needed information

In our chapter opening, we saw Ryan choosing between two competing media: television and film. All of us have our favorite content within a given medium, and we all have reasons for selecting a particular medium. At the movies, for instance, many of us like love stories rather than historical war films; some of us prefer to be entertained at the end of a long day rather than be educated about a historical event (diversion). Some drivers prefer to talk on their cell phones over long trips; it not only passes the time but also allows people to stay connected with their family and friends (personal relationships). Truck drivers, for example, may prefer to listen to call-in radio talk shows rather than spend their long nights driving in silence (personal identity). Finally, there are people who enjoy watching home improvement shows on cable so that they can learn how to do projects around the house (surveillance). Audience members choose among various media, then, for different gratifications.

407

Table 23.1 Needs Gratified by the Media

NEED TYPE

DESCRIPTION

MEDIA EXAMPLES

Cognitive

Acquiring information, knowledge, comprehension

Television (news), video (“How to Install Ceramic Tile”), movies (documentaries or films based on history, e.g.,
The Other Boleyn Girl)

Affective

Emotional, pleasant, or aesthetic experience

Movies, television (sitcoms, soap operas)

Personal integrative

Enhancing credibility, confidence, and status

Video (“Speaking With Conviction”)

Social integrative

Enhancing connections with family, friends, and so forth

Internet (email, chat rooms, Listservs, IM)

Tension release

Escape and diversion

Television, movies, video, radio, Internet

Source: Adapted from Katz, Gurevitch, & Haas (1973). On the use of the mass media for important things.
American Sociological Review, 38, 164–181.

Uses and Gratifications’ second assumption links need gratification to a specific medium choice that rests with the audience member. Because people are active agents, they take initiative. We choose shows like
How I Met Your Mother when we want to laugh and
CNN Newsroom when we want to be informed, but no one decides for us what we want from a given medium or piece of content. We may well choose CNN because we want to be entertained by the anchors. The implication here is that audience members have a great deal of autonomy in the mass communication process.

The third assumption—that media compete with other sources for need satisfaction—means that the media and their audiences do not exist in a vacuum. Both are part of the larger society, and the relationship between media and audiences is influenced by that society. On a first date, for example, going out to the movies is a more likely use of media than is renting a video and watching it at home. Someone who is an infrequent consumer of media—who, for example, finds more gratification in conversations with friends and family—may turn to the media with greater frequency when seeking information during a national political election.

The fourth assumption of UGT relates to a methodological issue that has to do with researchers’ ability to collect reliable and accurate information from media consumers. To argue that people are aware enough of their own media use, interests, and motives to be able to provide researchers with an accurate picture of that use reaffirms the belief in an active audience; it also implies that people are cognizant of that activity. In fact, the early research in Uses and Gratifications included questioning respondents about why they consumed particular media. This qualitative approach, which we explained in

Chapter 3
,

408

included interviewing respondents and directly observing their reactions during conversations about media. The thinking surrounding this data collection technique was that people are in the best position to explain what they do and why they do it. Interestingly, as the theory evolved, the methodology also changed. Researchers began to abandon their qualitative analysis in favor of more quantitative procedures. Yet, the questionnaires employed in these procedures emanated from many of the interviews and observations collected in the qualitative period.

The fifth assumption is also less about the audience than it is about those who study it. It asserts that researchers should suspend value judgments linking the audience’s needs to specific media or content. Theorists in Uses and Gratifications argue that because it is individual audience members who decide to use certain content for certain ends, the value of media content can be assessed only by the audience. According to theorists in Uses and Gratifications, even tacky content found in reality shows like “Keeping up with the Kardashians” may be functional if it provides gratifications for the audience.

Some contemporary mass communication researchers (such as Turow, 2013) lament what they see as the negative, debasing influence of consumer product advertising on U.S. culture. The United States is fast becoming a nation of consumers: Love has been reduced to giving someone flowers; freedom now means the ability to buy a Big Gulp rather than a canned soda at 7-Eleven; a “good” mother is one who packs Lunchables in her child’s lunchbox. Here we illustrate the influence of the limited effects paradigm. In the absence of hard evidence of the large-scale effect some critics fear, it’s easier to assume that watching ads for these products—and the subsequent purchase of flowers, a Big Gulp, and Lunchables—is not only an individual choice, but a harmless one. (See our discussion of the intersection of media, culture, and individuals in

Chapter 25
on Cultural Studies).

As you can see, UGT underscores an active media consumer. Considering that this overarching principle contradicts the views offered by other media theorists and other theoretical perspectives, it is important to trace the theory’s development, which we do in the next section.

Theory at a Glance
•

Uses and Gratifications Theory

People are active in choosing and using particular media to satisfy specific needs. Emphasizing a limited effects position, this theory views the media as having a limited effect because users are able to exercise choice and control. People are self-aware, and they are able to understand and articulate the reasons they use media. They see media use as one way to gratify the needs they have. Uses and Gratifications Theory is primarily concerned with the following question: What do people do with media?

409

Stages of Uses and Gratifications Research

The first stage of UG research (prior to the formulation of the theory itself), consisted of acknowledging that people can and do actively participate in the mass communication process. The pioneering work of Herta Herzog (1944) was instrumental in establishing this perspective. Herzog sought to classify the reasons people engage in different forms of media behavior, such as newspaper reading and radio listening. Wanting to understand why so many women were attracted to radio soap operas, Herzog interviewed dozens of soap opera fans and identified three major types of gratification. First, some people enjoyed the dramas because of the emotional release they found in listening to the problems of others. Second, listeners seemed to engage in wishful thinking—that is, they gained a vicarious satisfaction from listening to the experiences of others. Finally, some people felt that they could learn from these programs because “if you listen to these programs and something turns up in your life, you would know what to do about it” (p. 25). Herzog’s work was critical to developing UGT because she was the first published researcher to provide an in-depth examination of media gratifications. She is sometimes credited with having originated UGT (although its label was to come much later).

Ten years later Wilbur Schramm (1954) developed a means of determining “which offerings of mass communication will be selected by a given individual” (p. 19). His

fraction of selection

visually represents precisely the process that Ryan goes through when he makes his choice of a movie or a television show:

Expectation of rewardEffort RequiredExpectation of rewardEffort Required

fraction of selection Schramm’s idea of how media choices are made: the expectation of reward divided by the effort required

Schramm sought to make clear that audience members judge the level of reward (gratification) they expect from a given medium or message against how much effort they must make to secure that reward—an important component of what would later become known as the Uses and Gratifications perspective.

The second stage of Uses and Gratifications research began when researchers created typologies representing all the reasons people had for media use (

Table 23.2
). For example, Alan Rubin (1981) found that motivations for television use clustered into the following categories: to pass time, for companionship, excitement, escape, enjoyment, social interaction, relaxation, information, and to learn about a specific content. Other researchers as we’ve mentioned previously, (McQuail, Blumler, & Brown, 1972) asserted that media use could be categorized with only four basic divisions: diversion, personal relationships, personal identity, and surveillance.

Jay Blumler and another colleague, Denis McQuail (1969), began untangling reasons that people watch political programs. They found a number of motives for watching political broadcasts. This work formed an important foundation for researchers in Uses and Gratifications. Later work by McQuail, Blumler, and Joseph Brown (1972) and Katz, Gurevitch, and Hadassah Haas (1973) would begin to point out specifically how people see mass media. These teams of researchers found that there was a need either to connect with or to

410

Table 23.2 Uses and Gratifications Typologies

RESEARCHER

REASONS FOR MEDIA USE

Rubin (1981)

Passing time
Companionship
Excitement
Escape
Enjoyment
Social interaction
Relaxation
Obtaining information Learning about a specific content

McQuail et al. (1972)

Diversion
Personal relationships Personal identity Surveillance

Katz et al. (1973)

Connection with others Separation from others

disconnect from others. Researchers found categories of needs associated with acquiring information or knowledge, pleasure, status, strengthening relationships, and relax. As you will recall, Ryan Grant was trying to work through two simultaneous needs: the need for strengthening friendships and the need to relax.

In the third stage, Uses and Gratifications researchers have been interested in linking specific reasons for media use with variables such as needs, goals, benefits, the consequences of media use, and individual factors (Faber, 2000; Greene & Kremar, 2005; Haridakis & Rubin, 2005; Rubin, 1994). In this effort, researchers are working to make the theory more explanatory and predictive. Alan Rubin and Mary Step (2000) conducted a study that exemplifies this stage of UG research. Rubin and Step examined the relationship of motivation, interpersonal attraction, and

parasocial interaction

(the relationship we feel we have with people we know only through the media) to listening to public affairs talk radio. They found that motivations for exciting entertainment and information acquisition interacted with perceptions of the parasocial relationship to explain why listeners tuned in to talk radio and why they found a host credible.

parasocial interaction the relationship we feel we have with people we know only through the media

Currently, researchers using UGT are interested in how the theory operates with respect to newer media (e.g., Hunt, Atkin, & Krishnan, 2012; Kwak, 2012; Wang & Tchernev, 2012), and we will discuss this research a bit later in the chapter. In addition, contemporary research using UGT continues to explore how and why audiences consume traditional media for their own gratifications. For example, Darrin Brown, Sharon Lauricella, Aziz Douai, and Arshida Zaidi (2012) were interested in the motivations people had for watching crime dramas on TV. They found some support for the idea that people satisfied their curiosity through watching these shows. Other research has examined motives for listening

411

to contemporary Christian radio (Bentley, 2012), watching reality TV (Aubrey, Olson, Fine, Hauser, Rhea, Kaylor, & Yang, 2012), and reacting to the loss of a parasocial relationship due to the cancellation or other disruption of a TV series (Lather & Moyer-Guse, 2011).

Media Effects

The history of UGT has much to do with how researchers shifted and changed their positions on the media effects. As we explained previously, researchers moved from a position where they saw the media as very powerful to one where media effects were seen as more limited. Uses and Gratifications Theory moved even further to the position of the active audience and less powerful media. However, there was controversy about how in control audience members might be under the theory. Jay Blumler (1979), one of the originators of UGT, believed that some scholars had gone too far in describing the active audience. He argued that the theory meant to assert that even when audience members are active—even when they determine for themselves the uses they wish to make of mass media and the gratifications they seek from those uses—effects can and do occur. The failure of researchers in traditional Uses and Gratifications to consider the possibility of important media effects led the authors of the original work to chastise their colleagues 11 years later by noting that a “vulgar gratificationism” (Blumler, 1985, p. 259) should be purged from the theory. Blumler asserted that it was not the theorists’ intention to imply that audience members are always totally free in either the uses they make of media or the gratifications they seek from them; the world in which media consumers live shapes them just as surely as they shape it, and content does have intended meaning.

Blumler and his colleagues point to a second set of premises that make clear their belief that people’s use of media and the gratifications they seek from it are inextricably intertwined with the world in which they live. Elihu

Student Voices

Andre

It’s funny what some people think demands their attention—all the “infotainment” and reality shows on TV seem to be showing that people just really want to know about people partying on the Jersey shore or Kim and Kanye. The book talks about how people are hungry for information about a current event such as the presidential election or the shootings in Connecticut, but it seems like people care more about Lindsey Lohan’s latest crack-up than they do about real news. I’m not sure what the theory would say about this, but people’s motivations for watching TV seem only to be escapism now, and I don’t know if that’s our choice or just what media offers us.

412

Katz, Jay G. Blumler, and Michael Gurevitch (1974) originally wrote in developing UGT that “social situations” in which people find themselves can be “involved in the generation of media-related needs” (p. 27) in five ways. First, social situations can produce tensions and conflicts, leading to pressure for their easement through the consumption of media. That is, we live in the world, and events in it can compel us to seek specific media and content. For a time in 2012 nearly everyone was talking about Super Storm Sandy. It was a sizeable catastrophe in U.S. history, and all media provided a great deal of information about the natural disaster and the human problems that resulted. This was a social situation wrought with tension and conflict. Where did you go to ease the pressure? Did you seek out more information through TV, radio, or the Internet? Did you use social media sites (SNSs) to find out if your East Coast friends were safe?

Second, social situations can create an awareness of problems that demand attention, information about which may be sought in the media. Simply stated, the world in which we live contains information that makes us aware of things that are of interest to us, and we can find out more about those interests through the media. Everyone everywhere—work, school, virtually every social situation you entered—was talking about the storm and the rescue efforts. This problem demanded your attention. You probably turned to the media—for information, perspective, and analysis.

Third, social situations can impoverish real-life opportunities to satisfy certain needs, and the media can serve as substitutes or supplements. In other words, sometimes the situations in which you find yourself make the media the best, if not the only, source possible. Your social situation as a college student made it difficult, if not impossible, for you to go to New Jersey to see for yourself how the rescue was proceeding. You weren’t able to ask President Obama or other officials about available supplies and money, or whether political considerations held up important resources for the rebuilding efforts, as Governor Christie suggested. You needed to know what was going on in this disaster, but the reality of your position in society meant that you had little choice but to rely on the media to meet that need.

Fourth, social situations often elicit specific values, and their affirmation and reinforcement can be facilitated by the consumption of related media materials. Again, you are a college student. You are an educated person. The media offer an appropriate location for the affirmation and reinforcement of the knowledge and awareness that you value.

Finally, social situations demand familiarity with media; these demands must be met to sustain membership in specific social groups. As a college student, you are viewed as the future of our country. Not only should you have had an opinion about the government’s response to Sandy, but you should have had something to say about the media’s performance throughout that crisis. Lacking those opinions, you may have been regarded as out of it or uninformed.

In rejecting “vulgar gratificationism,” Katz and his colleagues (1974) note that we should ask three things. First, are the mass media instrumental in creating this social situation? What role did various media outlets play? Based on what information did we form our opinions? Second, are the mass media

413

instrumental in making the satisfaction of this situation’s related needs so crucial? Why, for instance, was it important to have an opinion at all? Who put this issue on the public’s agenda? Who determined that it was more important than any of the myriad events that were happening in the world?

Uses and Gratifications Theory and its assumptions gained acceptance for a number of reasons. First, the limited effects researchers began to run out of things to study. Once all the variables that limited media influence were chronicled, what was left to say about the process of mass communication? Second, the limited effects perspective failed to explain why advertisers spend billions of dollars a year to place their ads in the media or why so many people spend so much time consuming the media. Third, some observers speculate that people often decide whether specific media effects are desirable and intentionally set out to achieve those effects. If this is so, researchers ask, what does this say about limited effects? Finally, while many negative effects were documented by limited effects researchers such as the relationship between viewing mediated violence and subsequent aggressive behavior, positive uses of media were left unexamined.

These factors produced a subtle shift in the focus of those researchers working within the limited effects paradigm. Their attention moved from the things media do to people to the things people do with media. If effects occur at all, either positive or negative, it is because audience members want them to happen, or at least let them happen.

Key Terms

A theory that is based on the assumption that media consumers are active must delineate what it means by

“the active audience

.” Mark Levy and Sven Windahl (1985) deal with the issue this way:

As commonly understood by gratifications researchers, the term “audience activity” postulates a voluntaristic and selective orientation by audiences toward the communication process. In brief, it suggests that media use is motivated by needs and goals that are defined by audience members themselves, and that active participation in the communication process may facilitate, limit, or otherwise influence the gratifications and effects associated with exposure. Current thinking also suggests that audience activity is best conceptualized as a variable construct, with audiences exhibiting varying kinds and degrees of activity. (p. 110)

the active audience a variable concept focused on an audience engaging with the media on a voluntary basis, motivated by their needs and goals

Jay G. Blumler (1979) offers several suggestions as to the kinds of audience activity in which media consumers could engage. They include utility, intentionality, selectivity, and imperviousness to influence.

First, the media have uses for people, and people can put media to those uses. This is termed

utility

. People listen to the car radio or check an app on their cell phones to find out about traffic. They go online to download CDs. They read fashion magazines to find out about the latest styles.

Intentionality

occurs when people’s prior motivations determine their consumption of media content. When people want to be entertained, they tune in to comedy. When they want

utility using the media to accomplish specific tasks

intentionality a cognitive behavior that occurs when people’s prior motives determine use of media

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greater detail about a news story, they tune in to CNN or other news channels. The third type of audience activity is termed

selectivity

, which means that audience members’ use of media may reflect their existing interests and preferences. If you like jazz, you might listen to the jazz program on the local radio station. If you regularly surf the Web, you are a likely reader of
Wired. If you’re interested in local politics, you probably subscribe to the local paper or read local politicians’ blogs. Finally, an

imperviousness to influence

suggests that audience members construct their own meaning from content and that meaning influences what they think and do. They often actively avoid certain types of media influence. For example, some people buy products on the basis of quality and value rather than in response to advertising campaigns. Or they exhibit no aggression against others, no matter how much they enjoy action/adventure films and television shows.

selectivity audience members’ use of media reflects their existing interests

imperviousness to influence refers to audience members constructing their own meaning from media content

UGT also distinguishes between activity and activeness to understand better the degrees of audience activity. Although the terms are related,

activity

refers more to what the media consumer does (e.g., she chooses to go online for news rather than read it in the newspaper).

Activeness

is closer to what really interests researchers in Uses and Gratifications: the audience’s freedom and autonomy in the mass communication situation.

activity refers to what the media consumer does

activeness refers to how much freedom the audience really has in the face of mass media

Activeness is relative. Some people are active participants in the mass communication process; others are more passive. We all know people who live their lives through TV or who follow every fad and fashion presented in the mass media. Terms like
couch potato and
boob tube developed from the idea that many folks simply sit back and suck up whatever is presented. On the other hand, we also know people who are quite adroit at consuming media. Your friend may listen to rap because of the beat. You may listen to rap not only for its rhythms, but also for its social commentary. For you,
Zero Dark Thirty may have been an amazing action thriller with incredible photography. Your brother, however, may have interpreted it as social commentary about U.S. war policies.

Activeness is also individually variable. A person can be inactive at times (“I’ll just turn on the television for background noise”) and then become quite active (“The news is on! I’d better watch”). Our level of activeness often varies by time of day and type of content. We can be active users of the Internet by day and passive consumers of late-night talk shows on television.

Uses and Gratifications and the Internet, Social Media, and Cell Phones

In 1994, George Gilder predicted the way a hybrid of the television and the computer would affect our culture:

Rather than exalting mass culture, the teleputer will enhance individualism. Rather than cultivating passivity, the teleputer will promote creativity. Instead of a master-slave architecture, the teleputer will have an interactive architecture in which every receiver can function as a processor and transmitter of video images and other information. The teleputer

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will usher in a culture compatible with the immense powers of today’s ascendant technology. Perhaps most important, the teleputer will enrich and strengthen democracy and capitalism around the world. (p. 46)

In the years since Gilder’s predictions, some of what he suggests has come to pass. Television viewing has changed and can now be individually customized to a larger degree. It now must compete with multiple media, but much of what Gilder spoke of remains unrealized.

Although Gilder’s predictions are not (yet) reality, almost everyone expects that new media will continue to change our future. And, many researchers believe that UGT will be able to explain the ways that people use the Internet, SMS, as well as cell phone technology, and other media. As James Shanahan and Michael Morgan (1999) observed, there is an “underlying consistency of the content of the messages we consume and the nature of the symbolic environment in which we live” (p. 199) even if the delivery technology changes. They assert that new technologies have always developed by adopting the message content from the technology that was previously dominant. They argue, for example, that films took their content from serialized literature, radio did the same, and television simply repackaged radio programming. Marshall McLuhan (see

Chapter 26
) noted that new media merely provide new bottles for old wine. The question for Uses and Gratifications researchers is whether the motivations people brought to their use of “old” media will apply to “new” media. Theorists are interested in finding out whether new media so alters the message and the experience that Uses and Gratifications Theory no longer applies or has to be radically modified. Access to new technologies has changed and extended our abilities for entertainment and information gathering, and media researchers require greater understanding of the personal and social reasons people have for using new media.

Theory in Popular Press
•

Using Social Media

Boonsri Dickinson reported on the
Business Insider blog in 2012 that companies are getting smarter about how they use social media, and indeed, are able to target specific media for specific needs. Dickinson notes that a company called Grip has worked with other companies to satisfy the following specific gratifications:

• Using social media to help hedge funds analyze consumer sentiment about certain kinds of investments.

• Tracking tweets and Flickr shots to help firefighting professionals fight forest fires.

• Using Twitter in Mexico to help the government see crime reports and patterns.

• Using Twitter and Facebook to help agencies predict election results.

• Using Twitter to aid the CDC in predicting flu outbreaks among other things.

Source: Dickinson, B. (2012, March 19). Nine unusual ways social media is being used to predict the future,
Business Insider, businessinsider.com/9-ways-social-media-data-is-being-used-2012–3?op=1.

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In several studies investigating that premise, UGT was found to be useful in understanding cell phone use (Leung & Wei, 2000), social media use during evacuation after an emergency (Lev-On, 2012), computerized video game playing (Lucas & Sherry, 2004; Sherry, Lucas, Rechtsteiner, Brooks, & Wilson, 2001), and Internet use (Dimmick, Chen, & Li, 2004; Kaye & Johnson, 2004; Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000). However, some research (e.g., Anderson, 2011; Zeng, 2011) suggests that while the basic logic of UGT holds in studies of a variety of media, the exact list of gratifications will change based on the specific medium. For instance, Isolde Anderson found that people utilizing CaringBridge, an online resource offering personalized websites for those in need of care (e.g., those undergoing a serious illness, military deployment, adoption, etc.), reported at least two different kinds of gratifications from CaringBridge than for traditional media. These include spiritual support from a higher power and social presence, or feeling tied to the greater community.

Robert LaRose and Matthew Eastin (2004) suggest that Uses and Gratifications Theory can explain Internet use, but the theory can also be enhanced by the addition of some new variables such as expected activity outcomes and social outcomes. Expected activity outcomes concern what people think they will obtain from the medium. LaRose and Eastin found that people expect that using the Internet will improve their lot in life. Social outcomes involve social status and identity. LaRose and Eastin speculate that people may enhance their social status by finding like-minded others through the Internet and expressing their ideas to them. They also suggest that “perhaps the Internet is a means of constantly exploring and trying out new, improved versions of our selves” (p. 373). Some more recent research concurs with the approach of combining UGT with other models to fully explain newer media. A study examining e-book users (Shin, 2011) found that combining Uses and Gratifications with an expectancy model and Diffusion Theory provided useful results.

A few studies have examined how new media satisfy users’ gratifications compared to traditional media (e.g., Ha & Fang, 2012; Min & Kim, 2012). These studies found that media such as email and websites are perceived as superior to traditional media and provide more gratifications for both getting news and mobilizing people to action than do traditional media. This finding held true across cultures (Ayyad, 2011).

Integration, Critique, and Closing

Uses and Gratifications, as a recognizable, discrete theory, had its greatest influence in the 1970s and 1980s. The limited effects paradigm held sway at the time, and media theorists needed a framework within which they could discuss the obvious presence of media effects without straying too far from disciplinary orthodoxy. This is not the reason that Katz, Blumler, and Gurevitch formalized the approach, but it is why the approach took on its particular character.

Two other factors shaped how it would be and is now used. The first is the simple nature of its development. Its founders were interested in how people use media in quite specific situations. They were political scientists and sociologists,

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Student Voices

Mason

I thought the chapter-opening story about Ryan was so funny because I had the same internal debate last weekend. I was completely wiped, and I couldn’t decide if I just wanted to veg out in front of the TV or hang out with my friends. I knew I would miss seeing my friends if I stayed home, but the idea of letting mindless TV wash over me was really appealing because I’d had such a hectic week. Frankly, I was kind of sick of talking to people, so sitting and watching something amusing sounded good. I definitely was looking for “tension release.” But then my friends stopped by and convinced me to go to a movie with them. I guess I decided those “social integrative” needs were more important at that moment.

so their focus was on political and informational campaigns. They approached media as outlets of information rather than of symbols. It is only logical, then, that they envisioned the possibility—even the probability—of discerning, reflective audience members selecting the information they wanted and needed. Uses and Gratifications, therefore, is quite straightforward when discussing how people use newspapers (newspapers are made up of discrete sections, each aimed at a specific type of reader seeking specific types of information) or magazines (publications with very specific, demographically targeted readers) to come to some specific decision or judgment. Only recently (Weaver, Lariscy, Tinkham, & Sweetser, 2011) has the theory been applied to how people use the Internet for political information. Thus, the theory is experiencing a bit of a resurgence as researchers work to test its premises with new media. As you think about this theory, consider the following criteria: logical consistency, utility, and heurism.

Integration

Communication Tradition

Communication Context

Approach to Knowing

Positivistic/Empirical | Interpretive/Hermeneutic | Critical

Critique

Evaluation
Criteria

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Logical Consistency

Denis McQuail (1984) believes that the theory suffers from a lack of theoretical coherence. He thinks that some of the theory’s terminology needs to be further defined. He notes that the theory relies too heavily on the functional use of media, because there are times when the media can be reckless. For example, there have been instances of sloppy, inaccurate, or unethical journalism (see journalism.indiana.edu/resources/ethics/for case examples). In addition, new media allow for citizen journalism where anyone with a cell phone or a computer can publish ideas, allegations, and photos without the checks and balances or the training that accompanies professional journalism. Irresponsibility of the media or of citizen journalists is not addressed in the theory.

Utility

The theory has been criticized because some of its central tenets may be questionable. If the key concepts of the theory are shaky, then the theory is not useful—it isn’t really explaining anything. The notion of the active audience, which is critical to Uses and Gratifications, has been questioned by some critics.

Some researchers (Kubey & Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) note that people report that their television watching in particular is passive and requires little concentration. Furthermore, the theory seems to highlight a reasoning media consumer, one who does not accept everything the media present. The theory does not take into consideration the fact that individuals may not have considered all available choices in media consumption. For instance, Ryan Grant has considered two choices: stay at home or go out to the movies. What other options could he consider? Uses and Gratifications does not pay attention to the myriad unconscious decisions made by individuals.

Heurism

We can see that the heuristic nature of the theory is without question. The research has spanned several decades, and the theory has framed a number of research studies. In addition to the early pioneers Katz, Blumler, Gurevitch, and their colleagues, others have employed the theory and its thinking in their research on home computer use (Perse & Courtright, 1993; Perse & Greenberg-Dunn, 1998), the remote control (Bellamy & Walker, 1996; Ferguson, 1992), YouTube (Haridakis & Hanson, 2009), and the Internet (Morris & Ogan, 1996).

The value of Uses and Gratifications Theory today is in its ability to provide a framework for the consideration of the audience and individual media consumers in contemporary mass communication research and theory. Uses and Gratifications may not be the defining theory in the field of mass communication, but it serves the discipline well as a “perspective through which a number of ideas and theories about media choice, consumption, and even impact can be viewed” (Baran & Davis, 2003, p. 241).

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Discussion Starters

TECH QUEST: If social media sites, the Internet, and other forms of new media generate a completely new list of uses and gratifications than those discovered for traditional media, does that invalidate the theory? Is UGT still useful if its basic premises hold true when investigating new media? Is it more or less likely, in your opinion, that audiences on the Internet are active as UGT defines the active audience? Explain your answer.

1. Are there choices other than those identified for Ryan Grant to consider in his decision to do something on Friday night? How do these alternatives relate to Uses and Gratifications Theory? Use examples in your response.

2. How active a media consumer are you? Are you always thoughtful in your choice of media content? Do you bring different levels of activeness to different media—newspapers versus radio, for example?

3. UGT has been criticized for being too apologetic of the media industries and overly supportive of the status quo. Can you explain why this is so? Do you agree with these criticisms? Does such criticism have any place in scientific theory?

4. Uses and Gratifications Theory assumes that media present content and consumers consume it. How does the Internet threaten to disrupt this model? How might UGT adapt to allow for this transformation of traditional media consumers into online media users?

5. Discuss the relevance of UGT in the early twenty-first-century. Incorporate examples into your response.

6. What difference would it make, according to the theory, if Ryan’s movie choice was an action/adventure film and the main choices on TV were romantic comedies? How does Uses and Gratifications Theory account for media content?

7. Are there other uses and gratifications that people may get from media that the chapter doesn’t discuss? Explain your answer.

Online Learning Center

www.mhhe.com/west5e

Visit the Online Learning Center at

www.mhhe.com/west5e
for chapter-specific resources, such as story-into-theory and multiple-choice quizzes, as well as theory summaries and theory-connection questions.

Chapter 24 x

Chapter 24

Cultivation Theory

Based on the research of George Gerbner

Joyce Jensen

Joyce Jensen was preparing to vote for the very first time. She had been looking forward to this privilege since she was 12 years old. She considered herself a news junkie, and she was always reading news blogs such as
The Huffington Post and
The Drudge Report— she tried to get all sides of an issue. She continued to devour the morning newspaper and watch both local TV news and CNN. She made it a point to watch C-SPAN, a cable station dedicated to the world of politics. She knew that she was one of only a handful in her class who could identify all of the U.S. Supreme Court justices. She was ready to take some flak for being a news nerd because the world fascinated her. She wanted to be prepared for the right and responsibility of voting.

Now she was about to vote in her first local election. She was choosing between two candidates for her state’s governor. She had read a lot about the candidates and watched all the debates. Although she was still undecided, she was leaning toward Roberta Johndrew, the tough-on-crime candidate. Johndrew favored greater use of the death penalty, limits on appeals by people convicted of crimes, and putting more police on the street. Yet, Joyce thought that Frank Milnes, the education candidate, had some good ideas as well. Crime—in Joyce’s state and in the country as a whole—was down for the eighth consecutive year. And Milnes argued that, despite high-profile crimes like the tragic killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, according to FBI statistics all types of violent crime had actually been in decline for several years. Milnes argued that money being spent for more police, more prisons, and more executions would be better spent on improving schools. After all, Milnes asserted, more dollars in their state were being spent on incarceration than on educating young people. Better schools, he argued, would mean even less crime in the future. “What kind of state do we live in,” he demanded in his campaign literature, “when we refuse to give raises to our teachers and pay our prison guards more than our teachers?”

Those were powerful arguments, thought Joyce. She regretted that teachers were not getting paid commensurate with their expertise and responsibilities. She knew that she wanted to have children eventually, and she wanted them to get the best education possible. She could see how paying teachers more might help achieve that.

But as a young, single woman, these arguments were secondary to safety considerations. There seemed to be so much crime in the city. Every night when she watched the news on television, there seemed to be more crimes reported. She was often uncomfortable when she was out at night. At times, she even felt uneasy being at home alone. Maybe it is an irrational fear, she thought to herself, but it was there and it felt real.

As Joyce pondered how she would cast her vote in the booth, so much was going through her mind. She considered her present situation as a single woman as well as her desire for future children. She reflected on both Roberta Johndrew and Frank Milnes and their comments from the past several

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months. As she contemplated her options for another moment or two, she felt she would be able to make a good decision. So much depended on citizens making informed choices. Joyce was thrilled to exercise her right as a U.S. citizen.

As Walter Lippmann (1922) noted almost a century ago, people’s opinions transcend their lived experiences. George Gerbner (1999) agreed with this and observed, “[M]ost of what we know, or think we know, we have never personally experienced” (p. ix). This is possible, in large part, because of the impact of media and the stories told through the media that bring events and ideas to media consumers that are beyond their own realities (Northrup, 2010). We “know” many things from the stories we see and hear in the media (Buffington & Fraley, 2008).

One of the most popular media sources providing us with this information is television. Television holds a central place in our experience: In 2012,
Statistic Brain reported that 99 percent of households in the United States owned at least one television; and American children spent, on average 1,200 hours per year watching television compared to only 900 hours in school (statisticbrain.com/television-watching-statistics/). The theory profiled in this chapter, Cultivation Theory (CT), began as a way to test the impact that all this television viewing had on viewers, particularly with regard to violence. It is true that television has changed a great deal since it became widely available to U.S. viewers in 1948. Yet, despite dramatic transformations in technology and social systems, the model of cultivation developed by George Gerbner in the 1960s remains healthy and thriving (Morgan & Shanahan, 2010).

Gerbner began the Cultural Indicators Project in 1967 (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, Signorielli, & Shanahan, 2002), conducting regular, periodic examinations of television programming and the “conceptions of social reality that viewing cultivates in child and adult audiences” (Gerbner & Gross, 1972, p. 174). In initiating what would become known as Cultivation Theory, Gerbner and his colleagues were making a

causal argument

(television cultivates—causes—conceptions of social reality in people’s minds). Cultivation Theory is a theory that predicts and explains the long-term formation and shaping of perceptions, understandings, and beliefs about the world as a result of consumption of media messages. Gerbner’s line of thinking in Cultivation Theory suggests that mass communication, especially television, cultivates certain beliefs about reality that are held in common by mass communication consumers.

causal argument an assertion of cause and effect, including the direction of the causality

Cultivation researchers can easily explain Joyce Jensen’s voting quandary. Official statistics that indicate that violent crime is in steady decline are certainly real enough. But so, too, is Joyce’s feeling of unease and insecurity when she is alone. Cultivation Theory would refer to these feelings of insecurity as her social reality. Moreover, that reality is as real as any other for Joyce, and it is media fueled, if not media created and maintained.

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Iver Peterson (2002) made a similar observation about the anthrax scares in the United States post–September 11, 2001. He notes that although the media-fueled fears about anthrax are very pervasive and real, the actual cases of anthrax contamination are rare. Peterson quotes Clifton R. Lacy, commissioner of the NJ Department of Health and Senior Services, as saying that the risks to the citizens of New Jersey by anthrax spores are “vanishingly small” (p. A21). In the 1970s, Gerbner’s view that media messages alter traditional notions of time, space, and social groupings was a direct challenge to the prevailing thought that media had little, if any, effect on individuals and on the culture. Like Uses and Gratifications Theory, which we discussed in

Chapter 23
, Cultivation Theory was developed in response to the beliefs about the media’s limited effects that were dominant at the time. More important, however, it reflects media theory’s slow transformation from reliance on the transmissional perspective to greater acceptance of the ritual perspective of mass communication.

The

transmissional perspective

sees media as senders of messages—discrete bits of information—across space. This perspective and limited effects theories are comfortable partners. If all media do is transmit bits of information, people can choose to use or not use that information as they wish. In the

ritual perspective

, however, media are conceptualized not as a means of transmitting “messages in space”, but as central to “the maintenance of society in time” (Carey, 1975, p. 6). Mass communication is “not the act of imparting information, but the representation of shared beliefs” (p. 6).

transmissional perspective a position depicting the media as senders of messages across space

ritual perspective a position depicting the media as representers of shared beliefs

Developing Cultivation Theory

Gerbner first used the term
cultivation in 1969; however, Cultivation Theory, as a discrete and powerful theory, did not emerge for a number of years. It evolved over time through a series of methodological and theoretical steps by Gerbner and his colleagues and, as such, reflects that development. The method that Gerbner and others use to investigate questions of mass media cultivation is called Cultivation Analysis, and sometimes people use the terms
Cultivation Analysis and
Cultivation Theory interchangeably.

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During the 1960s, interest in media effects, particularly effects of television, ran very high. The federal government was concerned about media’s influence on society, especially media’s possible contribution to rising levels of violence among young people. In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson ordered the creation of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. It was followed in 1972, by the surgeon general’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior. Both groups examined media (especially television) and their impact (especially the effects of aggression and violence). Gerbner, a respected social scientist, was involved in both efforts.

Gerbner’s task was to produce an annual

Violence Index

, a yearly content analysis of a sample week of network television prime-time content that would show, from season to season, how much violence was actually present on television. Its value to those interested in the media violence issue was obvious: If the link between television fare and subsequent viewer aggression was to be made, the presence of violence on television needed to be demonstrated. Moreover, observers would be able to correlate annual increases in the amount of violent television content with annual increases in the amount of real-world violent crime. But, the index was immediately challenged by both media industry and limited-effects researchers. How was violence defined? Was verbal aggression violence? Was obviously fake violence on a comedy counted the same as more realistically portrayed violence on a drama? Why examine only prime-time network television, because children’s heaviest viewing occurs at other times of the day? Why focus on violence? Why not examine other social ills, such as racism and sexism?

Violence Index a yearly content analysis of prime-time network programming to assess the amount of violence represented

Gerbner and his associates continuously refined the Index to meet the complaints of its critics, and what their annual counting demonstrated was that violence appeared on prime-time television at levels unmatched in the real world. The 1982 Index, for example, showed that “crime in prime time is at least 10 times as rampant as in the real world (and) an average of five to six acts of overt physical violence per hour involves over half of all major characters” (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1982, p. 106).

Theory at a Glance
•

Cultivation Theory

Television and other media play an extremely important role in how people view their world because they tell us stories in a compelling fashion. In today’s society, most people get their information from mediated sources rather than through direct experience. Therefore, mediated sources can shape a person’s sense of reality. This is especially the case with regard to violence. Heavy television viewing cultivates a sense of the world as a violent place, and heavy television viewers perceive that there is more violence in the world than there actually is or than lighter viewers perceive.

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Assumptions of Cultivation Theory

In advancing the position that “the more time people spend ‘living’ in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality is congruent with television’s reality” (Riddle, 2010, p. 156), Cultivation Theory makes a number of assumptions. Because it was and still remains primarily a television-based theory, these three assumptions speak to the relationship between that medium and the culture:

• Television is essentially and fundamentally different from other forms of mass media.

• Television shapes our society’s way of thinking and relating.

• The influence of television is limited.

The first assumption of Cultivation Theory underscores the uniqueness of television. First, it requires no literacy, as do print media. Unlike the movies, it can be free (beyond the initial cost of the set and the cost of advertising added to the products we buy). Unlike radio, it combines pictures and sound. It requires no mobility, as do church attendance and going to the movies or the theater. Television is the only medium ever invented that is ageless—that is, people can use it at the earliest and latest years of life, as well as all those years in between.

Because it is accessible and available to everyone, television is the “central cultural arm” of our society (Gerbner, Gross, Jackson-Beeck, Jeffries-Fox, & Signorielli, 1978, p. 178). Television draws together dissimilar groups and can make them forget their differences for a time by providing them with a common experience. For example, in 2012, 4 billion people around the globe watched the Olympics in London. Regardless of their nationality, ethnicity, gender, politics, or other potentially divisive identities, these people had a common experience. In other words, television is the culture’s primary storyteller and has the ability to gather together different groups. In addition, no one can doubt the role that television has played in the United States working through the tragedies of 9-11, Super Storm Sandy, the shootings at the movie theatre in Colorado, among others.

The second assumption pertains to the influence of television. Gerbner and Gross (1972) comment that “the substance of the consciousness cultivated by TV is not so much specific attitudes and opinions as more basic assumptions about the ‘facts’ of life and standards of judgment on which conclusions are based” (p. 175). That is, television doesn’t so much persuade us (it didn’t try to convince Joyce Jensen that the streets are unsafe) as paint a more or less convincing picture of what the world is like (Riddle, Potter, Metzger, Nabi, & Linz, 2011). Gerbner agrees with Walter Fisher, whom we discussed in

Chapter 20
, that people live in stories. Gerbner, however, asserts that most of the stories in current society now come from television. In an interview with Gerbner posted on YouTube (youtube.com/watch?v=toc5KHWZx4A) he states that we get a stable vision of life from the stories on TV and this vision teaches us much about our fates. And, in many cases, our fates are scary and include victimization.

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Television’s major cultural function is to stabilize social patterns, to cultivate resistance to change. Television is a medium of socialization and enculturation. Gerbner and his cohorts eloquently state the following:

[T]he repetitive pattern of television’s mass-produced messages and images forms the mainstream of the common symbolic environment that cultivates the most widely shared conceptions of reality. We live in terms of the stories we tell—stories about what things exist, stories about how things work, and stories about what to do—and television tells them all through news, drama, and advertising to almost everybody most of the time. (Gerbner et al., 1978, p. 178)

Where did Joyce Jensen’s—and other voters’—shared conceptions of reality about crime and personal safety come from? Cultivation researchers would immediately point to television, where, despite a nationwide 20 percent drop in the homicide rate between 1993 and 1996, for example, the number of murder stories on the network evening news soared 721 percent (Kurtz, 1998). This distortion has continued in ways that the theory would predict. Barbara Wilson and her colleagues (Wilson, Martins, & Marske, 2005) found that parents who paid a great deal of attention to television news thought their children were more at risk for kidnapping than those parents who watched less TV. Yet, the Bureau of Justice Statistics rate of violent crimes among 12- to 17-year-olds since 1994 does not support this belief. The findings indicate that from 1994 to 2010 the rate of violent crimes against children ages 12–17 decreased for youth in married households by 86 percent and for those in unmarried households by 65 percent (White & Lauritsen, 2012). Further, kidnapping makes up less than 2 percent of all violent crimes against youth (Finklehor & Ormrod, 2000).

Based on this assumption, Cultivation Theory supplies an alternative way of thinking about TV violence. Some theories, like Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977), assume that we become more violent after being exposed to violence. Other approaches, like the notion of catharsis, would suggest that watching violence purges us of our own violent impulses and we actually become less violent. Cultivation Theory does not speak to what we will do based on watching violent television; instead, it assumes that watching violent TV makes us feel afraid because it cultivates within us the image of a mean and dangerous world.

The third assumption of Cultivation Theory states that television’s effects are limited. This may sound peculiar, given the fact that television is so pervasive. Yet, the observable, measurable, and independent contributions of television to the culture are relatively small. This may sound like a restatement of minimal effects thinking, but Gerbner uses an ice age analogy to distance Cultivation Theory from limited effects. The

ice age analogy

states that “just as an average temperature shift of a few degrees can lead to an ice age or the outcomes of elections can be determined by slight margins, so too can a relatively small but pervasive influence make a crucial difference. The ‘size’ of an ‘effect’ is far less critical than the direction of its steady contribution” (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1980, p. 14). The argument is not that television’s impact is inconsequential. Rather, although television’s measurable, observable, and independent effect on the culture at any point in time might be small, that

ice age analogy a position stating that television doesn’t have to have a single major impact, but influences viewers through steady limited effects

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impact is nonetheless present and significant. Further, Gerbner and his associates argue that it is not the case that watching a specific television program causes a specific behavior (e.g., that watching
NCIS will cause someone to kill a naval officer) but rather that watching television in general has a cumulative and pervasive impact on our vision of the world.

Processes and Products of Cultivation Theory

Cultivation Theory has been applied to a wide variety of effects issues, as well as to different situations in which television viewers find themselves. In doing so, researchers have developed specific processes and products related to the theory.

The Four-Step Process

To empirically demonstrate their belief that television has an important causal effect on the culture, cultivation researchers developed a four-step process. The first step, message system analysis, consists of detailed content analyses of television programming in order to demonstrate its most recurring and consistent presentations of images, themes, values, and portrayals. For example, it is possible to conduct a message system analysis of the number of episodes of bodily harm on such shows as
Law &
Order: SVU and
Criminal Minds.

The second step, formulation of questions about viewers’ social realities, involves developing questions about people’s understandings of their everyday lives. For example, a typical Cultivation Theory question is, “In any given week, what are the chances that you will be involved in some kind of violence? About 1 in 10 or about 1 in 100?” Another is, “Of all the crime that occurs in the United States in any year, what proportion is violent crime like rape, murder, assault, and robbery?” The third step, surveying the audience, requires that the questions from step two be posed to audience members and that researchers ask these viewers about their levels of television consumption.

Finally, step four entails comparing the social realities of light and heavy viewers. For Gerbner, a “cultivation differential” exists between light and heavy viewers and perceptions of violence. A

cultivation differential

can be defined as the percentage of difference in response between light and heavy television viewers. Gerbner (1998) explains that “amount of viewing” is used in relative terms. Thus, heavy viewers are those who watch the most in any sample of people that are measured, whereas light viewers are those who watch the least.

cultivation differential the percentage of difference in response between light and heavy television viewers

Mainstreaming and Resonance

How does television contribute to viewers’ conceptions of social reality? The process of cultivation occurs in two ways. One is mainstreaming.

Mainstreaming

occurs when, especially for heavier viewers, television’s symbols dominate other sources of information and ideas about the world. As a result of heavy viewing, people’s constructed social realities move toward the mainstream—not a mainstream in any political sense, but a culturally dominant reality that is more similar to television’s reality than to any measurable, objective external reality. Heavy

mainstreaming the tendency for heavy viewers to perceive a similar culturally dominant reality to that pictured on the media although this differs from actual reality

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viewers tend to believe the mainstreamed realities that the world is a more dangerous place than it really is, that all politicians are corrupt, that teen crime is at record high levels, that African American families are all on welfare, that illegitimate births are skyrocketing, and so forth. Jennifer Good (2009) found that a mainstreaming effect occurred when people who were concerned about the natural environment were also heavy TV consumers. The mainstreaming effect had the result of decreasing these viewers’ concerns about the environment.

Mainstreaming means that heavy television viewers of different co-cultures are more similar in their beliefs about the world than their varying group membership might suggest. Thus, African Americans and European Americans who are heavy television viewers would perceive the world more similarly than might be expected. As Gerbner (1998) states, “Differences that usually are associated with the varied cultural, social, and political characteristics of these groups are diminished in the responses of heavy viewers in these same groups” (p. 183). Jerel Calzo and Monique Ward (2009) found support for mainstreaming effects in their study of television viewing and attitudes toward homosexuality. They found that more exposure to media representation of gay characters tended to promote more acceptance of homosexuality.

The second way cultivation operates is through

resonance

. Resonance occurs when things on television are, in fact, congruent with viewers’ actual everyday realities. In other words, people’s objective external reality resonates with that of television. Some urban dwellers, for example, may see the violent world of television resonated in their deteriorating neighborhoods. As Gerbner (1998) notes, this provides “a ‘double dose’ of messages that ‘resonate’ and amplify cultivation” (p. 182). The social reality that is cultivated for these viewers may in fact match their objective reality, but its possible effect is to preclude the formation of

resonance a behavior that occurs when a viewer’s lived reality coincides with the reality pictured in the media

Theory in Popular Press
•

Effects of Resonance

Monica Davey reported in the
New York Times online that overall crime in the city of Chicago dropped by 9 percent in 2012, but the homicide rate actually increased by 16 percent in 2012. Furthermore, the increase in homicides and the drop in overall crimes was not distributed evenly across the city. Davey states “More than 80 percent of the city’s homicides took place last year in only about half of Chicago’s 23 police districts, largely on the city’s South and West Sides. The police district that includes parts of the business district downtown reported no killings at all.” Davey’s article focuses on the resonance between people’s experiences on the South and West Sides of Chicago and televised violence. As CT would predict, the article indicates that the people living through a mediated and a social reality of violence have little hope for a better future. Davey notes that “mothers spoke of keeping their children inside from the moment school ended, and businessmen of decisions to lock the front doors of their shops during business hours.”

Source: Davey, M. (2013, January 2). A soaring homicide rate, a divide in Chicago,
New York Times online, nytimes.com/2013/01/03/us/a-soaring-homicide-rate-a-divide-in-chicago.html.

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Figure 24.1 Effects of Mainstreaming and Resonance

Source: Adapted from Gerber et al., “The mainstreaming of America: Violence profile no. 11”
Journal of Communication, vol. 7 (1980), p. 16,

Figure 2
. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

a more optimistic social reality; it denies them hope that they can build a better life. See

Figure 24.1
for a representation of the effects of mainstreaming and resonance.

Cultivation, either as mainstreaming or as resonance, produces effects on two levels.

First order effects

refer to the learning of facts such as how many employed males are involved in law enforcement or what proportion of marriages end in divorce. For example, Joyce Jensen knew from candidate Milnes’s television spots that the amount of crime in her state was in decline.

Second order effects

involve “hypotheses about more general issues and assumptions” that people make about their environments (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1986, p. 28). Questions like, “Do you think people are basically honest?” and “Do you think police should be allowed to use greater force to subdue criminals?” are aimed at these second order effects.

first order effects a method for cultivation to occur; refers to learning facts from the media

second order effects a method for cultivation to occur; refers to learning values and assumptions from the media

The Mean World Index

A product of Cultivation Theory is the Mean World Index (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1980), which consists of a series of three statements:

1. Most people are just looking out for themselves.

2. You can’t be too careful in dealing with people.

3. Most people would take advantage of you if they got the chance.

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Cultivation Theory predicts that agreement with these statements from heavy and light viewers will differ, with heavy viewers seeing the world as a meaner place than light viewers. It also predicts that the amount of television viewing is the best predictor of people’s answers, overwhelming other kinds of distinctions among different people—for example, income and education.

Gerbner and his colleagues (1980) demonstrated the efficacy of their Mean World Index in a study that showed heavy viewers were much more likely to see the world as a mean place than were light viewers. Better-educated, financially better-off viewers in general saw the world as less mean than did those with less education and income. But in testing the power of television, the researchers demonstrated that heavy viewers from the better-educated, better-off groups saw the world as being as dangerous as did low-income and less-educated people. In other words, heavy viewers held a mainstreamed perception of the world as a mean place, regardless of factors such as education and income. Cultivation researchers see this as evidence that television content is a factor in the construction of social realities for heavy viewers, regardless of individual or social differences.

Gerbner and his associates identify a number of other areas where the two types of viewers might differ. They include their beliefs about the likelihood of involvement with a violent crime, their fear of walking at night, and their perceptions of law enforcement. The findings are intriguing. First, they found that people with light viewing habits believed that about 1 in 100 will be a victim of violence; heavy viewers of television predicted that about 1 in 10 will be involved in violence. Second, they found that more women than men were fearful of walking alone at night and that heavy viewers overestimated the amount of violent crime. Third, heavy viewers felt that 5 percent of the culture is involved in law enforcement, whereas light viewers felt that 1 percent is involved. Important to the logic of Cultivation Theory is that the responses of the heavy viewers mirror quite accurately the results of content analyses of television, where violence is usually recorded in heavy doses: Because violence is so common on television, heavy viewers are more likely to be fearful or mistrustful of the real world. Given what we’ve presented here, Joyce Jensen’s viewing habits may be influencing her thinking about her choice between Milnes and Johndrew.

Cultivation Theory as Critical Theory

Cultivation Theory has made an important contribution to contemporary thinking about mass communication. Horace Newcomb (1978), an early commentator about Cultivation Theory, wrote of Gerbner and his colleagues: “Their foresight to collect data on a systematic, long-term basis, to move out of the laboratory and away from the closed experimental model, will enable other researchers to avoid costly mistakes. Their material holds a wealth of information” (p. 281).

But just what is the role of television in our culture uncovered by the Cultivation Theory researchers? Cultivation theorists would argue that Joyce

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Jensen’s apprehension—and the vote for the tough-on-crime candidate it might produce—is based on a view of the world that is cultivated by television. Learning from television produces not only perceptions of a mean world (which researchers in Cultivation Theory argue become a self-fulfilling prophecy as people’s distrust of others breeds an atmosphere of further distrust) but also a warping of political, social, and cultural discourse. How many political candidates, they ask, have the courage to argue against the building of more prisons or against the death penalty? The issue is not the validity of these positions but the absence of meaningful, objective debate on them. The argument here is similar to that offered by Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann’s Spiral of Silence Theory, which we discussed in

Chapter 22
: People may be less willing to speak out about alternative approaches to crime and crime prevention because the media, especially television, cultivate a dominant social reality that renders these conversations out of step with the voters.

How can television be so powerful a force if its influence occurs as slowly as the coming of the ice age? Gerbner answers this question with his 3 Bs of television. Television, he wrote, blurs traditional distinctions of people’s views of their world, blends people’s realities into television’s cultural mainstream, and bends that mainstream to the institutional interests of television and its sponsors (

Table 24.1
). Television’s power rests in its utilization by powerful industries and elites to meet their own, rather than the culture’s, interests. Cultivation Theory is a critical theory, as we described it in

Chapter 3
, because it is concerned with the way that communication perpetuates the dominance of one group over another (Littlejohn & Foss, 2008). As James Shanahan and Victoria Jones (1999) argue,

Cultivation is sometimes taken as a return to a strong “powerful effects” view of mass media. This view isn’t completely incorrect, but it misses the point that cultivation was originally conceived as a critical theory, which happens to address media issues precisely and only because the mass media (especially television) serve the function of storytelling. (p. 32)

Cultivation Theory, as a critical theory, examines an important social institution (television) in terms of how it uses its storytelling function to serve ends

Table 24.1 The Three Bs of Television

TERM

DEFINITION

EXAMPLE

Blurring

Traditional distinctions are blurred.

Educated people see the world similarly to those who have less education.

Blending

“Reality” is blended into a cultural mainstream.

We agree on what’s real.

Bending

The mainstream reality benefits the elite.

We all want to buy more products.

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Student Voices

Nelly

I have to say that I have rarely seen a family like mine on TV. But, I am not sure that’s all bad. I have to see my family all the time so I don’t know if I want to watch people that look like us on TV for entertainment. My family is pretty boring and not really funny so I can’t imagine anyone would want to watch us. But, now that I think about it, it is annoying that no one on TV looks normal—even the people on so-called reality TV are so much better looking than the average person, I can’t believe it. It’s not as bad as violence, but it does cultivate the idea that people are supposed to look like super models.

other than the benefit of the larger society. In 1996, Gerbner helped found the worldwide Cultural Environment Movement to assist people in their struggle against powerful media industries. Its Viewers’ Declaration of Independence reads, in part,

Let the world hear the reasons that compel us to assert our rights and take an active role in the shaping of our common cultural environment. . . . Humans live and learn by stories. Today they are no longer hand-crafted, home-made, community-inspired. They are no longer told by families, schools, or churches but are the products of a complex mass-production and marketing process. (Cultural Environment Movement, 1996, p. 1)

Gerbner (1998) was deeply concerned with the effects created by stories told by agencies that do not aim to teach but rather aim to sell.

In addition, Cultivation Theory shares another characteristic with other critical theories: It is political; that is, in accepting its assumptions, its proponents must commit to doing something about the situation. George Gerbner has taken to heart the critical researcher’s call to action. In the mid-1990s, he developed the PROD (Proportional Representation of Diversity) index. The goal of the index was to examine the distortion in representation of various co-cultures “across the demography of the media landscape” (Shanahan & Morgan, 1999, p. 223). The index determined how well or poorly groups were represented on television relative to their numbers in the population. The first index Gerbner produced surveyed broadcast network programming and major Hollywood films for 1995–1996. Almost every group (women, African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, under age 18, over age 65, gay men and lesbians, disabled, and the poor or lower class) listed in the diversity index was grossly underrepresented in the media. The only group that was not was Native Americans, and this is probably explained by their relatively low population proportionally.

Gerbner took his critical role seriously and stated in a press release associated with the presentation of the index,

Far from being “quotas” to be imposed on creative people, the Index reflects the limitations on creative freedom in the television and motion picture industries. This is a “report card” of industry performance. We

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look forward to steady improvement in the diversity and equity of the cultural environment into which our children are born and in which they come to define themselves and others. (Gerbner, 1997, cited in Shanahan & Morgan, 1999, p. 223)

Gerbner believed it is important to highlight how the media industries reflect the needs and perspectives of dominant groups. A more recent report analyzing the 2001 fall session of network programing came to similar conclusions (UCLA Center for African American Studies, 2002).

Integration, Critique, and Closing

Gerbner and his colleagues have been influential in identifying television as a shaping force in society. Cultivation Theory helps explain the implications of viewing habits, and it has been a very popular theory in mass communication research. In a study conducted by Jennings Bryant and Dorina Miron (2004) surveying almost 2,000 articles published in the three top mass communication journals since 1956, the theory was the third most frequently utilized theory. As you think about Cultivation Theory, the following criteria for evaluation are addressed: logical consistency, utility, heurism, and test of time.

Integration

Communication Tradition

Communication Context

Approach to Knowing

Positivistic/Empirical | Interpretive/Hermeneutic |
Critical

Critique

Evaluation
Criteria

Logical Consistency

Critics who fault the logical consistency of CT note that the methods employed by Cultivation Theory researchers do not match the conceptual reach of the theory. They note that the research supporting Cultivation Theory employs social scientific methods typically identified with the transmissional perspective and limited effects findings. Yet, Cultivation Theory examines larger cultural questions most often raised by humanists. Horace Newcomb (1978) writes, “More than any other research effort in the area of television studies the work of Gerbner

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and Gross and their associates sits squarely at the juncture of the social sciences and the humanities” (p. 265). By asserting cultural effects, Cultivation Theory offends many humanists, who feel that their turf has been improperly appropriated and misinterpreted. “The question,” writes Newcomb, “‘What does it all mean?’ is, essentially, a humanistic question” (p. 266). Many humanists, quite at ease when discussing the relationship between literature (novels, art, music, theater) and culture, have great difficulty accepting television as the culture’s new, dominant “literature.” Further, many other researchers simply feel there is a mismatch in studying critical questions using empirical methods.

Utility

Cultivation Theory is also criticized because its claims are not always useful in explaining the phenomenon of interest: how people see the world (Mutz & Nir, 2010). Newcomb (1978) argues that violence is not presented as uniformly on television as the theory assumes, so television cannot be reliably responsible for cultivating the same sense of reality for all viewers. In addition, Cultivation Theory is criticized for ignoring other issues such as the perceived realism of the televised content, which might be critical in explaining people’s understanding of reality (Minnebo & Van Acker, 2004). Furthermore, other researchers (Wilson, Martins, & Marske, 2005) found that attention to television might be more important to cultivating perceptions than simply the amount of TV viewing. The fact that the theory seems to ignore cognitive processes such as attention or rational thinking style renders it less useful than is desired according to some researchers (Berger, 2005). More recent research (e.g., Martins & Harrison, 2012) suggests that theory should be refined to include demographic issues such as sex and ethnicity. They found that cultivation operated differently, and provided an interaction effect, among boys and girls and Blacks and Whites.

Heurism

When we examine Cultivation Theory against our criteria from

Chapter 3
, we find that it measures up quite well with regard to heurism. For example, the theory has been applied to crime (Signorielli, 1990), fear of victimization (Sparks & Ogles, 1990), attitudes toward racism (Lee, Bichard, Irey, Walt, & Carlson, 2009), feelings of alienation (Morgan, 1986), beliefs about DNA evidence (Brewer & Ley, 2010), anxiety (Zillman & Wakshlag, 1985), attitudes toward the justice system (Mutz & Nir, 2010), gender stereotyping (Kahlor & Eastin, 2011), affluence (Potter, 1991), the aged (Gerbner et al., 1980), American stereotypes (Tan, 1982), civil liberties (Carlson, 1983), divorce (Potter, 1991), materialism (Reimer & Rosengren, 1990), values (Potter, 1993), perceptions of doctors (Chory-Assad & Tamborini, 2003; Quick, 2009), health issues (Lee & Niederdeppe, 2011; Niederdeppe, Fowler, Goldstein, & Pribble, 2010), perceptions of adolescent drug use (Minnebo & Eggermont, 2007), and Spanish-language TV (Glascock & Ruggerio, 2004). According to Michael Morgan and James Shanahan (2010), 500 studies using CT have been published since its inception, and 125 of them were published between 2000 and 2010.

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Test of Time

As we’ve noted, Cultivation Theory is heuristic and long lasting, but two issues may be working against it almost 50 years after its inception. First, some studies based on its tenets are failing to find results consistent with the theory’s predictions. Leo Jeffres, David Atkin, and Kimberly Neuendorf (2001), for instance, found that heavy television viewing seemed to be cultivating more diversity of opinion about public issues rather than mainstreaming people’s perceptions as Cultivation Theory predicts. In other words, the three Bs that Gerbner and his colleagues discussed were not found in Jeffres, Atkin, and Neuendorf’s study. Jeffres and his colleagues called the effect they found “scatter-streaming” and noted that it provided weak support for Cultivation Theory. Consistent with the Mean World Hypothesis, they did find that heavier users of TV expressed a greater need for gun control than did lighter users.

Second, as James Shanahan and Michael Morgan (1999) observe, times and media use are changing: “As more and more people grow up with TV, it is possible that it will become increasingly difficult to discern differences between light and heavy viewers” (p. 161). In addition, as TiVo, DVDs, digital cable, and other technologies alter our manner of TV viewing, it is likely that some of the theory’s contentions will no longer hold true. For instance, if viewers can organize programming for themselves, it is unlikely that heavy viewing will mean the same thing for all viewers. Heavy viewing of cooking shows, for example, would be expected to cultivate a different reality from heavy viewing of soap operas or crime shows. Kathleen Beullens, Keith Roe, and Jan Van den Buick (2011) concur, finding that
what people watch on television is more important to the cultivation effect than simply the
amount they watch. Their research showed that teens who watched more TV news programs appeared to take fewer risks as drivers, but teens who watched more action shows exhibited more risk-taking behaviors while driving.

Cultivation offers responses to these criticisms. First, although there may be many more channels and people may have greater control over selectivity

Student Voices

Bree

I know that the criticisms of Cultivation Theory make sense. Gerbner came up with his ideas so long ago, and TV is completely different now than it was in the 1960s. Still, I have to think that some of what the theory says is true. I was so surprised to hear that violent crime was falling in the United States. I could have sworn it was on the rise. And I am thinking I get that idea because I do watch a ton of TV. And I watch a lot of crime shows:
NCIS, Law &
Order: SVU, and
Person of Interest are some of my favorites.

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than they once had, television’s dramatic and aesthetic conventions produce remarkably uniform content within as well as across genres. Second, because most television watching is ritual—that is, selected more by time of day than by specific program or the availability of multiple channels—heavy viewers will be exposed overall to more of television’s dominant images. Further, most viewers, even with dozens of channels available to them, primarily select from only five or six, evidencing a very limited range of selection.

Criticism aside, Cultivation Theory has been and remains one of the most influential mass communication theories of the last two decades. It is the foundation of much contemporary research and, as we’ve seen, has even become an international social movement. Another source of its influence is that it can be applied by anyone. It asks people to assess their own media use alongside the socially constructed reality of the world they inhabit. Imagine yourself as Joyce Jensen preparing to cast an important vote. You may well undergo the same mental debate as she. Yet, think of how even a passing understanding of Cultivation Theory might help you arrive at your decision and understand your motivations.

Discussion Starters

TECH QUEST: Gerbner and his colleagues constructed the theory of Cultivation Theory originally about television and later discussed other forms of media such as films. How do you think the theory operates with regard to social media? For instance, people post a lot of drinking party pictures on Facebook. Do you think that people who spend a lot of time visiting these Facebook pages would cultivate a view of reality that overemphasizes drinking behavior as CT would predict?

1. Are you like Joyce Jensen in that you do not feel safe walking in your neighborhood at night? How much television do you watch? Do you fit the profile offered by Cultivation Theory? Why or why not?

2. Cultivation Theory is a critical theory and demands action from its adherents. Do you believe researchers and theorists should become politically active in the fields they study? Why or why not?

3. Do you agree with the hypothesis concerning the Mean World Index? Why or why not?

4. How do you define violence on television? Do you think it is possible to calculate violent acts as Gerbner and his colleagues have done? Explain your answer.

5. Do you believe that the world is a mean place? What real-world evidence do you have that it is? What television evidence do you have that it is?

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6. How do you respond to the criticism that more television channels and more divisions among viewers mean that the assumptions of Cultivation Theory are no longer valid?

7. What other variables might affect people’s perception of the world in addition to their amount of television viewing?

Online Learning Center

www.mhhe.com/west5e

Visit the Online Learning Center at

www.mhhe.com/west5e
for chapter-specific resources, such as story-into-theory and multiple-choice quizzes, as well as theory summaries and theory-connection questions.

Chapter 25 x

Chapter 25

Cultural Studies

Based on the research of Stuart Hall

Luisa and John Petrillo

Luisa and John Petrillo have lived in the same trailer park for four years their with two young children.

They realize that the wages they earn as migrant workers will make it difficult for the two to own their own home. They appreciate that Mr. DeMoss, the owner of the egg farm where they work, has provided housing for them, but they wish that they could have more privacy so that their neighbors would not be able to hear every word they say in the evening. The Petrillos do not have any desire to leave their tiny town because they realize that jobs are not that plentiful in northern New England. So they get by in the trailer park, and still dream about a big backyard where their two kids and their dog, Scooter, can play.

The Petrillos’ dream often unfolds on the television shows they watch at night. Even though cable TV is expensive and not a necessity, they both love to watch shows that help them escape their daily routines. Watching TV, Luisa and John are bombarded with messages about interest rates being at an all-time low accompanied by relatively low home selling prices. Whether watching network or cable TV, they keep seeing the same commercials over and over again promoting home ownership as the American Dream. They watch infomercials that promote “Five Ways to Get Your American Dream.” They look at each other, wondering why they continue to live the way they do–two children, two bedrooms, and a common bathing area in the migrant camp. They both know that they don’t have the money to purchase a home, but they also know that they aren’t happy with the way things are.

Recently, DeMoss’s farm was investigated by the government for unsanitary living and working conditions. DeMoss was told to clean up the place and was threatened with daily stiff fines unless he improved the situation. Immediately, he had authorized spending a lot of money for individual lavatory facilities and began talking to the local grocery chain to work on establishing discounts to employees at the egg farm. As a gesture that will likely increase employee productivity and deter media attacks, DeMoss was also prepared to increase each worker’s paycheck by 15 percent by the end of the month. He also promised to help relocate families with children to more suitable accommodations.

The Petrillos were ecstatic. They dreaded the “communal” bathing area and welcomed more privacy for their children and themselves. They were very excited about the opportunity to save money on food, and, of course, they were thrilled that their paychecks would increase almost immediately. This, they thought, was the beginning of saving for their American Dream. They knew that they made just enough money to pay all of their bills, and now with the raise, the extra money would go into a rainy day fund that could eventually be used to purchase a home. For now, though, Luisa was excited about the chance to move to what DeMoss called “suitable” housing. “It has to be better than this,” she thought.

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We cannot overstate how much the U.S. culture relies on the media. Each day, for instance, millions of homes tune in to dozens of different “news” programs on television. And, although newspapers remain the top source for information on cultural events, most adults under the age of 40 rely upon a blend of sources (e.g., the Internet, social media, etc.) for their news (pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Local-news/Part-1.aspx).

Although the media have become the primary sources for how individuals learn about events around the globe (Baran, 2012), it is the manner in which the media report events that vary significantly. Some journalists depend on fact finding. Others rely on personal testimony or stories. Still others seek out experts to comment on events and topics as they unfold, whether they pertain to celebrity trials, natural disasters, refugees’ plight, war, terrorist attacks, or school shootings. In fact, a common template for following a school shooting, for instance, resulted from the coverage of the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting in which 26 students and teachers were killed. It is now predictable: First, the tragedy is usually reported in “real time,” that is, as it happens, via social media such as Twitter. Next, reporters interview witnesses to get first-hand accounts of the shootings. Finally, journalists gather experts on both sides of the gun control issue to assess whether gun control laws are sufficiently tough. This last effort involving experts seems to beg other questions about the media’s role in such events: Are they trying to convey a larger message about society in general? Is the reporting of images and stories done thoughtfully and conscientiously or is sensationalism a primary goal?

Reporting events with hidden or disingenuous ambitions has several implications. When the media fail to report all aspects of a story, someone or some group is inevitably affected. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the early coverage of AIDS, which was first diagnosed in the gay community. Edward Alwood (1997) notes that because most news editors did not consider gay deaths to be newsworthy, major news outlets (including the esteemed
New York Times) failed to provide coverage of the disease. In fact, the disease was killing far more people than the 34 who died from Legionnaires’ disease in 1976 and the 84 women who died of toxic shock syndrome in 1980. Yet, it wasn’t until the death of actor Rock Hudson in 1985 that major news stories were devoted to the subject of AIDS. By that time, however, more than 6,000 people had died from the disease. This perception has been reiterated more recently, and writers have further argued that the
New York Times executive editor assigned news stories that aimed to “demonize homosexuality” (huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/new-york-times-gays-lesbians-aids-homophobia_n_2200684.html). The media’s message related to the reporting of AIDS was implied but significant: Gay men are aberrant and their deaths are not newsworthy.

Theorist Stuart Hall questioned the role of the media and their frequently sensational, false, and misleading images. Unlike other communication theorists, however, Hall focused on the role of the media and their ability to shape public opinions of marginalized populations, including people of color, the poor, and others who do not reflect a White, male, heterosexual (and wealthy) point of view.

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For Hall, the personal is the political. A former high school teacher who taught English, math, and geography, Hall’s background likely influenced his conceptualization of cultural studies. He spoke of doing graduate work and, as a Jamaican, tried to understand his Jamaican culture and how it influenced his thinking and behavior (MacCabe, 2008). Hall was very much concerned with how “cultural forces” influenced the culture at large (Horowitz, 2012). This sort of posturing and orientation resonates throughout Cultural Studies.

Cultural Studies is a theoretical perspective that focuses on how culture is influenced by powerful, dominant groups. Cultural Studies is rooted in politics, but not the sort of electoral politics that characterize much of your understanding of politics. Rather, the theory is aligned with the politics of identity, namely the interplay between and among culture and race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and other markers of one’s identity (Hall, 2013). Unlike several other theoretical traditions in this book, Cultural Studies does not refer to a single doctrine of human behavior. In fact, Stuart Hall (1992) persuasively argues that “Cultural Studies has multiple discourses; it has a number of different histories. It is a whole set of formations; it has its own different conjunctures and moments in the past. . . . I want to insist on that!” (p. 278).

Cultural Studies has its background and its beginnings in Britain, although scholars in the United States have also advanced our understanding of Stuart Hall’s theory. As a cultural theorist and the former director of the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham in England, Hall (1981, 1989) contends that the media are powerful tools of the elite. Media serve to communicate dominant ways of thinking, regardless of the efficacy of such thinking. Cultural Studies emphasizes that the media keep the powerful people in control while the less powerful absorb what is presented to them. Luisa and John Petrillo, for instance, exemplify a marginalized group (the poor) who have been enamored by the American Dream of owning a home. Of course, Cultural Studies theorists would argue that the media—in this case, the infomercial sponsors—are taking advantage of a couple who will probably never have enough money to own a home. Yet, the message from the popular media is that it is possible. All that is needed, according to the message, is “good sense and good money.”

Cultural Studies is a tradition rooted in the writings of German philosopher Karl Marx. Because Marxist principles form the foundation of the theory, let’s look further into this backdrop. We then examine two assumptions of Cultural Studies.

Theory at a Glance
•

Cultural Studies

The media represent ideologies of the dominant class in a society. Because media are controlled by corporations (the elite), the information presented to the public is consequently influenced and targeted with profit in mind. The media’s influence and the role of power must be taken into consideration when interpreting a culture.

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The Marxist Legacy: Power to the People

Philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883) is generally credited with identifying how the powerful (the elite) exploit the powerless (the working class). He believed that being powerless could lead to

alienation

, or the psychological condition whereby people begin to feel that they have little control over their future. For Marx, though, alienation is most destructive under capitalism. Specifically, when people lose control over their own means of production (as happens in capitalism) and must sell their time to some employer, they become alienated. Capitalism results in a profit-driven society, and workers in a capitalistic society are measured by their labor potential.

alienation perception that one has little control over his or her future

Marx believed that the class system—a monolithic system that pervades all society—must be unearthed by the collective working class, or proletariat. He felt that laborers were often subjected to poor working and living conditions because the elite were unwilling to yield their control. As with Luisa and John Petrillo, laborers across society are constantly relegated to secondary status. The elite, or ruling, class’s interests become socially ingrained, and therefore people become enslaved in society. One of Marx’s principal concerns was ensuring that some revolutionary action of the proletariat be undertaken to break the chains of slavery and ultimately to subvert alienation under a capitalistic society. The capitalistic society, according to Marxist tradition, shapes society and the individuals within it (Weedon, 2004).

Marxist thinkers who believed the working class was oppressed because of corporate-owned media have been called the

Frankfurt School theorists

. These thinkers and writers believed that the media’s messages were constructed and delivered with one goal in mind: capitalism. That is, although the media might claim that they are delivering information for the “common good,” the bottom line (money) frames each message. Those affiliated with the Frankfurt School felt that the media could be considered an “authoritarian personality,” which meant that they were opposed to the male-centered/male-owned media. In fact, Herbert Marcuse, a Frankfurt thinker, was the leader of a group of social revolutionaries whose goal was to break down this patriarchal system.

Frankfurt School theorists a group of scholars who believed that the media were more concerned with making money than with presenting news

Student Voices

Wil

The 2012 election was fascinating to watch while I was studying Hall’s theory. It was interesting to read about how surprised some in the media were because President Obama was an “articulate” person in the debates. He loved his family, as if that was something that needed to be mentioned by the media. The ads attacking the President focused on welfare and food stamps. Some other commercials talked about Obama being “lazy.” In the end, I think those in power—the white men—(still) had a problem with a black man being President and they did everything they could to cut into his credibility.

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The application of Marxist principles to Cultural Studies is more subtle than direct. This has prompted some scholars to consider the theory to be more

neo-Marxist

, which means the theory diverges from classical Marxism to some extent. First, unlike Marx, those in Cultural Studies have integrated a variety of perspectives into their thinking, including those from the arts, the humanities, and the social sciences. Second, theorists in Cultural Studies expand the subordinate group to include additional powerless and marginalized people, not just laborers. These groups include gay men and lesbians, racial/ethnic minorities, women, and even children. Third, everyday life for Marx was centered on work and the family. Writers in Cultural Studies have also studied recreational activities, hobbies, and sporting events in seeking to understand how individuals function in society. In sum, Marx’s original thinking may have been appropriate for post–World War II populations, but his ideas now require clarification, elaboration, and application to a diverse society. Cultural Studies moves beyond a strict, limited interpretation of society toward a broader conception of culture.

neo-Marxist limited embracement of Marxism

Now that you have a brief understanding of how Hall and other theorists in Cultural Studies were influenced by the writings of Marx, we examine two primary assumptions of Cultural Studies.

Assumptions of Cultural Studies

Cultural Studies is essentially concerned with how elite groups such as the media exercise their power over subordinate groups. The theory is rooted in a few fundamental claims about culture and power:

• Culture pervades and invades all facets of human behavior.

• People are part of a hierarchical structure of power.

The first assumption pertains to the notion of culture, a concept we addressed in

Chapter 2
. To review, we identified culture as a community of meaning. In Cultural Studies, we need a slightly modified interpretation of the word, one that underscores the nature of the theory. The various norms, ideas, values, and forms of understanding in a society that help people interpret their reality are part of a culture’s

ideology

. According to Hall (1981), ideology refers to “those images, concepts and premises which provide the frameworks through which we represent, interpret, understand, and ‘make sense’ of some aspect of social existence” (p. 31). Hall believes that ideologies include the languages, the concepts, and the categories that different social groups collect in order to make sense of their environments.

ideology framework used to make sense of our existence

To a great extent, cultural practices and institutions permeate our ideologies. We cannot escape the cultural reality that, as a global community, actions are not performed in a vacuum. Graham Murdock (1989) emphasizes the pervasiveness of culture by noting that “all groups are constantly engaged in creating and remaking meaning systems and embodying these meanings in expressive forms, social practices, and institutions” (p. 436). Interestingly, however, Murdock notes, being part of a diverse cultural community often results

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in struggles over meaning, interpretation, identity, and control. These struggles, or

culture wars

, suggest that there are frequently deep divisions in the perception of the significance of a cultural issue or event. Individuals often compete to help shape a nation’s identity. For example, both nonsupporters and supporters of same-sex marriage want to interpret what “marriage” is. One wants to define marriage in traditional (man–woman) ways and the other wishes to define it in less tangible (love) ways. Both groups strive to make their meanings dominant. This struggle takes place not only in the courts, but also in the media.

culture wars cultural struggles over meaning, identity, and influence

In addition to the various ideologies, Dreama Moon (2008) notes that culture includes a number of diverse activities of a population. In the United States, there are many behaviors, some done daily and others less frequently. For instance, it is common for men to ask women out on a date, for families to visit one another during holidays, and for people to attend religious services at least once a week. There are also more mundane behaviors, such as getting your driver’s license renewed, running on the treadmill, pulling weeds from your garden, or listening to the radio while driving home from work. For those interested in Cultural Studies, it is crucial to examine these activities to understand how the ideology of a population is maintained. Paul du Gay, Stuart Hall, Linda Janes, Hugh Mackay, and Keith Negus (1997) explain that these practices intersect to help us understand the production and dissemination of meaning in a culture. At the same time, the meaning of a culture is reflected by such practices. Culture, then, cannot be separated from meaning in society.

Meaning in our culture is profoundly sculpted by the media. The media could simply be considered the technological carrier of culture, but as this chapter will point out, the media are so much more. Consider the words of Michael Real (1996) regarding the media’s role in U.S. culture: “Media invade

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our living space, shape the taste of those around us, inform and persuade us on products and policies, intrude into our private dreams and public fears, and in turn, invite us to inhabit them” (pp. xiii–xiv). No doubt, for example, that the media contain both intentional and unintentional messages that entice the Petrillos to accept mediated interpretations of what constitutes the American dream of home ownership.

A second assumption of cultural theory pertains to people as an important part of a powerful social hierarchy. Power operates at all levels in society. However, power in this sense is not role-based, as we considered it in our discussion of Structuration Theory in

Chapter 15
. Rather, Hall is interested in the power held by social groups or the power between groups. Meaning and power are intricately related, for as Hall (1989) contends, “meaning cannot be conceptualized outside the field of play of power relations” (p. 48). In keeping with the Marxist tradition, power is something that subordinate groups desire but cannot achieve. Often there is a struggle for power, and the victor is usually the person at the top of the social hierarchy. An example of what we are discussing here can be observed in the U.S. culture’s preoccupation with beauty. Theorists in Cultural Studies would contend that because beauty is often defined as thin and good looking, anyone not matching these qualities would be considered unattractive. Hall may believe that the attractive people—those usually at the top of the social hierarchy—are able to wield more power than those at the bottom (the unattractive).

It appears that the ultimate source of power in our society is the media. Hall (1989) maintains that the media are simply too powerful. He is not shy in his indictment of the media’s character by calling the media dishonest and “fundamentally dirty” (p. 48). In a diverse culture, Hall argues, no institution should have the power to decide what the public hears. Gary Woodward (1997) draws a similar conclusion when he states that there is a tradition whereby journalists serve as guardians of the nation’s cultural activities: If the media deem something to have importance, then something has importance; an otherwise unimportant event suddenly carries importance. Today, the Society of Professional Journalists (

www.spj.org
) asserts that bloggers have now emerged as society’s cultural guardians.

Let’s revisit our story of Luisa and John Petrillo. Theorists in Cultural Studies would argue that as members of a minority population, the Petrillos have been inherently relegated to a subordinate position in society. Their work environment—as migrant workers on a large egg farm—is the product of a capitalistic society, one in which laborers work under difficult conditions. Although they will inevitably have difficulty owning their own home because of their low wages, writers in Cultural Studies would point to the media’s barrage of images and stories touting the American Dream. Although the message may convey hope for the Petrillos, their dream of owning their own home might better be called a fantasy because the elite power structure (the media) does not honestly convey the reality of their circumstances. Likely unknown to the Petrillos is the fact that the media are a tool of the dominant class. The future of Luisa and John Petrillo, then, will overtly and covertly be influenced by the ruling class.

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Hegemony: The Influence on the Masses

The concept of hegemony is an important feature of Cultural Studies, and much of the theory rests on an understanding of this term. Scott Lash (2007) contends that “from the beginnings of cultural studies in the 1970s, ‘hegemony’ has been perhaps the pivotal concept” (p. 55).

Hegemony

can be generally defined as the influence, power, or dominance of one social group over another. The idea is a complex one that can be traced back to the work of Antonio Gramsci, one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party who was later imprisoned by the Italian fascists. Writers in Cultural Studies have called Gramsci a “second progenitor Marxist” (Inglis, 1993, p. 74) because he openly questioned why the masses never revolted against the privileged class:

hegemony the domination of one group over another, usually weaker, group

The study of hegemony was for him [Gramsci], and is for us, the study of the question why so many people assent to and vote for political arrangements which palpably work against their own happiness and sense of justice. What on earth is it, in schools or on the telly [television], which makes rational people accept unemployment, killing queues [wards] in hospitals, ludicrous waste on needless weaponry, and all the other awful details of life under modern capitalism? (Inglis, 1993, p. 76)

Gramsci’s notion of hegemony was based on Marx’s idea of

false consciousness

, a state in which individuals are unaware of the domination in their lives. Gramsci contended that audiences can be exploited by the same social system they support (financially). From popular culture to religion, Gramsci felt the dominant groups in society manage to direct people into complacency. Consent is a principal component of hegemony. Consent is given by populations if they are given enough “stuff” (e.g., freedoms, material goods, etc.). Ultimately, people will prefer to live in a society with these “rights” and consent to the dominant culture’s ideologies.

false consciousness Gramsci’s belief that people are unaware of the domination in their lives

The application of Gramsci’s thinking on hegemony is quite applicable to today’s society. Under a hegemonic culture, some profit (literally) while others lose out. What happens in hegemonic societies is that people become susceptible to a subtle imbalance in power. That is, people are likely to support tacitly the dominant ideology of a culture. The complexity of the concept is further discussed by Hall (1989). He notes that hegemony can be multifaceted in that the dominant, or ruling, class is frequently divided in its ideologies. That means that during the subtle course of being influenced, the public may find itself pushed and pulled in several directions. Unraveling such complexity is one goal of researchers in Cultural Studies.

Hegemony can be further understood by looking at today’s corporate culture, where—using Marx’s thinking—ruling ideas are ideas of the ruling class. In most corporate cultures, decision making is predominantly made by White, heterosexual males, a fact made even more compelling when examining the fact that less than 99 percent of Fortune 500 companies have male CEOs (money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2011/womenceos/). Hall challenges this dominant way of thinking and relating and argues that a homogenous leadership may simply lead to a subordination of the people (workers).

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How is consciousness raised and how is new consciousness presented? Perhaps it is the language used in an organization, for as Hall (1997) states, “Language in its widest sense is the vehicle of practical reasoning, calculation, and consciousness, because of the ways by which certain meanings and references have been historically secured” (p. 40). People must share the same way of interpreting language; however, Hall notes that meanings change from one culture or era to another. So what exists in one organizational setting may not exist in another.

What all this means is that there are multiple ideologies in a society as complex as the United States. This translates into what Hall calls a

theatre of struggle

, which means that various ideologies in society compete and are in temporary

theatre of struggle competition of various cultural ideologies

Theory in Popular Press
•

Tobacco Companies and Child Labor

One of the globe’s largest and most profitable industries is tobacco. In an essay from
The Guardian, a leading U.K. newspaper, Kristin Palitza underscores one of the leading notions related to Cultural Studies: the exploitation of laborers by large corporate behemoths. Palitza features a five-year-old who works every day with his parents in Malawi’s “tobacco district.” The young boy doesn’t attend school and his 12-year-old sister rarely attends school because of coughing, chest pains, and ongoing headaches. The author posits that there are 80,000 child tobacco workers in Malawi who suffer from nicotine poisoning. Farm owners deny knowing about the dangers and more importantly, tobacco corporate giants Philip Morris and British American Tobacco claim that they do not employ children in their operations. Nonetheless, Palitza reports, the “intermediaries” who purchase tobacco “make it difficult to trace the country from which they buy the [tobacco leaf].” In fact, “the tobacco giants, who all have anti-child labour policies in place, insist they abide by the rules.” In other words, no one is taking responsibility for the growing nicotine poisoning in Malawi youth, children who often work 12-hour days and who may receive an average of $0.25 for a day’s work.

In spite of both the financial (70 percent of exports earnings come from tobacco) and health (40 percent of Malawians live below the poverty line of $1.25 a day) consequences, Palitza reports that the Malawi government remains complicit; most violators receive a $34.00 fine. Most Cultural Studies theorists would agree with a researcher at the University of California tobacco control research and education center: “If major tobacco companies were genuinely committed to improving the socio-economic conditions of child workers, they should rectify harmful business practices by enforcing a policy that they will not purchase any tobacco grown using child labor.”

Source: Palitza, K. (2011, September 14). Child labour: The tobacco industry’s smoking gun.
The Guardian online, guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/sep/14/malawi-child-labour-tobacco-industry.

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states of conflict. Thus, as attitudes and values on different topics shift in society, so do the various ideologies associated with these topics. For example, think about what it meant to be a woman before 1920 and what it means to be a woman today. Before 1920, women were unable to vote and were generally regarded as subordinate and subservient to men. Then in August 1920, the amendment giving women the right to vote was ratified. Today, of course, women not only vote but also hold high political office. Although U.S. society still does not provide entirely equal opportunity for women, and women continue to be targets of discrimination, the culture and ideology pertaining to women’s rights have changed with the times.

Hegemony is but one component of the intellectual currents associated with Cultural Studies. Although people (audiences) are frequently influenced by dominant societal forces, at times hegemonic tendencies will emerge in the population. We explore this notion further.

Counter-Hegemony: The Masses Start to Influence the Dominant Forces

We have noted that hegemony is one of the core concepts associated with Cultural Studies. Yet, audiences are not always duped into accepting and believing everything presented by the dominant forces. At times, audiences will use the same resources and strategies of dominant social groups. To some extent, individuals will use the same practices of hegemonic domination to challenge that domination. This is what Gramsci called

counter-hegemony

counter-hegemony when, at times, people use hegemonic behaviors to challenge the domination in their lives

Counter-hegemony becomes a critical part of Cultural Studies thinking because it suggests that audiences are not necessarily willing and compliant. In other words, we—as audience members—are always the dumb and submissive people some have us made out to be! Danny Lesh of the Counter Hegemony Project, writes in
Counter Heg (a newsletter dedicated to the counter-hegemonic movement, available at: lesstreet/com/dan/counterheg) that part of the goal of counter-hegemony “is to understand history from other lenses, particularly from women’s, workers’, and racial minorities’ perspectives.” That is, in counter-hegemony, researchers try to raise the volume on muted voices. Think of counter-hegemony as a point where individuals recognize their consent and try to do something about it.

Counter-hegemonic messages, interestingly enough, occur quite a bit in television programming, affecting viewers in subtle ways. In particular, two shows—
The Cosby Show and
The Simpsons—exemplify counter-hegemony. While both shows may appear to be nothing but entertainment exemplars, they both, in their own ways, demonstrate how television content challenges the priorities established by the dominant forces, and subsequently, influence viewer attitudes and behaviors.

With respect to
The Cosby Show, the number 1 show on TV in the 1980s and 1990s, Bishetta Merrit (1991) notes that in an effort to defy social stereotypes, this television family featured dual-career couples/parents, one an obstetrician and the other an attorney. In addition, instead of having five children who

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argued all the time, Herman Gray (1989) claimed that in almost every episode, the children were taught the values of honesty, respect, and responsibility. Jennifer Fogel (2012) suggests that the father defies cultural expectations by being concerned with child rearing and domestic duties. Finally, the show was an educational tool as well, referencing many historically Black colleges, playing music by Black artists (e.g., jazz and rap), and depicting symbols of African American heritage. To this end, the show was an effort to dispel the messages that the media elite were presenting on nightly news: the absent father, the uneducated family members, and the poverty-ridden living environment. Counter-hegemony, then, takes shape with the presentation of the Cosbys as “Black America.”

The Simpsons, the longest-running comedy on television, also contains satiric counter-hegemonic messages aimed at showing that individuals who are dominated use the same symbolic resources to challenge that domination. The relevance of
The Simpsons to the lives of people has been persuasively argued. Tim Delaney (2008) succinctly notes that the show reveals so much about us because so much of the show intersects with the social institutions (family, school, jobs, houses of worship, etc.) to which we belong. The show has included references to such diverse topics as talk shows, Kafka, the Beatles, Tennessee Williams, same-sex marriage, the invention of television, and hormone therapy! The core cast of characters—Marge (mother), Homer (father), Bart (son), Lisa (daughter), and Maggie (infant daughter)—all present different counter-hegemonic messages. For Marge, although cultural representations of a homemaker/housewife suggest a doting and supportive wife and mother, she is arguably the most independent of all the characters. She has tried a number of other professions, from police officer to protester against handgun violence. Homer, an employee at a local nuclear power plant, shows that despite what the government may tell us about the safety of these facilities, people like Homer continue to stay employed. Lisa, contesting societal expectations that a child should be seen and not heard, shows that she is intellectually curious, artistically savvy, and environmentally aware.

One of the more central characters of the show is Bart Simpson. Interestingly, although society tends to shut down boys of Bart’s age (and girls to some extent), Bart manages to shut down the same society that tries to subdue him. His pranks range from harassing a local bar with sophomoric phone calls to disrespecting his grade school principal to calling his father by his first name. In the end, however, despite the 20 minutes of chaos, the family members show that they have high regard for one another in personal ways. As Carl Matheson (2001) notes, the show advocates “a moral position of caring at the level of the individual, one which favors the family over the institution” (p. 4).

A closer look at the television series illustrates other counter-hegemonic tones. Brian Ott (2003), for example, calls
The Simpsons the “anti-show show” (p. 58). He states that
“The Simpsons has always represented a sort of anti-show, spoofing, challenging, and collapsing the traditional codes, structures, and formulas of network television” (p. 59). Ott contends that the characters of Bart, Homer, and Lisa help viewers understand “lessons about selfhood” (p. 61) and that the show is watched by a number of different cultural communities,

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including Whites, African Americans, and Hispanics. Ott and other scholars contend that the show has managed to transcend traditional images of the family that demonstrated and embraced patriarchal control. Indeed, a close examination of the series shows that children are frequently viewed as subverting or overthrowing parental control and asserting dominance in their family.
The Simpsons continues to challenge prevailing religious, political, and cultural notions that the family is weakening.

Audience Decoding

No hegemonic or counter-hegemonic message can exist without an audience’s ability to receive the message and compare it with meanings already stored in their minds. This is called

decoding

, the final topic of Cultural Studies we wish to address. When we receive messages from others, we decode them according to our perceptions, thoughts, and past experiences. So, for instance, when Luisa Petrillo, from our chapter-opening story, interprets information on purchasing a home, she is relying on several mental behaviors. These include her desire to have a home, her conversations with people who have already purchased a home, her library visits, and the fact that she and her family have never owned a home. Luisa will store the information she receives pertaining to a new home and retrieve it when someone engages her in a conversation on the topic. All of this is done instantaneously; that is, she will make immediate decisions about how to interpret a message once she receives it.

decoding receiving and comparing messages

Decoding is central to Cultural Studies. But, before we delve further into this, let’s review the gist of Cultural Studies up to this point. You will recall that the public receives a great deal of information from the elite and that people unconsciously consent to what dominant ideologies suggest. Theorists reason that the public should be envisioned as part of a larger cultural context, one in which those struggling for a voice are oppressed (Budd & Steinman, 1992). As we discussed previously, hierarchical social relations (between the elite bosses and the subordinate workers, for example) exist in an uneven society. This results in subordinate cultures decoding the messages of the ruling class. Usually, according to Hall, the media connote the ruling class in Western society. Hall (1980a) elaborates on how decoding works in the media. He recognizes that an audience decodes a message from three vantage points, or positions: dominant-hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional. We explore each of these next.

Hall claims that individuals operate within a code that dominates and exercises more power than other codes. He terms this the

dominant-hegemonic position

. The professional code of television broadcasters, for instance, will always operate within the hegemony of the dominant code. Hall relates that professional codes reproduce hegemonic interpretations of reality. This is done with subtle persuasion. Consider John and Luisa Petrillo from our, opener. The television images of owning a home prompt the Petrillos to believe that owning a home is within their reach. The selection of words, the presentation of pictures, and the choice of spokespeople in infomercials are all part of the staging in the professional code. Audiences, like the Petrillos, are prone to either

dominant-hegemonic position operating within a code that allows one person to have control over another

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misunderstanding a message or selectively perceiving only certain parts of a message. Why? Hall writes, “The viewer does not know the terms employed, cannot follow the complex logic of argument or exposition, is unfamiliar with the language, finds the concepts too alien or difficult or is foxed by the expository narrative” (1980a, p. 135). Television producers are worried that people like the Petrillos will not accept the intended and preferred media message of owning a home. They (the media) therefore place their professional code placed in the larger, dominant cultural code of meaning. This ensures that John and Luisa Petrillo will work toward buying a home.

The second position is a

negotiated position

; audience members are able to accept dominant ideologies, but will operate with some exceptions to the cultural rule. Hall holds that audience members always reserve the right to apply local conditions to large-scale events. This happens frequently when the media report on laws that are enacted at the national level and interpreted at the state or community level. For example, Hall might argue that although audiences may accept the elite’s interpretation of a welfare reform bill in Washington, DC (“All people should work if they are able to”), they may have to negotiate when it does not coincide with a local or personal principle (“Children need parents at home”). Hall notes that due to the difficulty of negotiations, people are prone to communication failures.

negotiated position accepting dominant ideologies, but allowing for cultural exceptions

The final way in which audiences decode messages is by engaging in an oppositional position. An

oppositional position

occurs when audience members substitute an alternative code for the code supplied by the media. Critical consumers reject the media’s intended and preferred meaning of the message and instead replace it with their own way of thinking about a subject. Consider, for instance, the manner in which the media communicate feminine images of beauty. To many, the media present feminine beauty as a way to serve the sexual desire of men (Reimer & Ahmed, 2012). Some consumers, however, reject this capitalistic message and substitute more realistic portrayals.

oppositional position substituting alternative messages presented by the media

Hall accepts the fact that the media frame messages with the covert intent to persuade. Audience members have the capacity to avoid being swallowed up in the dominant ideology, yet, as with the Petrillo family, the messages the audience receives are often part of a more subtle campaign. Theorists in Cultural Studies do not suggest that people are gullible, but rather that they often unknowingly become a part of the agenda of others (Hall, 1980b).

Integration, Critique, and Closing

Although Cultural Studies began at the CCCS in England, its influence on writers, researchers, and theorists in the United States has been profound. The theory has attracted the attention of critical theorists in particular because it is founded on the principles of criticism. Its Marxist influence has also drawn scholars from philosophy, economics, and social psychology, and its emphasis on underrepresented groups in society has enticed writers in sociology and women’s studies to take notice (Long, 1989). For additional criticism, we discuss three criteria for evaluating a theory: logical consistency, utility, and heurism.

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Integration

Communication Tradition

Communication Context

Approach to Knowing

Positivistic/Empirical |
Interpretive/Hermeneutic |
Critical

Critique

Evaluation
Criteria

Logical Consistency

Despite some glowing endorsements, the logical consistency of the theory has been challenged. This criticism relates to the audience. Even though some audiences resist the role of dupe, are they able to become interpretive and active resisters? In other words, to what extent can audiences be counter-hegemonic? Mike Budd, Robert Entman, and Clay Steinman (1990) suggest that some cultural and critical theorists overestimate the ability of oppressed and marginalized populations to escape their culture. Particularly those communities that lack the skills, insights, and networks, escaping is very difficult. In fact, as we consider the television-viewing habits of people like the Petrillos from our chapter opening, counter-hegemony may not even be considered. That is, the family may simply be repackaging and reframing the information they receive about home ownership and critically applying relevant information to their lives (Bignell, 2013). This dialogue is not likely to go away because “debates over the audience were once, and continue to be, a major field of contestation in cultural studies” (Kellner & Hammer, 2004, p. 79).

Utility

Cultural Studies “makes up a vehicle that can alter our self-image” (Carey, 1989, p. 94). Therefore, it’s possible to translate some of the theory into daily life, making it useful to some extent. Its utility can also be found in its dedication to studying the cultural struggles of the underprivileged. According to Hall (1997), these populations have remained subordinate for too long. By concentrating on these marginalized social groups, a number of subfields have emerged, namely, ethnic studies and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender studies (Surber, 1998). In fact, there are entire undergraduate, graduate, and certificate programs of study, all under the auspices of “Cultural Studies” (Smith, 2011). Hall’s theory has been

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Student Voices

Mirri

When someone said that Stuart Hall was concerned with oppression, I couldn’t help but think of my own background in Haiti. The country is very poor, and we don’t have a lot of resources like the United States. We rely on other countries a lot, which makes the dominance of the elites over ordinary people pretty common. The government acts like the people’s voice is important, but everyone knows that simply is not the case. Media there are controlled by the government in a lot of ways and tells people both truthful and deceitful things. It’s a perfect example of the dominance over the masses.

called “empirically elegant” (Carey, 1989, p. 31), and its usefulness beyond the written page has been widely articulated (e.g., Grossberg, 2010).

Heurism

Many of the principles and features of Cultural Studies have been investigated. Ideology has been examined (Lewis & Morgan, 2001; Soar, 2000), and the concept of hegemony has been applied to episodes of television shows, including
The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Dow, 1990),
Saturday Night Live (Davis, 2012), and
Sex in the City (Brasfield, 2007). Hegemony has even been applied to the singing of the national anthem at sporting events (Molnar & Kelly, 2012). Research by Janice Radway (1984, 1986) focused on romance novels and the women who read them. She discovered that many women read these books silently to protest male domination in society. Lawrence Grossberg (1986) and Linda Steiner (1988) found oppositional coding with audiences in their research. Grossberg noted that punk music was an oppositional response to rock-and-roll music because rock and roll allowed for “new possibilities” (1986, p. 57). Steiner looked at a decade of the “No Comment” section of Ms. magazine, which is partly devoted to overt and covert male domination in society. Steiner claimed that the manner in which women read these sections is tantamount to oppositional decoding; they read the comments in a way that suits their own interests and not the superiority of males. Finally, counter-hegemony has been applied to Nike’s Olympic Advertising campaign (Ryan, 2007) and to issues of globalization, specifically events in the Middle East (Tripp, 2013).

Cultural Studies remains one of the few theoretical traditions that has attracted the attention of scholars from a variety of disciplines outside communication. For that reason alone, it is uniquely both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. Researchers interested in understanding the thinking, experiences, and activities of historically oppressed populations usually endorse Cultural Studies as a model. Although some critics have faulted the theory for a number of reasons, Stuart Hall is credited with criticizing the elite and for drawing attention to oppressed voices in society.

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Discussion Starters

TECH QUEST: Today’s technology continues to be discussed in terms of the haves and the have-nots. That is, around the globe, some people have access to technology and others do not. Discuss this notion as it relates to Cultural Studies.

1. Is the Petrillo family responsible for not trying to leave their current situation? If they are not able to achieve the American Dream of owning a home, should the media be blamed? Include examples when expressing your opinion.

2. Discuss how hegemony functions in world events. Now apply the concept to your campus. Identify any similarities and differences between the two applications. Use examples in your response.

3. What other cultural artifacts exist in our society that could be studied within a Cultural Studies framework?

4. British Cultural Studies is strongly focused on class differences. What do you think about applying the thinking of British Cultural Studies to Cultural Studies in North America? Do you believe that the concepts and principles are relevant to all countries? Why or why not?

5. Do you agree or disagree with the belief that oppressed populations have little voice in the United States? How does this view relate to how you feel about the theory?

6. How might Cultural Studies theorists view poverty in the United States?

7. Apply counter-hegemony to a contemporary television show.

Online Learning Center

www.mhhe.com/west5e

Visit the Online Learning Center at

www.mhhe.com/west5e
for chapter-specific resources, such as story-into-theory and multiple-choice quizzes, as well as theory summaries and theory-connection questions.

Chapter 26 x

Chapter 26

Media Ecology Theory

Based on the research of
Marshall McLuhan

Professor Margaret Randall

As an expert on social media, Professor Margaret Randall was used to traveling around the country. She is an accomplished author, with her most recent book examining the isolation caused by people’s reliance upon technology. Professor Randall’s research has been celebrated by both scholars and practitioners, and she has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work on the influence of media upon our social lives. Margaret’s most recent invitation was to present the keynote speech to an international group of social media professors in Costa Rica. She was both anxious and excited to go.

A week before the trip, Professor Randall was under pressure to get her speech written. She had written a few paragraphs, but she had much more homework to do. She couldn’t rely on her “stump” speech with this group, given their expertise. In fact, as she sat in her office on her computer finding new research in the area, she felt that it was important to include cultural examples of her points to make her speech more compelling. Some materials she wanted required her to visit the library. So, she went across campus to (literally) check out a few materials on Costa Rica’s history. When Margaret returned to her office, she continued her research on the library’s databases, finding some news stories on Central and South American youth and social media usage.

As Professor Randall sat reading the information, she visited chat rooms with younger people from around the globe. She thought she’d ask them about their social media use when the chance arose. And, it occurred to her that perhaps her former colleague, Bella, who was teaching in Central America, could provide some “local perspective” on the topic. It wasn’t long before Margaret and her friend were Skyping. After some back-and-forth repartee, the conversation evolved into a conversation about their families, their research, and even their reactions to the U.S. presidential debates, which Bella had watched from her Costa Rica home. After a few minutes, the two finally got to the reason for their connection and soon Professor Randall had some firsthand examples to splice into her speech.

Later that evening, as she watched television, Margaret Randall was thinking a lot about her upcoming speech. She knew that the speech was going to be taped and that it would inevitably appear on YouTube. She also knew that she couldn’t afford any flubs. Her anxiety was palpable. She still had several days to refine the speech and yet, she always became nervous when she stopped to consider that her presentation was not only mediated, but also that it was her first speech given outside of the United States. And, the use of Prezi software always made her quite nervous about using a virtual canvas in her speeches.

Margaret knew that there was only one person who could calm her down: her 21-year-old daughter, Emma. She texted Emma to ask if she had a few minutes to talk on the phone. Emma is credited with getting her mom to Skype and text. Before Emma’s

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insistence that her mother—a college professor—use other media to communicate, Professor Randall simply called her daughter or sent her email. Now, given that her daughter is several hundred miles away in college, Margaret relies on technology to ensure that she and her daughter remain connected. And, it is this connection that the two of them forge today as Emma dials her cell phone.

Communication theorists often accounted for technology in their theories, but until recently, rarely embraced it as a fundamental feature in their theories. In

Chapter 13
, we underscored one theory—Social Information Processing Theory—that addressed the complex intersection between technology and human relationships. We argued that theorists such as Joseph Walther focus on the coming together of people and how individuals get to know one another online. All of this is done without the benefit of nonverbal cues.

Unlike Social Information Processing Theory, theorists interested in media ecology look at the entire “mediated picture”—from its history to how it affects our perceptions or feelings, among other areas. When an interplay between media and their environments occurs, the foundation of Media Ecology Theory (MET) has been established.

Professor Randall’s experiences in our chapter opening would be of interest to Media Ecology theorists. Her embrace of technology and its effect upon both her professional and personal lives are of interest to scholars in media ecology. In addition, the fact that Margaret used to rely only on email, but later used other technologies to communicate with her daughter says a great deal about how technology has influenced their relationship values.

One theorist who could understand and interpret Professor Randall’s relational and technological circumstances is Marshall McLuhan. In his groundbreaking book,
Understanding Media (1964), McLuhan wrote about the influence of technologies, including clocks, televisions, radios, movies, telephones, and even roads and games. Although today we would not classify some of these as technologies, at the time, McLuhan was interested in the social impact of these primal mediated forms of communication. He was interested in, among other areas, answering the following question: What is the relationship between technology and members of a culture?

It’s fair to say that McLuhan himself was part of the culture’s media. He appeared regularly on television talk shows, spoke to policymakers, had a cameo role in the Woody Allen film
Annie Hall, and even was interviewed by
Playboy magazine. He was so enigmatic and ubiquitous that one writer called him the “high priest of popcult and metaphysician of media” (nextnature.net/2009/12/the-playboy-interview-marshall-mcluhan/).

McLuhan was a Canadian scholar of literary criticism who used poetry, fiction, politics, musical theater, and history to suggest that mediated technology shapes people’s feelings, thoughts, and actions. He suggests that we have a symbiotic relationship with mediated technology; we create technology, and technology in turn recreates who we are.

Electronic media have revolutionized society, according to McLuhan. In essence, McLuhan feels that societies are highly dependent on mediated technology

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Theory at a Glance
•

Media Ecology Theory

Society has evolved as its technology has evolved. From the alphabet to the Internet, we have been affected by, and affect, electronic media. In otherwords, the medium is the message. The laws of media—enhancement, obsolescence, retrieval, and reversal—demonstrate that technology affects communication through new technology. Media Ecology Theory centers on the principles that society cannot escape the influence of technology, technology brings global lands together, and technology will remain central to virtually all walks of life.

and that a society’s social order is based on its ability to deal with that technology. Recall that this theory was conceptualized over 50 years ago and, especially today, McLuhan’s assertion about technology rings true. Indeed, “since the public’s growing consciousness of the Internet . . . starting in the mid-1990s, McLuhan’s reputation has experienced an astounding upsurge” (Morrison, 2006, p. 170). As Megan Garber (2011) writes, McLuhan is still a “Media Guru of the first order.”

Media, in general, act directly to mold and organize a culture. This is McLuhan’s theory. Because the theory centralizes the many types of media and views media as an environment unto itself, scholars aptly term McLuhan’s work Media Ecology. The word

ecology

, in this sense, is simply the study of how environments influence individuals. For our purposes, we define

media ecology

as the study of how media and communication processes influence human perception, feeling, understanding, and value (media-ecology.org/media_ecology/index.html#An%20Overview%20of%20Media%20Ecology%20(Lance%20Strate). Given that McLuhan’s writing spans a number of different academic disciplines, given that it focuses on a variety of technologies (e.g., radio, television, etc.), and given that it pertains to the intersection of technology and human relationships and how media affect human perception and understanding (Postman, 1971), the ecological view of media is appropriate and sensible (Note: It should be pointed out that it was Postman, not McLuhan, who coined the phrase “media ecology”). Paul Levinson (2000) describes the relationship of Media Ecology to communication this way: “McLuhan’s work was startlingly distinct from the others [scholars] in that he put communications at center stage. Indeed, in McLuhan’s schema, there was nothing else on the stage (p. 18).” Media Ecology Theory, then, is the communication field’s attempt to understand the pervasive influence of media upon cultures (across the globe).

ecology the study of environments and their influence upon people

media ecology the study of how media and communication processes affect human perception, feeling, emotion, and value

McLuhan (1964) based much of his thinking on his mentor, Canadian political economist Harold Adams Innis (1951). Innis believed that major empires in history (Rome, Greece, and Egypt) were built by those in control of the written word. Innis argued that Canadian elites used a number of communication technologies to build their “empires.” Those in power were given more

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power because of the development of technology. Innis referred to the shaping power of technology on a society as the

bias of communication

. For Innis, people use media to gain political and economic power and, therefore, change the social order of a society. Innis claimed that communication media have a built- in bias to control the flow of ideas in a society.

bias of communication Harold Innis’s contention that technology has the power to shape society

McLuhan extended the work of Innis. Philip Marchand (1989) observes that “not long after Innis’s death, McLuhan found an opportunity to explore the new intellectual landscape opened up by his [Innis’s] work” (p. 115). McLuhan, like Innis, felt that it’s nearly impossible to find a society that is unaffected by electronic media. In fact, Michael Bugeja (2005) tends to agree; he notes that “the media use learners in a symbiotic marketing relationship. Content becomes biased in the process” (p. 133). Our perceptions of the media and how we interpret those perceptions are the core issues associated with MET. We now discuss these themes in the three main assumptions of the theory.

Assumptions of Media Ecology Theory

We have noted that the influence of media technology on society is the main idea behind Media Ecology Theory. Let’s examine this notion a bit further in the three assumptions framing the theory:

• Media infuse nearly every act and action in society.

• Media fix our perceptions and organize our experiences.

• Media tie the world together.

Our first assumption underscores the notion that we cannot escape media in our lives. As we alluded above, media permeate our very existence. We cannot avoid nor evade media, particularly if we subscribe to McLuhan’s broad interpretation of what constitutes media. Think about Professor Randall from our chapter-opening story. She clearly has found herself employing media in multiple ways. In fact, we could easily argue that her livelihood is contingent upon her ability to navigate multiple media environments and platforms.

Many Media Ecology theorists interpret media in expansive ways. Today, for instance, although McLuhan did not foresee the various (digital) media available for consumption (e.g., TiVo, etc.), scholars (e.g., Coupland, 2010) acknowledge that McLuhan’s thinking would have relevance to these digital forms. Still, in addition to looking at traditional forms of media (e.g., radios, movies, and television), McLuhan also looks at the influence that numbers, games, and even money can have on society. We explore these three in more detail in order for you to understand the breadth and historical thinking of McLuhan’s interpretation of media.

McLuhan (1964) views numbers as mediated. He explains: “In the theater, at a ball game, in church, every individual enjoys all those others present. The pleasure of being among the masses is the sense of the joy in the multiplication of numbers, which has long been suspect among the literate members of Western

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society” (p. 107). McLuhan felt that in numbers a “mass mind” (p. 107) was constructed by the elites in society to establish a “profile of the crowd” (p. 106). Therefore, it may be possible to create a homogenized population, capable of being influenced.

In addition to numbers, McLuhan looks at games in society as mediated. He observes that “games are popular art, collective, social reactions to the main drive or action of any culture” (p. 235). Games are ways to cope with everyday stresses and, McLuhan notes, they are models of our psychological lives. He further argues that “all games are media of interpersonal communication” (p. 237), which are extensions of our social selves. Games become mass media because they allow for people to simultaneously participate in an activity that is generally fun and games that represent an individual’s identity. Today, as you consider the various online and video games available to you (e.g., Xbox), it is not surprising that McLuhan’s insights still retain relevancy since these games elicit a variety of emotions, including anger, ridicule, joy, among others.

An additional mediated form is money. McLuhan concludes that “like any other medium, it is a staple, a natural resource” (p. 133). The theorist also calls money a “corporate image” that relies on society for its status and sustenance. Money has some sort of magical power that allows people access. Money allows people to travel the globe, serving as transmitters of knowledge, information, and culture. McLuhan notes that money is really a language that communicates to a diverse group, including farmers, engineers, plumbers, and physicians.

McLuhan, then, contends that media—interpreted in the broadest sense—are ever present in our lives. These media transform our society, whether through the games we play, the radios we listen to, or the televisions we watch. At the same time, media depend on society for “interplay and evolution” (p. 49).

A second assumption of Media Ecology Theory relates to our previous discussion: We are directly influenced by media. Although we alluded to this influence previously, let’s be more specific about how McLuhan views the influence of media in our lives.

Media Ecology theorists believe that media help to alter perceptions and organize our lives. McLuhan suggests here that media are quite powerful in our views of the world. Consider, for instance, what occurs when we watch television. If television news reports that the United States is experiencing a “moral meltdown,” we may be watching stories on child abductions, illegal drug use, or teen pregnancies. In our private conversations, we may begin to talk about the lack of morals in society. In fact, we may begin to live our lives according to the types of stories we watch (we address this notion in detail in

Chapter 23
). We may be more suspicious of even friendly strangers, fearing they may try to kidnap our child. We may be unwilling to support laws legalizing medicinal marijuana, regardless of their merits, because we are concerned about possible increases in drug activity. We may also aggressively advocate an “abstinence-only” sex education program in schools, fearing that any other model would cause more unwanted pregnancies.

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What occurs with each of these examples is what McLuhan asserts happens all the time: We become (sometimes unwittingly) manipulated by television. Our attitudes and experiences are directly influenced by what we watch on television, and our belief systems apparently can be negatively affected by television. Some writers (e.g., Bugeja, 2005) contend that McLuhan perceived television as instrumental to the erosion of family values. Marie Winn (2002) underscores the effect of television by calling it a “plug-in drug.”

A third assumption of Media Ecology Theory has elicited quite a bit of popular conversation: Media connect the world. McLuhan used the phrase

global village

to describe how media tie the world into one great political, economic, social, and cultural system. Recall that although the phrase is almost a cliché these days, it was McLuhan who argued that the media can organize societies socially. Electronic media, in particular, have the ability to bridge cultures that would not have communicated prior to this connection.

global village the notion that humans can no longer live in isolation, but rather will always be connected by continuous and instantaneous electronic media

The effect of this global village, according to McLuhan (1964), is the ability to receive information instantaneously (an issue we return to later in the chapter). As a result, we should be concerned with global events, rather than remaining focused on our own communities. He observes that “the globe is no more than a village” (p. 5) and that we should feel responsible for others. Others “are now involved in our lives, as we in theirs, thanks to the electric media” (p. 5).

Let’s revisit our chapter opening example of Professor Randall to illustrate this assumption further. It is clear that a presentation to a group of international scholars requires an understanding of various global issues. Further, given that her presentation is in Costa Rica, Randall felt that it was important to get some understanding of how local citizens utilize social media. She consulted both the Internet and her colleague in Central America. Further, consider the fact that both Bella and Margaret watched the U.S. presidential debates, shrinking the distance between the two countries and the events that take place in those countries. All of these efforts would not have been possible if technology (telephone and computers) was not available.

The global village of Marshall McLuhan follows the General Systems perspective we outlined in

Chapter 3
. You will recall that Systems theorists believe that one part of a system will affect the entire system. Media Ecology theorists believe that the action of one society will necessarily affect the entire global village. Therefore, such things as wars in Africa and economic strife in Europe affect the United States, Australia, and China. According to McLuhan, we can no longer live in isolation because of “electronic interdependence” (McLuhan & Fiore, 1996).

You have now been introduced to the primary assumptions of MET. McLuhan’s theory relies heavily on a historical understanding of media. He asserts that the media of a particular time period were instrumental in organizing societies. He identifies four distinct time periods, or

epochs

, in history (

Table 26.1
). We address them next.

epoch era or historical age

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Table 26.1 McLuhan’s Media History

HISTORICAL EPOCH

PROMINENT TECHNOLOGY/DOMINANT SENSE

McLUHAN’S COMMENTS

Tribal Era

Face-to-Face Contact/Hearing

“An oral or tribal society has the means of stability far beyond anything possible to a visual or civilized and fragmented world” (McLuhan & Fiore, 1968, p. 23).

Literate Era

Phonetic Alphabet/Seeing

“Western man [woman] has done little to study or to understand the effects of the phonetic alphabet in creating many of his [her] basic patterns of culture” (McLuhan, 1964, p. 82).

Print Era

Printing Press/Seeing

“Perhaps the most significant of the gifts of typography to man [woman] is that of detachment and noninvolvement—the power to act without reacting” (McLuhan, 1964, p. 173).

Electronic Era

Computer/Seeing, Hearing, Touching

“The computer is by all odds the most extraordinary of all the technological clothing ever devised . . . since it is the extension of our central nervous system” (McLuhan & Fiore, 1968, p. 35).

Making Media History and Making “Sense”

McLuhan (1962, 1964) and Quentin Fiore (McLuhan & Fiore, 1967, 1996) claim that the media of an era define the essence of a society. They present four eras, or epochs, in media history, each of which corresponds to the dominant mode of communication of the time. In one of the more provocative claims, McLuhan contends that media act as extensions of the human senses in each era, and communication (technology) is the primary cause of social change (gingkopress.com/02-mcl/z_mcluhan-and-the-senses.html).

The Tribal Era

According to McLuhan, during the

tribal era

, hearing, smell, and taste were the dominant senses. During this time, McLuhan argues, cultures were “ear-centered” in that people heard with no real ability to censor messages. This era was characterized by the oral tradition of storytelling whereby people revealed their traditions, rituals, and values through the spoken word. In this era, the ear became the sensory “tribal chief” and for people, hearing was believing.

tribal era age when oral tradition was embraced and hearing was the paramount sense

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The Literate Era

This epoch, emphasized by the visual sense, was marked by the introduction of the alphabet. The eye became the dominant sensory organ. McLuhan and Fiore (1996) state that the alphabet caused people to look at their environment in visual and spatial terms. McLuhan (1964) also maintains that the alphabet made knowledge more accessible and “shattered the bonds of tribal man” (p. 173). Whereas the tribal era was characterized by people speaking, the

literate era

was a time when written communication flourished. People’s messages became centered on linear and rational thinking. Out was storytelling; in were mathematics and other forms of analytic logic. This “scribal world” had the unintended consequence of forcing communities to become more individualistic rather than collectivistic (McLuhan & Fiore, 1967). People were able to get their information without help from their communities. This was the beginning of people communicating without the need to be face to face.

literate era age when written communication flourished and the eye became the dominant sense organ

The Print Era

The invention of the printing press heralded the

print era

in civilization and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Although it was possible to do a great deal of printing by woodcut prior to this era, the printing press made it possible to make copies of essays, books, and announcements. This provided for even more permanency of record than in the literate age. The printing press also allowed people other than the elite to gain access to information. Today, think about self-publishing and its implications as you think about this era. Then, as today, with printing, people didn’t have to rely on their memories for information as they had to do in the past. Publication made it possible for permanency of record to be achieved.

print era the age when gaining information through the printed word was customary, and seeing continued as the dominant sense

McLuhan (1964) observes that the book was “the first teaching machine” (p. 174). Consider his words today. Very few courses in college exist without a textbook. Even with technological teaching approaches such as distance learning or interactive television, the large majority of courses still require textbooks. Books remain indispensable in the teaching-learning process.

Exemplifying the print era more specifically, McLuhan writes:

Margaret Mead has reported that when she brought several copies of the same book to a Pacific island there was great excitement. The natives had seen books, but only one copy of each, which they had assumed to be unique. Their astonishment at the identical character of several books was a natural response to what is after all the most magical and potent aspect of print and mass production. It involves a principle of extension by homogenization that is the key to understanding Western power. (p. 174)

What McLuhan notes here is that mass production produces citizens who are similar to each other. The same content is delivered over and over again by the same means. This visual-dependent era, however, produced a fragmented population because people could remain in isolation reading their mass-produced media.

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The Electronic Era

Few will argue with the fact that the age we live in now is electronic. Interestingly, McLuhan (1964) and his colleague (McLuhan & Fiore, 1967) note that this epoch, characterized by the telegraph, telephone, typewriter, radio, and television, has brought us back to tribalization and the art of oral communication. Instead of books being the central repository of information, electronic media decentralized information to the extent that individuals are now one of several primary sources of information. This era has returned us to a primitive-like reliance on talking to one another. Today, though, we define
talking differently than the way it occurred in the tribal era. We talk through television, radio, books on tape, voice mail, cell phones, blogs, and email. The

electronic era

allows different communities in different parts of the world to remain connected, a concept we discussed previously as the global village.

electronic era age in which electronic media pervades our senses, allowing for people across the world to be connected

McLuhan (1964) relates a description of various technologies in the electronic age:

The telephone: speech without walls.
The phonograph: music hall without walls.
The photograph: museum without walls.
The electric light: space without walls.
The movie, radio, and TV: classroom without walls. (p. 283)

The electronic era presents unique opportunities to reevaluate how media influence the people they serve. This age allows for ear and eye and voice to work together.

This historical presentation of media by McLuhan suggests that the primary media of an age prompts a certain sensory reaction in people. McLuhan and Fiore (1968) theorize that a

ratio of the senses

is required by people, which is a conversation of sorts between and among the senses. That is, a balance of the senses is required, regardless of the time in history. For instance, with the Internet, we reconcile a variety of senses, including visual stimulation of website pictures and the auditory arousal of downloaded music. When we develop online relationships, we already know that our nonverbal communication is severely limited (for more on this information, see

Chapter 13
on Social Information Processing Theory).

ratio of the senses phrase referring to the way people adapt to their environment

The Medium Is the Message

Media Ecology Theory is perhaps best known for the catchphrase “

the medium is the message

” (McLuhan, 1964), a “humble and fascinating” phrase (Hodge, 2003, p. 342). Although followers of McLuhan continue to debate the precise meaning of this equation, it appears to represent McLuhan’s scholarly values: The content of a mediated message is secondary to the medium (or communication channel). The medium has the ability to change how we think about others, ourselves, and the world around us. So, for instance, in our opening example of Professor Randall, what she and Marcus communicated is less important than that they communicated via a computer, the Internet, and email.

the medium is the message phrase referring to the power and influence of the medium—not the content—on a society

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McLuhan does not dismiss the importance of content altogether. Rather, as Paul Levinson (2001) points out, McLuhan argues that content gets our attention more than the medium does. McLuhan thinks that although a message affects our conscious state, it is the medium that largely affects our unconscious state. So, for example, we often unconsciously embrace television as a medium while receiving a message broadcast around the world. Consider the fact that the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, the train bombs in Madrid in 2004, Hurricane Katrina’s devastating effects in 2005, the 2008 earthquake in China, the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings, and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings were reported not only immediately after the events but, in some cases, during the events. Many of us went to TV immediately and were captivated by the horror and the images as they occurred. We were pretty much unconscious of the medium, but rather consumed with the message. Nonetheless, we turned to television again and again for updates as the days and months progressed, rather unaware of its importance in our lives. This represents McLuhan’s hypothesis that the medium shapes the message and it is, ironically enough, our unawareness of the medium that makes a message all the more important.

McLuhan and Fiore (1967) claim that in addition to the medium being the message, the medium is the “massage.” By changing one letter, they creatively present readers with another view of media. It’s not clear whether the authors were making a pun on the “mass-age” or whether they were reinforcing McLuhan’s earlier writings on the power of the media. McLuhan and Fiore argue that not only are we influenced by the media, but we can become seduced by it. As a population, we are entranced with new technologies. For instance, it is now customary for national media such as the
New York Times and
USA Today to feature special sections on technology and culture. New gadgets, gizmos, and technological inventions (and their prices) are featured for those desiring the latest. Indeed, the medium massages the masses, is part of the “mess-age” (McLuhan & Parker, 1969), and can be understood in a “mass-age” (McLuhan & Nevitt, 1972). James Morrison (2006) sums it up best by stating that “‘the medium is the message’ because the contents of a medium vary and may even be contradictory, but the medium’s effects remain the same, no matter what the content” (p. 178).

We have presented several key assumptions and issues associated with Media Ecology Theory. We have also discussed media in very broad terms. McLuhan says that some unifying and systematic way of differentiating media is necessary. The result is an interesting analysis of hot and cool media.

Gauging the Temperature: Hot and Cool Media

To understand the “large structural changes in human outlook” (McLuhan, 1964, p. vi) of the 1960s, McLuhan set out to classify media. He explains that media can be classified as either hot or cool, language he borrowed from jazz slang. This classification system remains confounding to many scholars, and yet it is a pivotal aspect of the theory. We distinguish between the two media next and provide examples of each in

Figure 26.1
.

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Figure 26.1 Examples of McLuhan’s Hot and Cool Media

Hot media

are described as media that demand little from a listener, reader, or viewer. Hot media are high-definition communications that have relatively complete sensory data; very little is left to the audience’s imagination. Hot media, therefore, are low in audience participation. Meaning is essentially provided. An example of a hot medium is a movie, because it requires very little of us. We sit down, watch the film, react, maybe eat some popcorn, and then watch the credits. Hot media provide the audience what they need—in this case, entertainment. Today, one could state that tweeting a 140-character does not require high sensory involvement.

hot media high-definition communication that demands little involvement from a viewer, listener, or reader

McLuhan believes that radio is a hot medium. He acknowledges that radio can serve as background sound, as noise-level control, or for listening pleasure. No involvement is needed with radio. However, McLuhan wrote before the proliferation of radio talk shows. Given the audience engagement today in much of talk radio, we need to think about McLuhan’s era rather than our contemporary day.

Unlike hot media,

cool media

require a high degree of participation; they are low definition. Little is provided by the medium, so much has to be filled in by the listener, reader, or viewer. Cool media require audiences to create meaning through high sensory and imaginative involvement. Consider, for instance, cartoons. Generally, we get a few frames of illustrations and perhaps some brief phrases. Cartoons are low definition and provide very little visual information. We need to determine the meaning of the words and the pictures, and even supply missing words or ideas that are not provided in the cartoon.

cool media low-definition communication that demands active involvement from a viewer, listener, or reader

Let’s make one more point about cool media. Interestingly, McLuhan (1964) contends that television can be considered a cool medium. He argues that TV is a medium that requires viewers to be actively involved. In fact, he notes that television “engages you. You have to be with it” (p. 312). Yet with the digital age upon us, television has taken on new meaning that perhaps even McLuhan could never have imagined. Would he still consider television a cool medium

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today? As we think about current forms of hot media, Facebook, with its uploading of images and pictures, “friending” of others, iChatting, and “liking” requires more sensory involvement, thereby exemplifying a modern-day example of cool media.

To illustrate hot and cool media, McLuhan analyzed the 1960 presidential debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. McLuhan discovered that for those who watched the debate on television, Kennedy had won because he exuded an objective, cool persona, perfect for the cool medium. For those who listened to the debates on the radio (a hot medium), Nixon was the winner. He was considered hot (which, in fact, his sweating showed he was!). So, the medium influences others’ perceptions. Arthur Asa Berger (2007) notes that McLuhan’s thinking pertaining to hot and cool media is prompting more research interest as communication theorists try to understand the passion that people have for their cell phones. As the twenty-first-century continues, we need to be cautious in interpreting hot and cool media in straightforward ways. For instance, multitasking (tweeting and watching television at the same time) makes a distinction between hot and cool media more difficult.

The Circle Is Complete: The Tetrad

We continue our discussion of Media Ecology Theory by examining the most recent expansion of McLuhan’s thinking about the media. With his son, Eric (McLuhan & McLuhan, 1988), and to respond to those who believed that there was no scientific grounding in his work, McLuhan developed a way to look further into the effects of technology on society. His expansion of the theory included a thorough discussion of the

laws of media

laws of media further expansion of Media Ecology Theory with focus on the impact of technology on society

Although McLuhan’s earlier work identified in this chapter does not fully take into account the advent of the computer, his posthumous work with his son takes into consideration the influence of the Internet. Their work was an effort to bring the theory full circle: Technology affects communication through new technology, the impact of the new technology affects society, and the changes in society cause further changes in technology. McLuhan and McLuhan offer the

tetrad

as an organizing concept that allows scholars to understand the past, present, and current effects of media.

tetrad organizing concept to understand the laws of media

To give us a new way of looking at the role of technology in our culture, McLuhan and McLuhan offer four laws, phrased as questions, to understand technology: (1) What do media enhance? (2) What do media make obsolete? (3) What do media retrieve? (4) What do media reverse? Let’s examine and identify examples of their roles in culture (

Table 26.2
). We pay particular attention to the role of the Internet in our discussion.

Enhancement

The first law of media is

enhancement

; that is, media enhance or amplify society. The telephone enhanced the spoken word found in face-to-face conversations.

enhancement law that states media amplify or strengthen society

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Table 26.2 Laws of Media

LAWS OF MEDIA

DESCRIPTION

Enhancement

What does the medium enhance or amplify?

Obsolescence

What does the medium push aside or make obsolete?

Retrieval

What does the medium retrieve from the past?

Reversal

When pushed to its limits, what does the medium reverse or flip into?

Radio, of course, amplified the voice across distance. Television amplified the word and the visual across continents.

The Internet has enhanced society in different ways. First, it has the potential to enhance a number of senses, including sight and sound. Second, the existence of the Internet has enhanced the accessibility of information. For instance, we can now obtain birth records, credit card balances, and missing person information over the Internet. Third, the Internet can enhance class division. The “haves and the have-nots” exist along this information superhighway. Finally, decentralization of authority is enhanced by the Internet. People have access to information and events that years ago, were completely out of reach. Further, no longer do our political, scientific, or corporate leaders solely possess information; that information becomes available online.

Obsolescence

McLuhan and McLuhan (1988) note that the second law of media is that media eventually render something obsolete or out of date. Television made radio obsolete, although many of us continue to turn to radio each day while we drive. Levinson (2001) notes that radio rendered motion pictures obsolete, which in turn resulted in fewer movies to watch. VCRs and DVRs may have also attempted to make movies obsolete, but we know that their efforts have been only somewhat successful.

The Internet, too, has brought about

obsolescence

. For example, as we learned earlier, the global village now exists, thanks to the Internet. The geographical splits are pretty hard to find; even the remote villages of Africa are becoming accessible by the Internet. Second, the Internet is slowly targeting micromedia (specific audiences) rather than macromedia (large masses), thereby making traditional media outlets such as CBS, NBC, and ABC change their news reporting. Finally, face-to-face dialogues are becoming outdated with the Internet. Former “tribal” conversations are now electronically derived.

obsolescence law that states media eventually render something obsolete or out of date

Retrieval

The third law is

retrieval

, meaning that media recover or restore something that was once lost. What older, previously obsolesced media is brought back?

retrieval law that states media restore something that was once lost

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Theory in Popular Press
•

Social Media and Science

One of McLuhan’s laws of media is exemplified in this essay by Mary Ann Giordano of the
New York Times. The notion of enhancement, whereby the Internet can enhance authority decentralization, is depicted in this article on social media and scientific exploration. Giordano notes that YouTube, Twitter, among other social media platforms have provided ordinary people with photos, stories, and general information about historical science-related events (e.g., Mars rover landing, a record-breaking jump from a balloon 24 miles above New Mexico, etc.). Never before, Giordano notes, have people been so interested in scientific trends. She states that “in an age of despair over math and science acuity, it appears that what once seemed uninteresting or unfathomable has become cool and exciting.” With tens of thousands of tweets and nearly a million Twitter followers, the rover landing, in particular, showed that people across the globe were interested in “science subjects.” Further, people “who are interested in science and technology tend to be especially comfortable with seeking and sharing information in digital ways.” In addition, these “global events grow in popularity through a worldwide audience,” highlighting the global village that McLuhan and other media ecologists discussed. Giordano concludes by noting that “earthlings have long had a fascination with the unknown. But, social media experts say people can now feel as if they are part of the adventure.”

Source: Giordano, M. A. (2012). Science topics find a new frontier in social media platforms,
New York Times online, nytimes.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx.

Television, for instance, restored the importance of the visual that radio did not achieve, but that was once in face-to-face conversations. Radio retrieved the town crier, the prominent voice of newsworthy events nearly 200 years ago in the United States. Print retrieved the tribe’s universality of knowledge. And the Internet recovers a community that was once lost to other media. For instance, chat rooms visited by people like Professor Randall from our chapter-opening vignette have electronically rekindled conversations that flourished before radio and television.

Reversal

When “pushed to the limit of its potential” (McLuhan & McLuhan, 1988, p. 99), what do media produce or become? What do media reverse into? When too many constraints exist on a medium, it will “overheat” and become ineffective.

Reversal

contains characteristics of the system from which it arose. For instance, the public’s desire to have access to entertainment in a relatively cheap medium led to the creation of radio dramas and comedy programs. The need to “see” what was heard led to the creation of these programs on television. Yet

reversal law that states media will–when pushed to their limit–produce or become something else

467

Student Voices

Olga

When I read about the “global village,” considering that McLuhan wrote about this in the 1960s, I thought it was amazing! Here’s this pretty zany guy who almost 50 years ago was writing about how we are connected with the rest of the world. And he was right! As someone who has lived in four countries, I have turned on the TV, gone to a website, or blogged about what is happening around the world. We are all connected more than ever, and McLuhan knew this before anyone else did.

we can DVR television programs and what was once seen by millions of people at the same time is reversed into private “performances.” Television, then, reversed into the early days of the print era when people could consume media privately.

The Internet—as a medium pushed to its potential—reverses society into a new and unique place. The Internet has the potential to bring tribal people together when they discuss websites or chat room conversations with one another. Looking at the number of people who “surf the net” each day alone, the Internet can isolate people just as television can. Also, with the ability to download music, television shows, and films, the Internet—specifically iTunes and Hulu—has reversed itself into a medium with significant visual and auditory appeal. Finally, the Internet is a medium that “flips” on its user. That is, although it can serve to erode power, it can also perpetuate power differences among people. As a result, the Internet provides opportunities for both those in power and those who seek power or who are powerless.

Carrying the McLuhan Banner: Postman and Meyrowitz

The former president of the Media Ecology Association believes that thinking about McLuhan is like taking part in a “moveable feast” in that “if you are lucky enough to have encountered McLuhan’s legacy, wherever you go for the rest of your life, his legacy stays with you” (Sternberg, 2011, p. 111). Indeed, two influential contemporary scholars have worked to integrate McLuhan’s thinking into their own scholarship. Neil Postman and Joshua Meyrowitz remain influential as scholarly followers of McLuhan. Although each retains much of the values related to McLuhan’s writings, each scholar adapts an individual lens as they view technology. We close our discussion with an overview of these two “McLuhanites.”

Neil Postman is credited with formally introducing the term
media ecology in 1968 (Gencarelli, 2006). Postman’s biography is an interesting one and is available elsewhere (Thaler, 2006,

http://neilpostman.org
). Still, let’s give you a glimpse into Postman’s credentials.

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As Thomas Gencarelli (2006) observes, “Postman is first and foremost an educator” (p. 239). Indeed, most of his books pertain to public education in the United States and in many cases, his writing is quite satirical. In some cases, he encourages changes to the educational system by stating that it needs to be revitalized. Nowhere can that revitalization occur other than with an infusion of technology, according to Postman. The media environment, he believes, helps shape children’s lives. Television, in particular, is ripe for allowing young people to be exposed to all sorts of information that was originally intended for adults. This conflation of the child and adult worlds is an ongoing concern for Postman.

Postman is clearly a man who practices what he preaches. Jim Benning (2003) relates a relevant anecdote. Postman is deeply concerned about technology’s imprint in society. He states, “The tendency of American culture [is] to turn over to technology sovereignty, command, control over all our social institutions” (c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/transcript/transcript.php?programid=122756). In shopping for a new car, Postman has been quoted as saying, “Why do I need electric windows? My arm and hand work. If I were paralyzed I could use an electric window.” His colleague and friend note that “Neil would always take what he would call an ecological perspective, a balanced view.”

Postman has written more than 200 articles for the public and over 20 popular and scholarly books. Postman’s research is underscored by a central theme: “All technologies are human impositions into the natural order of things and, as a result, change that order” (Gencarelli, 2006, p. 244). Among the most influential of his published works is
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. In the book, Postman (1992) hypothesizes that technology negatively changes the fabric of society. Specifically, he believes that culture is subservient to the invisible (e.g., I.Q. scores) and visible (e.g., computers).

Postman coined the term

technopoly

, which means that we live in a culture in which technology dominates our thinking and behaviors. In a technopoly, Postman argues, technological tools serve to take over the culture in which they thrive. We live in a society where being technologically driven may result in being driven mad! We trust that our technology will bring us safety and salvation, and seem to lose any sense of humility, discipline, and rationality regarding our reliance on and trust in current media. As a result, Postman laments that “tradition, social mores, myth, politics, ritual, and religion have to fight for their lives” (p. 28). Postman, like McLuhan, asks whether we want to live in a culture with such unwavering dependence on technology and such a conclusion has led scholars to call him a “pillar of media ecology” (Strate, 2004, p. 3).

technopoly a term coined by Postman that means we live in a society dominated by technology

In addition to Postman, Joshua Meyrowitz’s (1985) research interconnects with McLuhan’s work. Meyrowitz’s
No Sense of Place ushered in a unique way of thinking related to space. First, he argues that space is more than physical (Dresner, 2006). That is, social situations such as contesting a parking ticket at city hall include more than the physical surroundings of the building and courtroom. Meyrowitz contends that the influence that communication has on the situation also needs to be considered.

As a communication scholar, Meyrowitz is interested in uncovering the effects of communication technology, primarily television, on a social situation.

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Consider, for instance, a private discussion between a husband and wife on marital infidelity. The discussion is likely to be free-wheeling, underscoring the intimacy that the couple shares. Now, put that discussion in front of a live
Dr. Phil television audience. A new pattern of communication will likely begin, with different information flow and new rules of conduct. It is this new communication medium that Meyrowitz is interested in and one that has cultural consequences.

Meyrowitz agrees with McLuhan that electronic media have social consequences. Meyrowitz expands the notion that power relations and social class can be traced to electronic media. He draws on sociology research to conclude that media have brought about a blurring of formerly distinct roles or places. He states that “many Americans may no longer seem to ‘know their place’ because the traditionally interlocking components of ‘place’ have been split apart by electronic media. Wherever one is now—at home, at work, or in the car—one may be in touch and tuned in” (p. 308).

As noted earlier, Meyrowitz points to television for evidence of the “blurring.” For instance, examine talk shows and you can get a sense of how the blurring of place occurs. What was once private (e.g., discussing your mother’s alcoholism) is now public on
Maury Povich or
Katie Couric. Even masculine and feminine roles now blur, as evidenced by shows such as
Ramna 1/2 and
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The writings of both Postman and Meyrowitz remain effective examples of Marshall McLuhan’s legacy. The two carry the banner that boldly proclaims that electronic media have shaken Western society’s foundation and many of its core values. Clearly, the two scholars prompt us to consider McLuhan’s work in more contemporary ways. Even after more than a century after his birth, McLuhan remains relevant (siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2011/07/the_importance_2.php).

Integration, Critique, and Closing

You probably have already figured out that Marshall McLuhan has caused quite a reaction in both academic and public circles. His ideas are provocative, and at times, have been unilaterally dismissed by many. In fact, if you reviewed his original work, you may be challenged by his frequently eccentric writing style. Some have labeled his thinking “McLuhanacy” (Gordon, 1982), while others feel his writing is equivalent to “genre bending” (Carey, 1998).

McLuhan’s work and reputation, however, have been invoked with considerable regard.
Wired magazine named him their “patron saint,” and
Life magazine called him the “Oracle of the Electronic Age.” A concentration in McLuhan studies exists at the University of Toronto. In addition, there is a McLuhan newsletter, the
International Journal of McLuhan Studies, symposia on McLuhan’s research, a McLuhan festival, a McLuhan reading club, and even a secondary high school in Canada named the Marshall McLuhan Catholic Secondary School. Finally, the
San Francisco Chronicle once called him “the hottest academic property around.” It’s hard to escape his influence both in research and in societies around the world. The theory, despite its popularity, has

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been evaluated by scholars and writers. We examine these critiques on the criteria of testability and heurism.

Integration

Communication Tradition

Communication Context

Approach to Knowing

Positivistic/Empirical | Interpretive/Hermeneutic |
Critical

Critique

Evaluation
Criteria

Testability

Media Ecology Theory has been criticized because many of its concepts are difficult to understand, thereby making testability of the theory challenging and, indeed, nearly impossible. The question becomes apparent: How does one test something one has trouble understanding?

Criticism pertaining to the testability of the theory is represented in comments that have been offered by media scholars over the years. For instance, critics have blasted MET as “overly optimistic” about the role of technology in society (Baran & Davis, 2012). They believe that McLuhan put too much emphasis on how much technology influences society, making the very foundation of the theory rather shaky. George Gordon (1982) is more direct: “Not one bit of sustained and replicated scientific evidence, inductive or deductive, has to date justified any one of McLuhan’s most famous slogans, metaphors, or dicta” (p. 42).

Dwight Macdonald (1967) also attacked McLuhan’s writing, noting that “he has looted all culture from cave painting to
Mad magazine for fragments to shore up his system against ruin” (p. 203).

A great deal of criticism has been directed at McLuhan’s use of words and his clarity. To some, his ideas make little sense. Some writers believe that McLuhan failed to define his words carefully and used too much exaggeration. Yet some believe that his exaggerations were simply “ploys” to get the attention of his readers and students (Logan, 2011, p. 28). It is true that McLuhan tended to write in a zigzag fashion, weaving in one point after another with no apparent topic sentence or sustained idea. One website author believed that his writing

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was “overgrown with arcane literary and historic allusions” (nextnature.net/2009/12/the-playboy-interview-marshall-mcluhan).

Although it’s clear that some writers indict his thinking and theorizing, McLuhan (1967) offers no apology: “I don’t explain—I explore” (p. i). Or, perhaps McLuhan’s one line in
Annie Hall may offer his ultimate response to critics: “You know nothing of my work!”

Heurism

Media Ecology Theory and McLuhan’s thinking have been met with considerable enthusiasm. Because McLuhan was a key figure in popular culture, it’s important to keep in mind that his writing prompted all sorts of responses. One hallmark of the heuristic value of Media Ecology Theory is the fact that there is now a Media Ecology Association (media-ecology.org). This organization is dedicated to promoting the theory in both practical and theoretical ways, thereby ensuring the theory’s visibility. The association publishes a journal (
EME: Explorations in Media Ecology) dedicated to the theory, a testimony to the fact that media communication scholars continue to integrate the theory into their research.

Researchers have discussed McLuhan and his contributions in a variety of ways. Scholars have provided a comprehensive understanding of the theory and have discussed the theory’s influential pioneers (Lum, 2006). Additional writers have applied several of McLuhan’s premises in research (Strate & Wachtel, 2005). Furthermore, many of the theory’s concepts have been incorporated into research on such diverse topics as human–computer interaction (Edsall, 2007) and YouTube as “cool” media (Trier, 2007).

Finally, in what could be considered to be a twenty-first-century response to McLuhan’s twentieth-century theory, the thinking and research of Sherri Turkle (2011) sustains much of what Media Ecologists advance. In her book
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, Turkle contends that technology has allowed us to make connections, but we are rarely communicating. She espouses one of the fundamental tenets of media ecologists: “The forms and biases of our media technologies impact our everyday lives” (Zimmer, 2005, p. 5). Turkle, for example, contends that social media such as Facebook has resulted in so much “friending” and yet, surveys show that most people report having fewer friends than ever. Instead of having “real” friends, technology allows us—indeed, encourages us—to “friend” strangers. In sum, one cannot ignore Turkle’s belief that new technologies are preventing authentic human connections. Further, she believes that “technological promiscuity,” or the belief that technology can be introduced into any setting or environment, is already part of corporate life in the United States.

Marshall McLuhan and Media Ecology Theory will continue to resonate for years to come. Perhaps one day we will revisit McLuhan’s original thinking on historical epochs in media history! New media will continue to evolve in our society and so will the application of McLuhan’s thinking. Was McLuhan an absurd reactionary? Or was McLuhan a cultural prophet? On his gravestone are the words “The Truth Will Set You Free.” Did McLuhan think he discovered

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Truth? Or, even in his death, does he continue to play with our imaginations? Perhaps one of McLuhan’s biographers, Philip Marchand (1989), best illustrates McLuhan’s contribution to the study of media: “McLuhan’s comments had at least one virtue: They seemed to suggest that the world was more interesting than any of us had previously thought it to be” (p. xiii).

Discussion Starters

TECH QUEST: How might Media Ecology theorists respond to the following claim: “Technological innovations will continue to move societies forward.” Provide examples in your response.

1. Discuss whether you believe that Professor Randall should rely less on technology in preparing her speech and more on her life experiences. Is there too much reliance, for instance, with her consultation of the Internet databases, chat rooms, Skype, and email?

2. Describe how Media Ecology theorists might react to the current news on television today? What would be his major criticisms and his major objections? What would he be particularly interested in?

3. Do you agree or disagree with McLuhan regarding television being a cool medium? Use examples to defend your view.

4. Suppose you were asked to have dinner with scholars Neil Postman and Joshua Meyrowitz. What types of questions would you ask them? How would the conversation proceed?

5. Interpret and comment on the following statement: “Technology is the end of our beginning.” Use examples to defend your view.

6. Discuss your response to theorists who choose to be part of the popular culture, including participating on talk shows and appearing in films.

7. Apply any principle of MET to (a) YouTube, (b) Google, (c) Facebook, (d) LinkedIn.

Online Learning Center

www.mhhe.com/west5e

Visit the Online Learning Center at

www.mhhe.com/west5e
for chapter-specific resources, such as story-into-theory and multiple-choice quizzes, as well as theory summaries and theory-connection questions.

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