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April 24, 2018 / C H Thompson

Methodological Problems

  • To understand this unit you need to refer back to the four explanatory models discussed at the start of this unit along with the different forms of media ownership.
  • The fundamental problem with researching media effects is trying to isolate the effect(s) of the media (in order to measure it) from all the other worldly influences on individuals
  • Another issue is media content is polysemic – this means media text such as pictures, headlines etc. can be interpreted in different ways by different people so how do researchers identify let alone measure the ‘right’ reading of media text
  • It’s hard to establish which media is having the positive and negative effect? This has grown worse with the growth of available new media content such as Youtube or Twitter
  • How can neo-Marxist cultural hegemony (via cultural effects model) be proven? For example how can you identify/measure individual’s values and beliefs prior to being subject to any media influences?
  • We now live in a media saturated society therefore its impossible to compare media effects with those people which have been exposed to the media and which haven’t – because in the modern world everyone has been exposed to some sort of media product
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