Glossary

Successful collaboration begins with a shared language, hence the need for a glossary. This joint effort of contributors from several teams ensures, on the one hand, terminological and conceptual coherence across not only our theoretical approaches, but also the qualitative case studies and quantitative research conducted in OPPORTUNITIES. On the other hand, our glossary facilitates communication between the academic side of the project and the fieldwork conducted by NGOs, uniting our teams working from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ghana, Italy, Mauritania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and Senegal.

For more information about the Structure and Objectives of the Glossary, click here...)

Limited effects paradigm

In the 1930s, the study of media placed strong emphasis on the powerful effect of media. This was not surprising, given the impact of the Nazi regime’s propaganda. Later, beginning in the 1940s and 1950s, attention shifted to a perspective of limited effects. From that time on, the study of the media has made it clear that a variety of intermediate variables determine how the media exerts influence (see Valkenburg et al. 2016 for a synthesis of the evolution of thinking on media effects). For example, research shows that people like to hold on to their existing ideas rather than absorb information like a sponge (Holt 2018). Arno Slaets et al. (2021) rightfully remark that news users (being one specific example of media users) who are confronted with a multitude of (internally) diverse messages, interpret messages selectively, depending on cognitive interpretation frames that have been shaped by their personal, family, and social life trajectories and are influenced by their current living conditions and social contexts.

⇢ see also Attitudes, beliefs, and values, Frames of migration, News frame

References and further reading:

Holt, Lanier Frush. 2018. “Using the Elaboration Likelihood Model to Explain to Whom “#Black Lives Matter” … and to Whom It Does Not.” Journalism Practice 12.2: 146–161.

Slaets, Arno, Pascal Verhoest, Leen d’Haenens, Joeri Minnen, and Ignace Glorieux. 2021. “Fragmentation, Homogenisation or Segmentation? A Diary Study into the Diversity of News Consumption in a High-Choice Media Environment.” European Journal of Communication 36.5: 461–477.

Valkenburg, Patti, Jochen Peter, and Joseph B. Walther. 2016. “Media effects: Theory and Research.” Annual Review of Psychology 67: 315–338. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033608.

Category: A

Work Package: 2, 4, 5

[DC / LH / SM]

 

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