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The SAGE Handbook of Media Processes and Effects
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The SAGE Handbook of Media Processes and Effects

Edited by:


September 2009 | 656 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
The study of media effects is one of the most central to the discipline of communication and encompasses a vast array of theoretical perspectives, methodological tools, and application to important social contexts. In light of this importance - as well as the rapid changes in the media environment that have occurred during the past 20 years - this Handbook of media effects theorizing and research explores where media effects research has been over the past several decades, and, equally important, where it would be most fruitful to go in the years ahead.

In addition to providing a comprehensive framework for those interested in media effects, the Handbook also emphasizes the changing nature of the media landscape. Thus, new technologies not only provide new venues for research, but they also represent challenges to many existing media effects theories (that were formulated prior to the widespread adoption of the Internet). The contemporary diversity of the field and its research is seen in chapters addressing sociological, cultural, and organizational approaches and in chapters on specific approaches, domains, and context-related effects.

Throughout the Handbook and within each chapter, authors address the following issues: (1) historical context on theory development/area of study; (2) theory explication and theoretical developments through to the present; (3) typical method of study/research approach/moderators; (4) conceptualization of the audience; (5) the impact of new media environments; (6) criticismsntroversies; and (7) directions for future research.

Section I: Begins with an overview of the field, conceptualization of media effects, and the editors' goals for the volume and then focuses on the range of methodologies (both quantitative and qualitative methods) used in the study of media effects.

Section II: Focuses on dominant theoretical approaches in the media effects area from a more societal perspective. Included here are some of the most dominant theoretical perspectives in the media effects realm (i.e., cultivation, agenda setting, framing) that relate to broad-reaching effects of both entertainment and news programming. The section then focuses on related theories that, though less developed, have received significant attention in the literature. To expand the horizon of this Handbook, a chapter on Cultural Studies in included to engage more qualitative views of media's societal effects.

Section III: Focuses on issues of message selection and processing that are central to the mass media literature. These chapters cut across application contexts. For examples, the emotion chapter touches on entertainment, persuasion, and children's media; the Social Influence/Environmental Aspects chapter includes issues of co-viewing in families, among peers, etc.

Section IV: Refelcts a dominant trend in media effects literature – that related to persuasion and learning – and traces its theoretical perspectives (including major theories of persuasion and especially social cognitive theory) through the various contexts in which media have such effects, such as health, advertising, media literacy, and the like.

Section V: Explores the contexts and audiences that have been traditional foci of media effects research – violence, children, body image, video games, sports, etc. In each chapter authors address the theories most applicable to those contexts, further expaning the theoretical offerings of this Handbook. The focus on how this sort of research is typically conducted methodologically and how it will need to change in light of new technologies and media advances make these chapters unique.

Section VI: Expands on existing work by focusing on a concern central and unique to the communication discipline – message medium – and how it influences effects ranging from what messages are attended to (e.g., formal features), how we spend our time (e.g., displacement effects), and even how we think (e.g., medium theory).

 
PART I. CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
Jennings Bryant, Dolf Zillmann
1. A Retrospective and Prospective Look at Media Effects
W. James Potter
2. Conceptualizing the Audience
Itzhak Yanovitzky, Kathryn Greene
3. Quantitative Methods and Causal Inference in Media Effects Research
Thomas R. Lindlof
4. Qualitative Methods
 
PART II. SOCIETY, POLITICS, AND CULTURE
Michael Morgan
5. Cultivation Analysis and Media Effects
Dhavan V. Shah, Douglas M. McLeod, Melissa R. Gotlieb, Nam-Jin Lee
6. Framing and Agenda Setting
Nurit Tal Or, Yariv Tsfati, Albert C. Gunther
7. The Influence of Presumed Media Influence: Origins and Implications of the Third-Person Perception
Vincent Price, Lauren Feldman
8. News and Poliltics
Toby Miller
9. Media Effects and Cultural Studies: A Contentious Relationship
 
PART III. MESSAGE SELECTION AND PROCESSING
Alan M. Rubin
10. Uses and Gratifications: An Evolving Perspective of Media Effects
Mary Beth Oliver
11. Entertainment
David R. Roskos-Ewoldsen, Beverly Roskos-Ewoldsen
12. Current Research in Media Priming
Annie Lang
13. The Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing
Robin L. Nabi
14. Emotion and Media Effects
Jonathan Cohen
15. Mediated Relationships and Media Effects: Parasocial Interaction and Identification
Marina Krcmar
16. Individual Differences in Media Effects
Daniel G. McDonald
17. Media Use and the Social Environment
 
PART IV. PERSUASION AND LEARNING
Daniel J. O'Keefe
18. Theories of Persuasion
Frank Pajares, Abby Prestin, Jason Chen, Robin L. Nabi
19. Social Cognitive Theory and Media Effects
L.J. Shrum, Tina M. Lowrey, Yuping Liu
20. Emerging Issue in Advertising Research
K. Viswanath, Sherri Flynt Wallington, Kelly D. Blake
21. Media Effects and Population Health
Marie-Louise Mares
22. Educational Television
W. James Potter, Sahara Byrne
23. Media Literacy
 
PART V. CONTENT AND AUDIENCES
Brad J. Bushman, L. Rowell Huesmann, Jodi L. Whitaker
24. Violent Media Effects
Dana E. Mastro
25. Racial/Ethnic Stereotyping and the Media
Kristen Harrison
26. Media and the Body
Jane D. Brown
27. Media and Sexuality
Alice E. Hall
28. Perceptions of Media Realism and Reality TV
Arthur A. Raney
29. The Effects of Viewing Televised Sports
Peter Vorderer, Ute Ritterfeld
30. Digital Games
Barbara J. Wilson, Kristin L. Drogos
31. Children and Adolescents: Distinctive Audiences of Media Content
 
PART VI. MEDIUM ISSUES
Ronald E. Rice
32. Diffusion of Innovations: Theoretical Extensions
Jennings Bryant, Wes Fondren
33. Displacement Effects
Joshua Meyrowitz
34. Medium Theory: An Alternative to the Dominant Paradigm of Media Effects
Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach, Joo-Young Jung
35. The Evolution of Media System Dependency Theory
S. Shyam Sundar
36. Media Effects 2.0: Social and Psychological Effects of Communication Technologies
Miriam J. Metzger
37. The Study of Media Effects in the Era of Internet Communication

"Nabi and Oliver organize their book more categorically and provide what they call a bird's-eye view of the field, chapters put the various theories into historical perspective. The emphasis on new media also sets this volume apart from the others and makes it a worthy addition to the literature."

P. J. Kurtz
Minot State University

Sample Materials & Chapters

Introduction


Robin L. Nabi

Robin L. Nabi (PhD, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 1998) is an associate professor of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests focus on discrete emotions’ influence on message processing and decision making in response to media messages that concern health or social issues. Her work has appeared in numerous communication journals, and she has served on several editorial boards, as the chair of the Mass Communication Division of the International Communication Association, and as a co-editor of Media Psychology. More About Author

Mary Beth Oliver

Mary Beth Oliver (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1991) is a professor in and co-director of the Media Effects Research Lab in the College of Communications at Penn State University. Her research and teaching focus on media effects, with an emphasis on media entertainment, media and emotion, and media and social cognition. She was a Fulbright Research Scholar in New Zealand and served as Chair of the Mass Communication Division of the National Communication Association. She is co-editor with Jennings Bryant on Media Effects, Advances in Theory and Research (3rd ed.), and is former co-editor of Media Psychology, former associate... More About Author