Terms and Theories

• Theory of Uniform Influences: states that members of the mass society all have an essentially similar human nature and are alike in terms of emotions and outlook.  The media present messages to the members of the society who perceive them basically uniformly.  Such messages are stimuli that influence the individual’s emotions and sentiments strongly.  This leads the individuals  to respond somewhat uniformly creating changes in thoughts and action.
• Disinhibition Theory: states that throughout our lives, we have acquired a set of moral and personal ethics.  Some of these moralistic ideas are ones that ethnically prohibit us from engaging in certain acts.  These are called inhibitions.  This theory states that if we come into contact with a number of mass-mediated messages that condone a certain behavior, we may lose our inhibitions.  We are more likely to engage in these behaviors once we’ve lost our inhibitions.
• Theory of Selective Influences: states that messages to the members of mass society presented by the media are received and interpreted selectively.  This theory is based on the variations in habits of perception among members of society.  Variations in habits of perception occur because each individual has a unique personal organization of beliefs, attitudes, values, needs and modes of experiencing gratification that have been acquired through learning.  Because perception is selective, interpretation, retention and response to media messages are selective and variable.  Thus, the effects of the media are not uniform, powerful or direct.  Their influences are selective and limited by individual psychological differences.
• Desensitization Theory: states that over time, heavy media use can cause people to become less sensitive to certain topics and issues.  These are often topics or issues to which they formerly had considerable sensitivity.

• Sensitization Theory: is just the opposite:  that viewers will react strongly to seeing certain mediated content that they will be traumatized by it and actually become more sensitive to such issues and topics.

• Modeling Theory: states that an individual perceives a form of behavior described or portrayed by a character in media content.  The individual judges the behavior to be attractive and possibly useful.   The individual then reproduces the behavior in a personally relevant way.  The behavior proves useful or effective, thus rewarding the individual.   The behavior becomes a habit with more use unless it one day proves no longer effective or rewarding.
• Cultivation Theory: states that television shows contain lots of information embedded in its ‘stories’.  A lot of times the TV portrays a version of life, culture and the larger world that are very different from what really is.  Heavy television viewers tend to use the TV stories to shape their own views of the world.
• Uses and Gratifications Theory: states that all people have psychological needs for things like comfort, social interaction, activity and so on.  Different needs are associated with individual personalities, stages of maturity, backgrounds, social roles, etc.  One of the places they can go to satisfy those needs is to the mass media.  The different mediums of the mass media compete with each other to meet those needs.
• Agenda-Setting Theory: states that the news media gives subtle emphasis to certain stories and topics by virtue of things such as headline size, placement of story, use of photos/vide, length of story, etc.  The emphasis then has the ability to raise readers’ and viewers’ awareness about those topics.  The topics that attract the most awareness are deemed more important than other items on the public agenda.
• Reinforcement Theory: states that all people possess mental collections (schema) of possible behaviors that can be used in various situations.  If they come into contact with mediated content that coincides or is similar to their schema, that schema is reinforced.  The mental schema then becomes increasingly entrenched.
• Schema: is generally thought as the idea or a mental collection of that person.