Mass Communication Theories

Explaining Origins, Processes, and Effects

Melvin L. DeFleur, Margaret H. DeFleur

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000576535
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The second edition of this innovative textbook provides a comprehensive overview of mass communication theories, as well as their origins and empirical supports in psychology, sociology, political science, and philosophy.

Each chapter presents a specific theory, describing its basic structure in simple formal terms and providing an accessible summary of the research studies and scholarly writings from which it developed. It breaks each complex theory down into five or six interlinked basic propositions, making them easily digestible for students. This new edition includes up-to-date research; improved coverage of all theories presented; expanded treatments of theories such as cultivation theory, the spiral of silence, and framing; contemporary and social media examples; chapter discussion questions; and informative charts and figures.

This textbook serves as an accessible core text for undergraduate and graduate Mass Communication, Communication Theory, and Communication and Society courses.

Part IThe Intellectual Foundations of Media Studies

3The Scientific Method and the Social Construction of RealityThe Contributions of Philosophy

DOI: 10.4324/9781003083467-5

Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most famous physicists and mathematicians of all time, said it very well in a letter to a friend: “If I have seen farther [than others] it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”¹ That comment helps to explain how we today—in a world that Newton could not even remotely have imagined—are able to use the logic and methods of science to conduct research on an almost unlimited number of topics—and then to develop theories, test them through systematic observation, and apply them for practical purposes. It also helps to explain how we as human beings came to understand the processes by which we each learn about the nature of the world we live in and the rules for relating to each other in acceptable ways. That is, because of the contributions to philosophy by intellectual giants in the past, scholars, and scientists today can explain an almost incredible number of phenomena—including the origins, processes, and effects of mass communication.

From the huge and mind-boggling body of philosophical writing that has accumulated over more than 2,000 years, two developments stand out as critically important to the study of mass communication today. One is the development of the logic and methods of science. That development had its roots in the writings of Plato and Aristotle but accelerated greatly during the 1500s. The methodology of science is now so universally useful that it can be applied to study virtually any subject matter that can be observed by the senses—whether revealed by microscopes probing objects so small that they defy the imagination, by powerful telescopes probing the far-off reaches of the universe, or with systematic procedures that record the mass communication behavior of human beings.

The second significant contribution of philosophy to the study of the mass media is our current understanding of the role and importance of all forms of communication in human life, whether verbal, nonverbal, print, by wire, broadcast, or via computer. The significance of human communication for human beings was not well understood for many centuries. Today, however, we recognize that communicating with others—in person or with the use of media—is the means by which each of us acquires “pictures in our heads of the world outside.”²

Understanding that process is a major contribution of philosophy to developing theories of mass communication. In ancient times, Plato explained how this takes place through processes of communication as we develop our personal social constructions of reality. Although he did not use those words, he did have that goal. Many others since his time have described the same basic idea in their theories of media effects. That is, people do not inherit at birth their personal and shared understandings of the realities of the physical and social worlds in which they live. They learn them in association with others through processes of communication—from their families, their friends, their schools, and, in more modern times, also from mass communications. As various chapters in this book will show, this is a consequence of profound importance for understanding the influences of mass communication. Communication with language and visual images, then, is a uniquely human activity that enables us to think, remember, cope routinely with events that confront us, and participate in the complexities of our shared culture. At the same time, the images, depictions, and interpretations of reality provided to us by others—including the mass media—can at times be seriously flawed, leading to distorted “pictures in our heads.”

The Emergence of Philosophy

When researchers and scholars today use the intellectual tools of scientific investigation, they depend upon an accumulation of philosophical thought that began thousands of years ago. Long before the birth of Christ, intelligent individuals began to think about, debate, and reach conclusions concerning the nature of reality. It seems likely that debate about the features of nature—the earth, the sky, plants, and animals—began around campfires in caves when human beings first became able to speak, to develop language, and to use it to talk to each other.

The term “philosophy” is a combination of the classic Greek words for “love” (philos) and for seeking “wisdom” (sophos). It was not until writing was simplified that philosophers were able to record their ideas in ways that made them available to later generations. The major key was the development of a simple alphabet.³ While there were many earlier attempts, it was not until about 500 B.C. that the Ionian Greeks agreed upon an efficient and standardized set of symbols representing sounds. It was a huge advance. Their alphabet (from alpha and beta, the first letters) was passed on to the Romans, who adapted it to their needs. The words on this page are formatted in the Roman alphabet—little changed from the one in use at the time of Julius Caesar.

It is not surprising, then, that the foundations of philosophy are almost universally attributed to the classic Greek scholars. By the sixth century B.C., they began the systematic investigation of both the physical and political worlds. That is, the earliest steps toward what was eventually to become scientific investigation were initiated during that time. A number of early philosophers changed their strategies for explaining things from stories, myths, and legends to rational and written accounts that tried to explain reality.⁴

The Basic Issues

As philosophers undertook to understand human existence more fully, they focused their attention on three very basic issues. These were questions about (1) being, about (2) knowing, and about (3) doing. Essentially, these three issues refer to (1) the nature of the physical world that independently exists around us, (2) the knowledge of that world that we somehow acquire in our human minds, and (3) the ways in which we use that knowledge to respond both to the physical world and to each other. As philosophy advanced, these issues became the center of discussion and debate.

Being: The Existence of Reality

The idea of “being” turned out to be very difficult to address. Essentially, this idea refers to how things actually exist and how they got there in the first place. One view advanced was that common objects around us are really just “fictions in our heads”—that we only think they are there because we are able to see, feel, taste, and smell what we assume are realities. An opposing view was that the trees, rivers, mountains, and all the rest are actually there, whether we are present or not. That is, reality has an existence that is independent of human experience. That may seem like a pretty abstract issue, but the early (and even later) philosophers worried about it a lot. In other words, they were concerned with the nature of “being”—how it is that all of the physical things in the world came to have an existence that may or may not be independent of our ability to know them.

It was an extension of this basic question that brought into existence what we know today as the major physical sciences that eventually split off from the mainstream of philosophy. The process started early as thinkers began to notice, contemplate, and study systematically the movements of the heavenly bodies. Astronomy and its handmaiden, mathematics, were well established long before any of the other physical sciences amounted to much. Later, physics, chemistry, and eventually biology became pathways to knowledge about the existence and functions of the various physical and biological phenomena that are now routinely studied. Nevertheless, these physical sciences were born in philosophy, where their basic questions got their start.

Today, we see that the question of how things came to exist has alternative answers. Some religious authorities tell us that an omnipotent God created the earth and all that is upon it—some say a little over 4,000 years ago. That would include all the animals, humankind, and every aspect of the physical environment as well. Other authorities, such as geologists and paleontologists, have different answers. They conclude that the earth in its present state came slowly into being over billions of years as a result of complex geological transformations—and that human beings came into being as a result of a very long process of biological evolution from simple to complex organisms. For present purposes, however, we need not choose between these competing explanations of being. We can accept pragmatically the philosophical premises that (1) there is a physical world out there and (2) that its existence is independent of us as human beings.

Knowing: Human Understanding of Reality

The question of how we come to know reality is a different matter. It also has a long history of debate and development. Today we understand the importance of human communication in the process. But, in retrospect, only in relatively recent times have learning and knowing about reality been linked solidly and extensively to human communication. Throughout most of history, philosophers paid scant attention to human communication. They believed that each individual constructs his or her own interpretations of reality from direct personal experience with the real world. In other words, they concluded, people gain their knowledge about the physical and social world not by communicating with other people but by contacting it directly through sensory impressions. In that way, said those subscribing to this view, our knowledge—our personal interpretations of reality—are supposedly constructed by each of us, independently and without influences from other people. Thus, in this view, they are solely a consequence of personal experiences and perceptions. That focus on the individual survived through the ages and, as subsequent chapters will show, in some ways led to a failure to appreciate the powerful role of communication in human existence.

The issue of how we know began to change somewhat during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The writings of Thomas Hobbes in the mid-1600s included at least some attention to the part played by speech in acquiring new knowledge and in remembering ideas.⁵ Toward the end of that same century, John Locke described the relationship between words, the meanings we acquire for them, and how these shape our thoughts and our conduct.⁶ Yet, for the most part, philosophy remained concerned with the sensory basis of individual knowledge, as well as with human relationships with the supernatural. In other words, until more recent times, little attention was given to the process of human communication and its consequences.

Doing: Responding to Reality

The third question, as to how knowledge of the things and social aspects of our world influences our conduct, also was addressed through the ages by philosophers. Many answers were put forth. In this case, their concerns were with both the ethical behavior of individuals and with systems of government that would provide fair social conditions. Several branches of philosophy were developed to address a number of different issues. Some were devoted to religious questions and what conduct was required to meet the demands of sacred teachings. Others set forth the ways in which rulers and the ruled should be related and how leaders should be legitimately selected. Still others sought answers to the nature of ethical codes and just laws.

In more recent times, philosophers sought understandings of the basis of human behavior—that is, whether it was a product of what one inherited or what one experienced in the environment. It was with these questions that the field of psychology emerged during the early 1800s. Psychologists began to study conduct using methods that were different from, but based on, those of the scientific concerns of philosophy. That is, the field was developed by adapting the empirical (observational) methods of physical science, as opposed to depending on solely rational argumentation and logic. Other fields made similar changes. For example, modern economics got a powerful advance as an independent field with the work of Adam Smith in the late 1700s.⁷ Other branches of social and behavioral science also split from traditional philosophy to study various categories and aspects of human behavior. Sociology got its start early in the 1840s. Political science, arguably the oldest of the social sciences (and long closely linked with philosophy), also became an independent discipline. Anthropology developed during the 1880s. The study of doing, then—long central to philosophy—became the subject matter of a number of very complex and highly specialized fields. In some respects, however, they can all still be regarded as extensions of philosophy in that they are devoted to the “love of knowledge” in their focuses on their specialized subject matters.

The Search for Strategies for Obtaining Valid Knowledge

Within a short time after the development of an efficient alphabet, Plato (427–347 B.C.) would write his Republic. It remains the first and best-known complete book of philosophy that has survived. It was both a treatise on what he defined as a just social order and a commentary on human nature. In other works, such as his Theaetetus, he tried to explain how human beings come to know the physical world.

A second intellectual giant from classical Greece was Aristotle (384–322 B.C.). He was a student of Plato, and he was a prolific writer. In many ways, the beginnings of systematic science were advanced greatly by Aristotle. But, in other ways, he held back the development of science for centuries. His writings included extensive analyses of the nature of animals, the earth, the heavenly bodies, and other aspects of reality. However, Aristotle’s works on logic, on how reality should be studied, on the nature of society, on the world of nature, and on many other topics seemed to provide all the knowledge about such topics that would ever be needed. He came to be called the great Authority, to whom philosophers turned for valid knowledge. This strategy served for centuries. Aristotle was referred to by scholars for over a thousand years as “The Philosopher” or “The Master” (of secular knowledge).

After Aristotle, the big questions that needed answers were not of this world. With the rise of Christianity, European philosophers turned to determining the nature and characteristics of God and the ways in which humankind should behave in order to reach salvation. Thus, during the Mi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• PART I The Intellectual Foundations of Media Studies
• PART II The Beginnings: Early Theories of Mass Communication
• PART III Theories of Mass Communication Processes and Effects
• PART IV Theories of Influences on Individuals
• PART V Theories of Influences on Society and Culture
• Index