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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Research

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  Stanley Kubrick was known for making artistically complex films. He led ambitious projects with calculated cinematography and intricate scripts. Some fans adore his 1968 classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey , while others are partial to his 1980 horror flick The Shining . Each holds a special place in cinema history, but the two films achieved this status through different routes. Similarly, in the study of mass communication, there is no one way to do research. Like 2001, the positivist method is scientific in its approach. It employs quantitative information to build understanding for social phenomena. The Shining , which to be fair was also meticulously crafted, feels more like interpretivist research. The film has a less surgical aesthetic, and it feels as if it is sifting through this individual story looking for direction. This mirrors qualitative studies that are inductive, searching for relationships and principles in specific examples. The Southwestern Mass Communication Jour...
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Marshall McLuhan: Reevaluating an OG Media Though Leader

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  NCTA – The Internet & Television Association Canadian academic Marshall McLuhan studied communication and mass media, and he was a bit of a celebrity himself. He was a prominent “thought-leader” before such a term existed. He barnstormed the airwaves with his unique takes on the media and his well-known catchphrases, like “The Medium is the Message” .  Here he is sharing his thoughts on television with late night host Tom Snyder. His ideas gained him notoriety in the mid 20th century, but his pseudo-celebrity status and novelty viewpoints also earned him plenty of criticism. By the time he died in 1980, his influence had faded. As media evolved and academics found new perspectives to explore, McLuhan’s ideas were left to the sideline. That is, until a new technology came along.  The internet.  According to Rosenberry and Vicker , McLuhan’s main idea was that “historical eras of social structure each have been the product of the dominant communication mediu...
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ELM to ROI

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The Elaboration Likelihood Model explores how information is processed. It notes the central route and the peripheral route for engaging with persuasive communication. With the central route, the message is actively received and processed. With the peripheral route, messages are absorbed through cues like legitimacy and style.  With marketing, there is an expectation of return-on-investment. If a brand is going to market and advertise, it must generate enough revenue based on that effort and to support that effort. To be successful, marketing campaigns need to be diverse. There is the balance between delighting your existing customers and attracting new ones . The same message does not always work for both audiences. Current customers may expect content with insider info and complex discussions related to a product/service. Someone new to a business may need an awareness-level pitch with a catchy slogan, compelling visuals, and nods to key differentiators. Using this model, it is...
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The Two-Step Media Consumption Dance

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There’s nothing more jarring than looking at someone else’s social media feed. It’s like entering a whole new world. The images, aesthetics, and layout look vaguely familiar, but something is off. Nothing seems to make sense.  I remember this experience from when I shared a computer with my family, but I was recently struck by it again when I started a new job. My work duties include social media management for an agriculture company. When I first logged into the company’s accounts, I was struck by the feed content. It was an odd reminder of how fragmented our media consumption has become, and how reliant I had become on my own cultivated media environment. There are so many voices telling us about the news today, and only a sliver of those voices are journalists. These opinion leaders/influencers/random folks on the internet are all filtering the news through their lenses and sharing their opinions with the ether. This reflects the Two-Step Flow Theory which contends that news is ...
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Magic Bullet: Deflected?

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Yes, fine, I’ll say it. I am susceptible to media influence. Everything I absorb from the media, whether it is tabloid junk or extensive fact-based reporting, sticks with me. It impacts how I think. Do I believe everything I ingest? No. Do the thoughts from journalists and pundits, no matter their merit, subconsciously impact my thoughts? Yes. No matter how sophisticated or invulnerable I aspire to be, a part of me can’t resist.  The Magic Bullet Theory is a rudimentary one. It harkens to an era when media was more monolithic, and peer-to-peer news sharing was difficult. Even in that environment, the theory was a bit jaded, viewing the audience as incapable of resisting the media’s stimuli. This theory is simplistic and outdated, but not necessarily obsolete.  Today, there are more complex theories about media consumption that better align with the current media landscape. Whether The Magic Bullet Theory still holds any validity may depend on your definition of “influence”. ...
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