Mass Communication Theory

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 ...

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 This theory is simplistic and outdated, but not necessarily obsolete.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”. ...