Payne Fund Studies: The Effects Of Media On Youth

In the late 1920s, an eminent group of social scientists was commissioned, in what came to be known as the Payne Fund studies, to examine film’s effects on youth. One of the most widely cited volumes in this research was Herbert Blumer 's (1932) Movies and Conduct. The 12 Payne Fund volumes stand as a model of how to study the behavioral effects of media. The 1933 Payne Fund studies—twelve volumes of research conducted by the most prominent psychologists, sociologists, and educators of the time—represent a detailed look at the effects of film on such diverse topics as sleep patterns, knowledge about foreign cultures, attitudes about violence, and delinquent behavior. These studies have not been cited much in the last 25 years, despite the

Reinforce what exists (no change)

6. Prevent change We also need to think about behavior making onvera1 different time scales. The first time scale is the frequency of exposure to the message. Moreover, the effects of media on behavior can themselves be either transitory (lasting a short time, such as only during or shortly after exposure, as when you buy a new brand of toothpaste after seeing an ad for the new product), or persistent, lasting a long time. Figure 10.1. A typology of media effects: Effect can be located on two dimensions, that of time span and that of intentionality.

SOURCE: McQuail, 1994, P. 336. Reprinted with permission.

MODELS OF BEHAVIOR MAKING To understand how media affect behavior, too, requires that we specify the mechanisms by which media may have effects. For the individual, the minimal model for behavioral effects assumes a stimulus, a receiver, and a response. This is the familiar stimulus-response model of the psychologist:

Stimulus Message —> Individual Receiver —>

It is often called either the bullet theory or direct effects theory of media influence. This unelaborated model of media effects argued essentially that media messages directly influence audiences’ behavior. It is this model that represents the underlying fear of critics of mass media during the first third of this century, that is, that media messages can have a direct influence on the mass of the audience. Over the years, much media research has gone into elaborating and correcting this model. First, it was noted that different people responded differently to the same messages. This phenomenon led to the development of theories about individual differences in media effects on behavior, and the assertion that some people may be more susceptible to the influence of media