Matakuliah : O0394 – Teknik Reportase dan News Caster
Tahun
: 2010
The Television and Media Impacts
Pertemuan 23 - 24
Learning Objectives
This section will discuss the impact of the media
especially the impacts of television to the community.
The discussion will be focused on 2 (two) aspects: (1)
Theories of Media Impacts, (2) The Aggregate
Impacts of Media towards Community.
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Theories of Media Impacts(1/5)
1. Cultivation Theory
Heavy exposure to television imparts a worldview
that is consistent with the ‘world’ of television
(George Gerbner). The viewers who adopt this
distorted worldview might tolerate violence in their
communities and families and in their own
behavior.
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Theories of Media Impacts(2/5)
2. Priming
The activation of one thought activates related
thoughts (Berkowitz, 1984). This theory offers a
possible explanation for lurid “copycat” crimes.
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Theories of Media Impacts(2/5)
3. Agenda Setting
This theory describes the effects of that process
in the media audience: The rank ordering that the
audience assigns to important issues of the day
tend to match the amount of coverage that the
media give those issues (Wanta, 1997).
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Theories of Media Impacts(3/5)
4. Catharsis
This theory argues that the media sex and violence
have positive effects by allowing people to live out
their antisocial desires in a mediated fantasy world
(Feshback & Singer, 1971). The theory has
resurfaced in a critique of the research about the
effects of television violence (Fowles, 1999).
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Theories of Media Impacts(3/5)
5. Critical Theories
This theory focus less on behavioral effects on
individuals and more on large-scale cultural
impacts, such as permitting some groups to
practice violence against other groups.
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The Societal Impacts (1/7)
What are the aggregate impacts of media towards
community?
 Communication Media and Social Inequality
The unequal opportunity in accessing information due to
gaps in income, racial, and education groups may cause a
certain condition called digital divide.
Knowledge gap hypothesis argues that unequal access in
information is unrelated to social equality. The gap is just
between the information “haves” and “have-nots”.
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The Societal Impacts (2/7)
 Discrimination in Media Industries
There is discrimination of occupation in computer profession
for women and minorities. Although there already significant
improvement in education quality for women and minorities;
however, the industry responses that there is still lack of
qualified minorities and female applicants.
For example, in math and computer studies, women are
discouraged by cultural biases that provide better access
and recognition to males (AAUP. 2000).
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The Societal Impacts (3/7)
 Media and Community
The media may bring both negative and positive impacts
for the users.
For negative impacts, it may cause depression and social
isolation for heavy users (this especially applies for on-line
media like internet).
For positive impacts, the media will increase social
involvement among users.
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The Societal Impacts (4/7)
 Media and the Economy
New media technologies have influenced the demand in
workplace in terms of quality and quantity of work.
a. The quantity of work
With its continuing and innovative system, information
technology improves productivity by eliminating employees.
There is a phenomenon called the “lights out” factory which
means that the replacement of workers with technology
requires not to keep the lights out.
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The Societal Impacts (5/7)
b. Work gets worse
Information technology could reduce skill requirements
among workers, a process called de-skilling.
The decrease of working skill is the result of human
replacement with machines.
There is a term called Fordism (named after Henry Ford)
means that each employee performs a single, narrowly
defined task over and over again.
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The Societal Impacts (6/7)
c. Work gets better
The computer networks brings hope for work decentralization
as computer networks make it possible to integrate the office
work place with home living. It is now possible for employees
to work from distant and avoiding the unnecessary aspects
that may happen during working time (traffic congestion, air
pollution, etc).
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The Societal Impacts (7/7)

Health and Environment
Communications media affect physical health as well as
mental health.
It is noted that heavy television viewing among users may
cause brain seizures, obesity.
A research (Lim, Sauter & Schnorr, 1998) argues that: Up
to a quarter of all computer users suffer repetitive stress
injuries, mostly a result of poor posture, and psychological
stress.
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Other Important Impacts (1/2)
 The impacts of advertising
The advertising may cultivate materialistic values,
delicately convincing that the key to happiness lies in
the consumption of goods.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1967) argues that advertising
is a type of propaganda that places consumers on an
endless treadmill of work to fulfill wants created by ads.
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Other Important Impacts (2/2)
 The impacts of political campaigns
The political campaign coverage could be in the
form of opinion polls, public opinion, debate
performance, etc.
The technology and media have proofed to inspire
the innovations in political activities.
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Closing
At the end of discussion, it is expected that the
students will understand on the effect of broadcasting
towards community. The broad impacts of media
toward community can be measured from its physical,
economic, and human aspects.
In short, the impacts of media is fundamentally
important for human being.
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