Mass Media and Society – A Psychological Approach

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Mass Media and Society – A Psychological Approach
Mass media and the ways it links to
psychology?
• Communication can be considered as the movement of
information from one place to another, which might take
place individually, as well as through public manner. When
the communication methods that are selected happen in the
public manner, it is called mass media (Blackman 2017)
• It has been found that although the main aim of the mass
media is to send information to the correct receivers but it
might not always reach the correct receivers. As a result of
these, different important psychological theories as well as
practices for targeting the most effective audiences among
the various public audience with the help of demographics
• With the help of psychology, the information is often made
quite attractive for the target receivers. Studies have found
that some domains of the mass media are found to be
continuously integrating into the psychological theories
like that of politics, entertainment, advertising, culture as
well as journalism (Zheltukhina 2015).
Journalism:
• This can be one of the most significant examples
influencing the psychological behaviours of the people
mainly through the medium of mass media.
• An example can be found here where huge amount of
children between kindergarten and grade 6 are found to be
upset mentally of frightened by watching or hearing new
stories on the television. This can be attributed to the fact
that because of violation as well as unauthorised activities
in the society (Feldman and Zmerli 2018)
• It can be surely said that journalism occurring through
mass media affect the psychological souls of all cohorts of
people.
Marketing:
• Mass media had been referred as the circulatory system of
the body by many and is otherwise called Advertising or
Marketing. It can be explained as the strategic process for
the business when compared to its other operations.
• It has been found that marketers utilise psychology for
targeting most of the ideal audience towards the motive of
their business by preparation of the advertisements that are
more attractive with that of their consumers (Bushman,
Gollwitzer and Cruz 2015).
• It had been stated that facts are collected from consumers
which then drive the business for choosing the most suitable
mass media for undertaking various types of promotion
campaigns and the different facts helping in making
marketable concepts for promotions of business.
Entertainment:
• This is one of the domain where psychological strategies are
utilised for communicating with various people with the help
of mass media (Wartella et al.2016)
• It has been found that in the television, movies as well as in
games, new media landscapes had been introduced. The new
trends had been found to be driving artists in developing
various artistic creations, which are centralised towards
complexity by moving far beyond that of just enjoyment.
Therefore, many researchers opine that artistic creations
should be casted to mass media with a psychological
complexity.
• Present generation sees the use of various psychological
strategies in different movies, music videos and teledrams
that are often used in the destruction of goof cultural beliefs
in the society.
Politics:
• This is the domain where both psychology and mass media
are found to be inter-related. Studies have stated that
understanding of the voters about the personal traits of the
candidates like leadership, trustworthiness, intelligence
and others (Defluer 2017).
• Politicians nowadays are seen to be trying their best in
sharing their personal vision as well as showing people
their personalities through that of the mass media like the
television interviews, social media, and websites.
• Therefore, many of the professional believe that media-
psychological integration had in turn made the duties of
the politician more difficult as well as competitive in the
present society.
Culture:
• Mass media has the capability of working in hand-in-hand
with psychology for promoting the cultural perspective of
the civilisation. This can be explained with the help of
rising feminism in more or less every nation of the globe.
• Most of the governments are now trying to use the mass
media with the help of psychological perspectives of
women trying to make them more economically
productive. Often business are now encouraged for doing
advertisements that are centralised to women and economy
as a part of the policy of the government (Hilt and
Lipschultz 2016).
• This had helped in increasing the employment rate of
women in many nations resulting in overall increase in
economy of the country. Thus, mass media have the power
to drive psychology thereby changing the cultures o many
nation.
Mode of action of psychology in mass media:
• It has been found that mass media has huge influences on the
psychology, opinion and attitudes of the people. Mainly two types
of responses can be observed from particular interest
• One of them is the strengthening of the attitudes that are already
held by the receivers where the other type is a total attitude change
resulting from shifting of the attitude from positive to negative or
vice versa called conversion.
• However, many people do argue that an individual always
approaches the world around him from mainly the standpoint of
the attitudinal strictures which the individual had developed
through specialisation. It has been found that an individual
acquires the attitude structure as the frame of reference for
assessing any messages that are related to structures. However,
persuasion can involve either adding new materials to that of old
structures of changing in attitudes and beliefs based on creation of
new reference frames (Zald 2017)
• It has been found that is the frame of reference of the receiver is
extensive as well as relatively complete, new information that is
contrary to that of the frame would be then producing noticeable
changes in behaviours. It can be stated to be obvious that people
do not willingly expose themselves to information that through
their frame of reference that they already have
• When mass media communicates such messages, the individuals
might be seen to ignore them and even if they listen or read, they
may not accept or retain them. However, studies show that
individuals only retain that information that they tend to agree
with that of their previous beliefs.
References:
Blackman, L., 2017. Mass hysteria: Critical psychology and media studies. Macmillan International Higher
Education.
Bushman, B. J., Gollwitzer, M., and Cruz, C. 2015. There is broad consensus: Media researchers agree that
violent media increase aggression in children, and pediatricians and parents concur. Psychology of Popular
Media Culture, 4(3), 200.
DeFleur, M.L., 2017. Where have all the milestones gone? The decline of significant research on the process
and effects of mass communication. In Refining Milestone Mass Communications Theories for the 21st
Century (pp. 126-139). Routledge.
Feldman, O. and Zmerli, S. eds., 2018. The Psychology of Political Communicators: How Politicians, Culture,
and the Media Construct and Shape Public Discourse. Routledge.
Hilt, M.L. and Lipschultz, J.H., 2016. Mass media, an aging population, and the baby boomers. Routledge.
Wartella, E., Beaudoin-Ryan, L., Blackwell, C.K., Cingel, D.P., Hurwitz, L.B. and Lauricella, A.R., 2016. What
kind of adults will our children become? The impact of growing up in a media-saturated world. Journal of
Children and Media, 10(1), pp.13-20.
Zald, M.N., 2017. Social movements in an organizational society: Collected essays. Routledge.
Zheltukhina, M. R. (2015). Institutional, stereotypical and mythological media markers of modern
society. Biosciences biotechnology research Asia, 12(1), 913-920.