| administrative research | studies of the immediate, practical influence of mass communication
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| agenda setting | the theory that media may not tell us what to think but do tell us what to think about
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| aggressive cues model | of media violence; media portrayals can indicate that certain classes of people are acceptable targets for real-world aggression
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| attitude change theory | theory that explains how people's attitudes are formed, shaped, and changed and how those attitudes influence behavior
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| catharsis | theory that watching mediated violence reduces people's inclination to behave aggressively
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| critical cultural theory | idea that media operate primarily to justify and support the status quo at the expense of ordinary people
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| critical research | research studies of media’s contribution to the larger issues of what kind of nation we are building, what kind of people we are becoming
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| cultivation analysis | idea that television "cultivates" or constructs a reality of the world that, although possibly inaccurate, becomes the accepted reality simply because we as a culture believe it to be the reality
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| cultural theory | the idea that meaning and therefore effects are negotiated by media and audiences as they interact in the culture
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| dependency theory | idea that media's power is a function of audience members' dependency on the media and their content
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| desensitization | the idea that viewers become more accepting of real-world violence because of its constant presence in television fare
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| disinhibitory effects | in social cognitive theory, seeing a model rewarded for prohibited or threatening behavior increases the likelihood that the observer will perform that behavior
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| dissonance theory | argues that people, when confronted by new information, experience a kind of mental discomfort, a dissonance; as a result, they consciously and subconsciously work to limit or reduce that discomfort through the selective processes
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| early window | the idea that media give children a window on the world before they have the critical and intellectual ability to judge what they see
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| environmental incentives | in social learning theory, the notion that real-world incentives can lead observers to ignore negative vicarious reinforcement
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| Frankfurt School | media theory, centered in neo-Marxism, that valued serious art, viewing its consumption as a means to elevate all people toward a better life; typical media fare was seen as pacifying ordinary people while repressing them
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| grand theory | a theory designed to describe and explain all aspects of a given phenomenon
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| hypodermic needle theory | idea that media are a dangerous drug that can directly enter a person's system
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| identification | in social cognitive theory, a special form of imitation by which observers do not exactly copy what they have seen but make a more generalized but related response
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| imitation | in social cognitive theory, the direct replication of an observed behavior
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| inhibitory effects | in social cognitive theory, seeing a model punished for a behavior reduces the likelihood that the observer will perform that behavior
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| limited effects theory | media's influence is limited by people's individual differences, social categories, and personal relationships
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| macro-level effects | media’s wide-scale social and cultural impact
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| magic bullet theory | the mass society theory idea that media are a powerful "killing force" that directly penetrates a person's system
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| mainstreaming | in cultivation analysis, television's ability to move people toward a common understanding of how things are
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| mass communication theories | explanations and predictions of social phenomena relating masscommunication to various aspects of our personal and cultural lives or social systems
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| mass society theory | the idea that media are corrupting influences; they undermine the social order, and "average" people are defenseless against their influence
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| micro-level effects | effects of media on individuals
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| middle-range theories | ideas that explain or predict only limited aspects of the mass communication process
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| modeling | in social cognitive theory, learning through imitation and identification
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| neo-Marxist theory | the theory that people are oppressed by those who control the culture, the superstructure, as opposed to the base
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| news production | research the study of how economic and other influences on the way news is produced distort and bias news coverage toward those in power
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| observational learning | in social cognitive theory, observers can acquire (learn) new behaviors simply by seeing those behaviors performed
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| opinion followers | people who receive opinion leaders’ interpretations of media content; from two-step flow theory
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| opinion leaders | people who initially consume media content, interpret it in light of their own values and beliefs, and then pass it on to opinion followers; from two-step flow theory
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| paradigm | a theory that summarizes and is consistent with all known facts
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| paradigm shift | fundamental, even radical rethinking of what people believe to be true for a given body of knowledge
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| product positioning | the practice in advertising of assigning meaning to a product based on who buys the product rather than on the product itself
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| reinforcement theory | Joseph Klapper's idea that if media have any impact at all it is in the direction of reinforcement
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| ritual perspective | the view of media as central to the representation of shared beliefs and culture
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| selective attention | see selective exposure
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| selective exposure | the idea that people expose themselves or attend to those messages that are consistent with their preexisting attitudes and beliefs
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| selective perception | the idea that people interpret messages in a manner consistent with their preexisting attitudes and beliefs
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| selective processes | people expose themselves to, remember best and longest, and reinterpret messages that are consistent with their preexisting attitudes and beliefs
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| selective retention | assumes that people remember best and longest those messages that are consistent with their existing attitudes and beliefs
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| signs | in social construction of reality, things that have subjective meaning
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| social cognitive theory | idea that people learn through observation
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| social construction of reality | theory for explaining how cultures construct and maintain their realities using signs and symbols; argues that people learn to behave in their social world through interaction with it
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| stereotyping | application of a standardized image or conception applied to members of certain groups, usually based on limited information
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| stimulation model | of media violence; viewing mediated violence can increase the likelihood of subsequent aggressive behavior
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| symbolic interaction | the idea that people give meaning to symbols and then those symbols control people's behavior in their presence
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| symbols | in social construction of reality, things that have objective meaning
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| transmissional perspective | the view of media as senders of information for the purpose of control
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| two-step flow theory | the idea that media's influence on people's behavior is limited by opinion leaders-people who initially consume media content, interpret it in light of their own values and beliefs, and then pass it on to opinion followers, who have less frequent contact with media
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| typification schemes | in social construction of reality, collections of meanings people have assigned to some phenomenon or situation
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| uses and gratifications approach | the idea that media don't do things to people; people do things with media
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| vicarious reinforcement | in social cognitive theory, the observation of reinforcement operates in the same manner as actual reinforcement
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| willing suspension of disbelief | audience practice of willingly accepting the content before them as real
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