Summary of al 8 lectures and all the articles of the course for 2022/2023
Articles:
Gentile, D. A., & Sesma, A. (2003). Developmental approaches to understanding media effects on individuals. Media violence and children, 19-37.
Subrahmanyam, K., & Šmahel, D. (2011). Digital youth: The role ...
Lecture 1
What is digital media?
Digital is binary.
Media is a way to spread Information.
How is digital media evolved in the lives of youth?
Digital media has disrupted/enriched traditional communication.
Social presence theory: “sense of being together” lower in digital media (on the disrupted side).
Social information processing theory: communicators’ interpersonal needs prompt them to try their best
(in the middle of disrupted and enriched). Digital media is not a bad thing, it can help you.
Channel expansion theory: users with experience will strive to develop necessary skills (on the enriched
side).
In the middle you have phone conversations.
On the enriched side there are digital media. You can respond whenever you want (hours later).
How to use social media?
Replacement: replacement of traditional forms of communication
Media multitasking: watching television and communicating trough WhatsApp or communication in real
life and continuing the conversation online.
Most research show negative effects of digital media, lower grades in school.
Quality of connections seem to be lower because of the media.
Why use it?
Uses & gratification theory: what purposes or functions does media offer for active receivers?
First version by Lasswell in 1948
- Surveillance of the environment
- Correlation of different aspects of that environment
- Transmission of social heritage (we turn to the media to learn what is socially accepted and what
not)
- Entertainment
One size does not fit all
- Information
- Social
- Entertainment
- Convenience/pass the time:
We now use different platforms for the different aspects (social Instagram and entertainment YouTube for
example).
Digital puberty starts from 11-12 years old. It is the increase in specific platform use.
Youth and adolescence
- Sexual development
- Identity development
- Social development
Now adolescence also do this in the digital world.
Interconnected, but not identical (identity, physical and social development). They do it in the digital
world and in the ‘normal’ world.
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,Anonimity: different, more extreme forms of behavior (e.g., cyberbullying. Can also be good)
Creativity: playing around, discovering who you are.
Your identity should be constructed during adolescence through exploration online and offline. How
different these identities are is on you (online/virtual identity vs actual identity).
Self-presentation
Front stage: Instagram, uploads, profile information. Dramatic interaction. The user’s audience (followers
and friends).
Backstage: instant messaging. Informal talk and a relaxed role.
You can practice on the backstage what you are going to do on the frontstage. You can do this online and
offline.
Youth development
Developmental task approach: developmental tasks/challenges need to be fulfilled.
Basic idea: hierarchic list of tasks (to complete during development), met through biological or social
development > cumulative
Applications: e.g., Eriksons’s development theory. Havighurst developmental theory.
Media effects depend on the age of the child:
Perceptual stage (2-7): Looking scary. If they see something scary they can become very scared of that.
Conceptual stage (7+): Being real
Parents are the biggest example (<12)
Influencers are examples (+12)
Risks and resilience approach: different life experiences among children.
Basic idea: risk and protective factors explain differences between children > cumulative risk model
Applications: snowball effect, turn around models.
Micro environment: family, peers and classroom
Exo environment: school, community and mass media
Macro environment: society, culture, economics and nationality.
Lecture 1: Introduction, what is digital media? How has digital media evolved in the lives of youth?
Gentile, D. A., & Sesma, A. (2003). Developmental approaches to understanding media effects on
individuals. Media violence and children, 19-37.
Seven myths about media effects:
1. Media effects are simple and direct:
The effects of media are not simple; neither are they usually direct. Most media effects are
cumulative and subtle, even when they are designed to influence behavior. This subtlety masks
remarkable power and persuasiveness (overtuigingskracht). For example, research on ad-
vertisements demonstrates that attitudes and purchase behavior can be altered by as few as two
or three exposures to an advertisement. Yet, as we watch or drive past advertisements we don’t
feel our opinions changing. The effects of media usually happen at a level of which we are not
consciously aware.
2. The effects of media violence are severe (ernstig):
Since media violence does not make them commit the same kinds of violence, many people draw
the inference that it has no effect on them or on most other people. Most seasoned educators
will tell you that schoolchildren have become more disrespectful, more verbally aggressive, and
more likely to push and shove each other over time. In fact, the largest effect of media violence is
probably not illustrated by individual examples of violent behavior, but by the “culture of
disrespect” it has fostered (gekoesterd) and nurtured. Positive and negative emotional and physi-
ological reactions to violent media are media effects. Violent media have many effects, including
emotional, physiological, cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioral effects.
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, 3. Media effects are obvious:
The effects of violent media are usually indirect, subtle, and cumulative (and thus not obvious).
Because the effects tend to be subtle and cumulative, even if people notice that someone is
becoming more aggressive over time, they may not infer that the gradual change could be due
partly to watching violent media. Neverthe- less, cause-effect relationships need not be obvious
to be significant. To the extent that we expect media effects to be exhibited in an obvious
manner, we are missing opportunities to see other less obvious and perhaps more pervasive
(doordringend) effects.
4. Violent media affect everyone in the same way:
Meta-analyses have shown that there are at least four main effects of watching a lot of violent
media.
- The aggressor effect describes how children and adults who watch a lot of violent entertainment
tend to become meaner, more aggressive, and more violent.
- The victim effect describes how children and adults who watch a lot of vi- olent entertainment
tend to see the world as a scarier place, become more scared, and initiate more self-protective
behaviors (including going so far as to carry guns to school, which, ironically, increases one’s odds
of being shot).
- The bystander effect describes how children and adults who watch a lot of violent entertainment
tend to habituate to gradually increasing amounts of violence, thereby becoming desensitized,
more callous, and less sympathetic to victims of violence (both in the media and in real life).
- The appetite effect describes how children and adults who watch a lot of violent entertainment
tend to want to see more violent entertainment. Simply put, the more one watches, the more
one wants to watch.
What is less well known is which people are more prone to which effects. In general, females
tend to be more affected by the victim effect, whereas males tend to be more affected by the
aggressor, bystander, and appetite effects. But it is still unclear how to predict exactly how any
given individual will be affected by any given media violence presentation.
The media can affect us not only one-on-one, when we are watching TV, for example, but they
also affect us by affecting the norms, expectations, and patterns of behavior of our families and
communities. This is another aspect of the media’s subtlety—they can affect us through multiple
directions at once. Although this makes it likely that everyone will be affected by violent media in
some way, it also makes it likely that the effects may not be identical for all people.
5. Causality means “necessary and sufficient.” (nodig en voldoende):
Most complex issues of interest (such as aggressive behavior) are multicausal, so is aggressive
behavior. Media violence is likely to be one of the pushes that interacts with other forces at work.
In most situa- tions, it is neither necessary nor sufficient. However, that does not mean that it is
not a cause—it just means that it is one of the causes.
Social science is concerned with all of the causes for some behavior, not only the necessary,
sufficient, most recent, or largest causes. Because media violence has been shown to increase the
likelihood of aggressive behavior, it can be a cause of aggressive behavior, even if it alone is not a
necessary or sufficient cause.
6. Causality means immediacy (directheid):
With regard to media violence, many people assume that the effects must be seen in the short
term in order to be caused by exposure. The issue of whether it is a “direct” cause seems to be
the relationship between the amount of media violence and the incidence of violence in society.
Some researchers have presented evidence that the effects of media violence may be long term.
It has been hypothesized that about 15 years must elapse before the full effect is revealed, as
that is the time it takes for a generation to grow up with the violent media and to reach a prime
crime-committing age. If this hypothesis is correct, then we shouldn’t expect to see immediate
effects. To the extent that we expect causation to appear as immediate or short-term effects, we
may miss a number of impor- tant long-term effects.
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, 7. Effects must be “big” to be important:
In epidemiological terms, if only 1 percent of the people watching a violent TV show become
more aggressive, and one million people watch the program, then 10,000 people were made
more aggressive. That does not seem to us to “lack practical significance.” Indeed, many (if not
most) medical studies on the effects of drugs or diet are concerned with such small effects. That
media violence consistently appears to account for at least 1 to 10 percent of the effect is actually
surprisingly large!
These persistent myths underscore the importance of thinking carefully about what the effects of media
violence on individuals may be. We must understand that everyone may be affected, yet not in the same
way. Two developmental theoretical approaches show a great deal of promise for helping researchers to
understand the effects of media violence on children:
(1) Developmental task approach:
Developmental task: a capacity or skill that is important for concurrent and future adaptation (e.g.,
language acquisition, development of attachment relationships, and the formation of peer relationships).
Masten and Braswell define developmental tasks in the following manner: In developmental
psychopathology, adaptation is often defined in terms of developmental tasks. The basic idea is that in
order for a person to adapt, there are developmental challenges that must be met. Some arise through
biological maturation, others are imposed by families and society, while others arise from the developing
self.
Researchers have used this approach for at least two purposes. First, it provides a set of criteria by which
to judge adaptation at any particular point in development. Second, the developmental task approach
provides researchers and practitioners with a framework for understanding how development unfolds
over childhood.
A number of principles are specific to a developmental task approach. First, there is a hierarchy to these
tasks. Development is cumulative and builds on prior adaptation. Although current adaptation is
predicated on prior adaptation, change is still possible; future developmental progress is not determined
or fixed as a result of how earlier developmental tasks are organized. Adaptation is a dynamic process,
predicated both on past history and current context.
Summary of Major Developmental Tasks
The effects that violent (or other) media may have on children and youth may be very different depending
on the age of the child in question. As children face different developmental tasks, media are likely to
have a greater or lesser effect depending on the specific issues the children are facing at that time.
We do not mean to suggest that watching one episode of any program is likely to have a large, immediate
effect. But any immediate effects as well as long-term effects are likely to be different based on the age of
the child, and the developmental tasks approach provides a framework for designing and testing
hypotheses about the types of effects we might expect at different ages.
(2) The risk and resilience approach:
A risk and resilience approach focuses on differential life experiences among children that may put them
at risk for future maladaptation (risk factors), and those factors that serve to “protect” children from this
risk exposure (protective factors). This approach is likely to be useful to help explain why we may see
greater effects of media violence on some chil- dren than on others. Exposure to media violence is likely
to be a “risk factor” for all children. However, some children may have additional risk factors that enhance
the effects of media violence exposure, whereas other children may have protective factors that
attenuate the effects of exposure to media violence.
One of the strongest and most robust findings in the risk and resilience field is that of the risk gradient,
also called a cumulative risk model (Masten, 2001). The premise behind a cumulative risk model is simple:
the more risks encountered by a child, the greater the likelihood of problematic functioning.
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