The Basis of My Lego Structure

I’ve finished the written portion of my comps. In 5 days I wrote something like 28 pages, single-spaced, about various things. The point of the exercise was to emerge from it with a philosophy, and I think I may have accomplished that. The following is a work in progress; they are assumptions implicit in my understanding of people’s relationship with media. Where noteworthy and simple, I offer intellectual credit to those who formed the basis of my thinking. Now, this is not a theory; it is a perspective.

1. Media use has greater cognitive, affective, and behavioral effects than simple exposure.
2. People approach mediated messages in many of the same ways they approach interpersonal relationships.
3. People maintain relationships with mediated messages and personae through imagined interactions (Honeycutt, Conflict-Linkage theory, 2008).
4. People seek out media messages that are consonant or that somehow reinforce their current affective, cognitive, and behavioral states.
5. People are active in their own cultivation of ideas; perspectives become stronger through repeated exposure to consonant messages; dissonant messages are ignored or forgotten.
6. People get songs stuck in their heads, possibly as an innate social learning function (Shaughan Keaton).
7. Media are extensions of our natural senses (McLuhan, 1967).
8. Interactivity lessens the distance between us and messages, opening the door to parasocial relationships and presence in mediated transactions.
9. Due in part to interactivity and abundance of choices, “mass communication” is, for the most part, a misnomer.
10. Intermediary forces, such as interpersonal communication about a mediated message, may transform limited effects into powerful effects (Rogers, Klapper).
    

Again, this is a work in progress. If I had to acknowledge theories in this personal construction of mediated reality, this set of assumptions would be somewhere between uses and gratifications, selective exposure, and cultivation theories. As I mentioned in the annals of my comprehensive exam, limited effects theories still work brilliantly but the powerful effects theories need work. The problem with powerful effects theories is that they deal with audiences rather than individuals and can no longer really identify patterns among the masses. Some of their notions, however, should not be thrown out with the bathwater. Media continue to tell us what to think about (McCombs, Shah, et al.) as well as how to think about it (McCombs, Entman, et al.)and the aggregate of mediated messages to which we attend probably has effects on us over time (Gerbner and associates).

Now selectively expose yourself to the following so that you may think about it and cultivate your ideas. I'll figure out how to add the thumbnail later.

Fun times-- BTW -- Shoutout to Kristin!