Introduction to Communication Theory COMM 230 - Resource Guide

The mass media plays a significant role in modern society, wielding considerable influence on public opinion. Agenda setting theory proposes that the media affects society by deciding which topics people view as most important. This theory was created by professors who studied the public during a presidential campaign.

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Cultivation theory postulates that real-world attitudes about society are shaped by the messages and depictions portrayed on television. The more time an individual spends in front of a television, the theory contends, the more influential the medium becomes in how that individual cultivates perspectives about the world at large.

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The spiral of silence refers to a public opinion theory formulated in the 1970s and ’80s by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann to explain what makes individuals either reluctant or willing to voice their opinions. According to Noelle-Neumann’s theory, the more an individual perceives his or her opinion to be in the minority, the more likely that person is to remain silent, whereas if the person notices his or her opinion gaining traction among the public, he or she will speak out.

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Cultural studies has been among the most influential, and certainly one of the more controversial, of the new, interdisciplinary, theoretical fields to emerge out of the humanities and social sciences from the 1970s onwards. I

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The uses and gratifications theory is a concept in mass media communications. It refers to the idea that media users—for example, those who watch television and movies, listen to radio, and read newspapers and magazines—are not passive consumers, but are active participants in the communication process.

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"Media ecology" refers to the discipline within communications studies that examines how the technology of communication, that is, the dominant media at a particular era, shapes and sustains that cultural environment, creates the conditions under which that environment defines itself and evolves until the next stage of communication technology emerges.

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