Description Part 1: Social Learning Theory(separate word document) Identify and examine three diff ...
Description Part 1: Social Learning Theory(separate word document) Identify and examine three different mass media topics that are controversial. Explain why you think they are controversial. Describe how the controversy can be explained through the social learning theory. Directions: The initial post should be a substantive and scholarly post between 450 go 600 words Make sure that you use proper grammar, word choice, syntax (arrangement of words to create well-formed sentences), and writing mechanics (capitalization, punctuation, and spelling). Properly cite (Links to an external site.)and reference(Links to an external site.). https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2014/08/26/so... Part 2(separate word doc) reflect on the Spiral of Silence theory, giving attention to the theory development, theory developers, theory premise/predictions, theory limitations, and/or other relevant points about the theory.Then, apply the spiral of silence theory to your own experiences and those of others when sharing opinions in a group and on social media. Please critically reflect on the module materials and your own research, and then synthesize the information for your response: Explain the premise of the Spiral of Silence theory. Next, using your own interpersonal and mass media experiences, identify and explain a time when you witnessed the theory in action. This assignment should be written for a general audienceLinks to an external site. rather than with an academic tone. Your response should be between 300 and 500 words. You should use embedded linksLinks to an external site. for your sources rather than APA-style references and in-text citations https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writin... https://pressreleases.responsesource.com/about/faq... UNFORMATTED ATTACHMENT PREVIEW Lecture 6 Video Transcript Hello and welcome to today's talk. In this lecture, we're going to turn our focus to two different theories. The first is known as the spiral of silence, and the second is known as the knowledge gap hypothesis. So, the spiral of silence theory is also known as a theory of public opinion, and the theory predicts when individuals are more or less likely to share their opinions. The theory was developed in the 1970s by a German political scientist by the name of Elizabeth Knoll Newman. And the theory claims that individuals are more likely to share their opinion when they think the larger group shares the same opinion. So, for example, let's say that you're at a party and you're talking with a group of people at the party, and the subject of electric cars comes up. So, let's say that you're a big supporter of electric cars and you're personally thinking of buying one. If other people in the group are expressing support for and enthusiasm for electric cars, you're far more likely to then express your enthusiasm for electric cars. Conversely, if the group is critical of electric cars and saying really negative things about them, you're going to be less likely to express your opinion, and therefore you fall down into this spiral of silence. So, the individual's public perspective and perception of how others in the group perceive us becomes potentially more important than the need for the opinion to be heard. So again, if we feel like our opinion is in the majority, we're more likely to share it. If we feel like our opinion is in the minority, we're less likely to share it. As with all theories related to people and their relationships, to the mass media and others, much is dependent on the individual's demographic and life experiences, such as level of education, socioeconomic status, and the case of the spiral of silence theory, personal characteristics such as self-confidence and ego. And again, this theory is very much a theory of the formation of public opinion and individual's willingness to share their thoughts in a larger group. So, the natural question you may now be thinking about, well, was in the 1970s. What happens now in the world of social media? So how does the spiral of silence theory relate to social media? Given the rise of social media and the ability for anyone to poach their feelings essentially anonymously on various sites, the theory doesn't necessarily hold true in a social media environment. However, in face-to-face situations, the spiral of silence theory often still holds true. Now, let's turn our attention to what's known as the knowledge gap hypothesis or the knowledge gap theory. The theory suggests that there are differences in access to information and thereby knowledge between lower socioeconomic statuses and higher socioeconomic statuses, particularly when it comes to receiving and interpreting media messages. Hence, this theory is also known as a digital divide theory. So, access to information is based on socioeconomic status. So, because of financial and other resources such as education, career readiness, things like that, individuals with higher incomes have access to more information. For example, more money allows for purchasing access to more media content, such as cable channels, streaming services, and newspapers and magazines. Conversely, those with lower incomes have much more limited access to information. Again, this is known as that digital divide between the haves and the have nots. And so, the knowledge gap hypothesis absolutely can be very disturbing because it shows differences in class and privilege within our society as related to access to information and knowledge. So, this is why within the media, there are various entities such as public broadcasting, also known as Public Service Broadcasting, which involves radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service, meaning the content on those channels is free and open access. So, examples of this include things like A MFM Radio as well as PBS or the Public Broadcasting Service. As one specific example, PBS started the Sesame Street Television Show back in the late 1960s as an educational experiment designed to help children from lower socioeconomic statuses become better prepared for kindergarten. And again, the idea is that public broadcasting provides free and open access of information and knowledge to everyone regardless of socioeconomic status. So again, spiral of silence theory and the knowledge gap hypothesis. Very important theories regarding access to information as well as the formation of public opinion. Lecture 5 Video Transcript Hi everyone. Welcome to today's lecture. In this lecture, we are going to discuss the social learning theory. This is one of the most applied and studied theories in mass communication research. This theory comes to us from the field of psychology, which is in the social sciences, and this theory is about how people learn. And this comes again from research on human learning and behavior within the discipline of psychology. Social learning theory, often abbreviated as SLT was developed in the 1970s by a scholar named Albert Bandura and Albert Bandura proposed that social learning occurs through the observation or the witnessing, and then the imitation or the repetition of behaviors that we see other people do within a social context. And it is very much influenced by factors such as attention, motivation, attitudes, and emotions. Bandura demonstrated that children learn and imitate behaviors that they have observed in other people. And this is a great thing when you're trying to teach a toddler or a little kid how to do something right, whether it's match shapes or work a puzzle or learn to tie their shoes, we can learn from observing and repeating the behavior that we see in other people. One of the best known experiments in the history of psychology involved a doll by the name of Bobo, BOBO, as you see there on the screen. So in this experiment, an adult acted violently toward Bobo, and children in the experiment witnessed this aggressive behavior. When the children were later allowed to play in a room with Bobo the doll, they then began to imitate the aggressive actions that they had previously observed. And so the key here is that learning is both a cognitive process and a behavioral process within a social context. In addition to the observation of behavior, learning also occurs through the observation of what we would call rewards and punishments. A process that is known as vicarious reinforcement. So reinforcing behaviors. And when you're learning about parenting and how to teach people things, you give rewards to praise good behavior. And then there's lots of different thoughts about how we manage what we would call negative behavior. But in the case of social learning theory, it's about rewards and punishments. So if someone sees a particular behavior, rewarded, that behavior likely persist. Conversely, if a particular behavior is constantly punished, it's likely to be discontinued. So think about traffic laws, right? Speeding is against the law because if we speed, that creates a danger for society, for ourselves, for our communities. And so the idea is that if you speed and you break that law, you will get a speeding ticket. And so that behavior is punished, therefore you will stop doing it. But a key understanding and premise of social learning theory is that the behavior reward system doesn't always work. So again, in the case of speeding, we know we're not supposed to speed. We really try hard not to speed, but sometimes it happens anyway. So again, social learning theory is all about observed behaviors, imitated behaviors, and that reward and punishment system. Social learning theory also looks at a couple of different dimensions. And so when we are thinking about how we learn from others in a social context, these four factors come into play. Attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. So with attention to learn from somebody else, we have to pay attention to their actions and their behaviors. And so one of the best ways to learn math, for example, is to watch somebody else work a math problem and then replicate their behavior, their patterns, and their attention to that math problem. Retention is the next factor. So after paying attention, we must be able to retain or remember what we observed. So what did that person do when they encountered long division, right? How did they manage that? Our memory stores these observations for future use. So retaining what we observed in our brain. The next factor is what we call reproduction. So to learn, we need to be able to reproduce the observed behavior. So think about if you remember being a kid and learning how to tie your shoes, right? Crossover, pull through, make a loop, run around the loop, go under. So again, watching somebody tie shoes over and over, retaining that knowledge and then reproducing that knowledge. So watching yourself reproduce those patterns of tying shoes. And the key here is mimicking the actions that we observed. And then the final factor here is motivation, right? The person has to want to learn. The person has to care, the person has to want to pick up the new skill or the new behavior. And so a really important piece of social learning theory is the motivation of the individual. So four key factors here. Attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. So the natural question then is how does this relate to the mass media? Thousands of studies have applied social learning theory to what we see in the mass media and the effects of the content on the mass media and individuals. And social learning theory through our research has shown time and time again the powerful and pervasive role of the media in our lives. So for example, numerous studies have explored the link between exposure to violent media content and aggressive behavior. And so when people are exposed to violent media content, they're more likely to then have aggressive behavior. An example from my own life, sometimes I play Mario Kart with my family, and I kind of enjoy playing Mario Kart. I ride my little cart and I'm throwing red shells at people, and I'm doing lightning bolts and I'm passing people and I'm going as fast as I can, and it's kind of exciting. I gets my brain all fired up, and then turns out I leave the house in my own car. And I sort of have that mindset that I'm still in Mario Kar, and I want to drive quickly. I want to throw shells, and I want to pass people because I still have that sort of mindset of what I just witnessed in Mario Kart. And so again, media serves this ever increasing role in our lives, serving as this very potent source of social learning from television shows, movies, social media platforms, video games. And so the media that we see is constantly exposing us to all these different behaviors. And so therefore, social learning theory is a key part of media affects research. So if you think about television and film, those have long been tools for social learning. We see characters on TV and movie do things, and we learn from their behavior, their values, and societal norms. So again, as a negative example, if a character on a TV show smokes, and especially at that viewer that smoking looks like it's attractive or successful or rewarded, an audience member is going to see smoking as a desirable behavior and potentially replicate that behavior. We've also seen this happen on social media platforms. Time and time again, individuals follow influencers, celebrities, peers, and we observe their lifestyles, their opinions, and their behaviors. And we now have this influencer culture that has a very significant impact and often a very negative impact on how we perceive beauty, success, and societal norms. Again, we've talked a little bit about video games already, but it's important to understand that research has shown time and time again that when audience members do a lot of video gaming, it has an influence on their behavior, what they see the characters in video games doing. So another key aspect here of social learning theory that we have seen in research is how we see gender roles and stereotypes in the mass media. So television, movies, advertisements, even children's cartoons, reinforce often gender norms. And so if we are seeing these same gender norms repeated over and over again, it hast influence on what we learn and then ultimately how we behave. So just to wrap up, social learning theory is a theory that comes to us from psychology, and it is all about how we learn from other people's behaviors. And in the context of the mass media research has shown time and time again that people absolutely do learn from what they see in the mass media, and they replicate behaviors that they see in the mass media, both for good and for bad. Thank you. Purchase answer to see full attachment User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.
