Media Research - Discussion - Essay Example

HERE YOUR HERE HERE HERE Media Research – Discussion As a media researcher, the most fascinating area of exploration would be effects studies as it relates to media influence. Why? Mass media comes in many formats, even pervading video games with its marketing and advertising messages and the type of popular culture slogans and phrases that continue to exert influence on behavior and social attitude. Effects studies are more important than process studies or gratification studies as this field of research identifies the social and psychological connections as to why media maintains the ability to alter thinking and behavior.

The focus of the most desired effects studies would be on the content of video games as a mass media format and how it impacts youth personality and behavior. A recent study identified that the content of violent video games maintains the ability to lower player empathy toward others, in a survey of 307 adolescents between fourth and sixth grade (Funk, Baldacci, Pasold & Baumgardner, 26). It was cited as the “creative nature” of these games, accompanied with violent content, that changed how young individuals in society can lose their sense of compassion and kindness toward others with routine exposure (Funk, et al, 26).

As identified, many varieties of this type of mass media contain advertising imagery that also alters attitudes and lifestyle focus, making effects studies absolutely fascinating. Offers one psychologist, “regular exposure to games actually rewires a child’s brand, making them more amenable to violence” (gamepolitics.com, 1). This, again, is why effects studies would be so critically important to understanding the role of different mass media formats on human behavior as they actually manage to create bio-physical changes to the human brain.

Since there are many different formats of mass media other than video games, effects studies on all types of media could determine whether actual brain restructuring could be a potential and common outcome as a reason for why people change their attitudes and social behaviors. Effects studies related to video game media could be expanded to include the potential for television, radio and the social media found on the Internet to determine whether bio-physical changes occur after routine exposure to multiple media sources.

By taking a larger sample of individuals who are not only children but include multiple demographics with different socio-economic backgrounds, actual brain measurements can be taken to witness whether structural changes occur after constant exposure to particular messages in multi-media formats. Effects studies maintain the potential to create the most good for society to determine what is actually driving changes to beliefs, values and behaviors throughout the country. It would be interesting to get to the root of what is causing such profound changes in society as it relates to mass media to determine whether certain content should be censored to ensure human health and safety.

The link between social and personality changes and mass media exposure, whether using youths or adults as targets for study, should definitely be uncovered through effects studies. Works CitedFunk, J., H. Baldacci, T. Pasold & Baumgarder, J. “Violence Exposure in Real-Life, Video Games, Television, Movies and the Internet: Is there Desensitization?, Journal of Adolescence, Vol. 27 (2004). Accessed October 7, 2011 at www.elsevier.com/locate/jadoGamepolitics.com. “Video Games and Violence Go Together like Cigarettes and Lung Cancer” (2010).

Accessed October 6, 2011 at www.gamepolitics.com/taxonomy/term/261/0