ABSTRACT
If any one issue can be said to have motivated media studies, it is the question of ‘effects.’ From the perspective of policy-makers and the general public, the field has been expected to supply evidence of what the media may do to people and to society. From within the academic perspective, the field has justified itself by examining what specific difference the modern media make, compared to other cultural forms and social institutions. The question of effects has largely been stated in terms of the relatively short-term cognitive and behavioral impacts of different media and their contents on mass audiences, which have been studied by quantitative social-scientific methodologies. Especially in this area, it is still appropriate to speak of a dominant paradigm or model (Gitlin 1978; Webster and Phalen 1997), even if the quantitative mainstream is quite differentiated and currently in dialogue with a qualitative substream (Chapter 10).
