ABSTRACT
The idea that media have a direct or uniform effect on viewers is a position that is generally understood to be a simplification of the way that researchers in the discipline conceptualize media influences. Not only are media effects models generally more subtle in recognizing the conditions under which effects are most likely to occur, they are also quite ready to acknowledge the importance of viewers’ selection, interpretation, and memory. As with most scholarship in the social sciences, though, media effects research often reports small to moderate effect sizes-a situation that has allowed some critics to suggest that the media have no effect or that the effects of media are completely overwhelmed by other social forces. This chapter acknowledges the importance of unexplained variance and, like some critics, sees it as an issue deserving of attention. However, this chapter takes the position that unexplained variance represents the very thing that makes human beings interesting, unique, and infinitely worthy of our research attention: individual differences.
