Acontecimientos sociales

Although he provides a formal definition for each of these concepts, he
concludes his definitional section by saying, ‘‘The issue of what constitutes effects
is difficult to resolve because it meansdifferent things to different people. ‘Effects’
may refer to the relationship between encoding and decoding activities within mass
communication. . . . ‘Effects’ may link mass communication processeswith other
systems and the larger society. . . . Media effects may refer to the impact of media ‘as
a whole.’ ’’ (pp. 4–5).
Bryant and Zillmann (2009) say that ‘‘when scholars talk about mediaeffects,
they are considering the social or psychological changes that occur in consumers of
the media message systems —or in their social milieu or cultural values —as a result
of being exposed to,processing, or acting on those mediated messages. Five classes of
media effects on individuals are often considered: behavioral, attitudinal, cognitive,
emotional, and physiological’’ (p. 13).Arguably the clearest example of a formal definition of mass media effects is
offered by McQuail (2005). In his glossary to the fifth edition of McQuail’s Mass
Communication Theory, McQuail defines effectsof media as ‘‘the consequences or
outcomes of the working of, or exposure to, mass media whether or not intended.
They can be sought at different levels of social analysis. There are many types ofeffect,
but it is usual to distinguish at least between effects that are behaviourial, attitudinal
(or affective) and cognitive. Effects are distinct from ‘effectiveness’, which relates to
theefficiency of achieving a given communicative objective’’ (p. 554). Thus, he deals
explicitly with the definitional issues of intentionality, level, and type.
Now that we are close to a century of empiricalwork on mass media effects, it
is time to move beyond assuming that there is a shared definition for mass media
effect in general. It is time to move beyond ostensive definitions and try to...