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V 0 THr JMITED EF \‘IODEL 635

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&up uod is, tlun. mcd’a vnr aaid to Law re’atnc’. inn, cftrct. Criticswould amp on rhat condusicev the resea’uh rnethodi that teJ and the broader

media powel. an society tha’ undmwrote t.

Jr “tic chaptrr. ‘still sketch the rise, fall, nd rccen rei ‘sari c’ compoacnes ‘f theii”. i’w etfbcts roidul I’ll launch ti’- Jr tb’- ij’. sihec -ith and orhur nanted

C rrica]j’ amplilacd its 1gnifsnce a rues .dsnrd -‘ u ‘os alteroatise.nJn standings and theoretical approaches. From there I will tuip back to the ernergenie on olidation. and diffusion of the two step flow and limited effects ideas atCc lumbia and elsewhere from the 1940s hrough the 1 960s Among other points, Iwill show how it was built on an empirical base of worn m’s talk took initial shape

s one mc del among several at Columbia and rose to a position of rhetorical powerthough not, I argue clear or overwhelming dominance. I’ll ther go m to trace

developments and criticisms of the semi independent two step flow and limitedeffects ideas in the 19605 and early 1970s, before Gitlin and other paradigm-shiftingcritics meighed in From there, I consider ways that the ‘limited effects model’ camento symbolic focus and did historical and rhetorical work in the 1980s and after, inaddition to reflecting on ways that some of its core insights have reappeared in wayswe have come to think about audiences, communicative flows, and networks todass

“Limited Effects”: Birth in Death

Before 1975, the term ‘limited effects” was rareic if ever, used to name a model orparadigm for understanding media. It entered academic parlance over the next severalrears, and within a decade it had become a commonplace in media studies. It gainedthat status through work done by crit c some of whom marshaled the label explicitly,others who energetically questioned the findings focus, and overarching ft amework itp0 nted to Ar long the earliest adopters of the term was Steven Chaffce, the WilburSchramm trained student of mass communication and polit’cs whom one observer‘lfrd ‘the “utstanding communication re,earch scholar 0’ 1-is generatior’ (klexander,001 Operating from the horizons of posits ist, objectnist social science, Chaffeec ha sI- ot at the model in the ground clearing mtroductior ‘ ) his edited 1975 volume,

Politic I Qominirnication. “This book has been produced by social scientists who arewiling o assume in some degree or another that the study ( f political comna.unicatio a needs to he approached from fresh intellectual perspectives and with new tools,”he announced 1p 15’, beFore moving on to speci1 his nteIlectual target:

t least sinct the publication in 1960 of ,Joseph] napper’s maJor synthesis of theColombia Unversiis findings of mIt limited political effects of the mass media. it has

been typical it’ academic circles to assume that communication campaigns can make

univ 2 a tOt nr,iuical cdificc ( s processing of mcdi,’ tori r sation has- 1 ‘ - ‘‘ Or -,l rt,lc. Lh. ‘ ci ht pariisan predispostuous. and suo

- tc—pcninal ‘ttrtuences the :-‘-uep Iluw”. Almost any ineuaae ens ised.cc it ccr,r2, scoid stand i good chanc- ot basing at trust the net effect of reinForcingtOr p’-or’ S C ninny cflyflitnv stain Tlls 1oiited effects n-odd is simph- not briiesedhi n’ in’ ‘as jf iaj that iji,’r t pocsihihts’ tha: media effects °n

0 cob r”,,o’r’-rnaina but t I’ :li’ ,i.’3i,in - ‘n th book Instead tutor of lane chaps : c-dc -cJ r an anals ds at the ‘r ‘ ,‘ n,’lee of ,,tudics from wlie0 i5irrd effeur

‘au- oc nfrred and to p:-’podng o,rnate directions flit iesearch that mightdcmunstrasr hose limited the linuted-cilect’ model iS. ChalIce. 1975. p. 19

ChalIce had been ins estigating ihe mcdi s role in Political socialization of the )oungFor se eral rears at that point, and F ad or to rec oguaize the part it played in increasing political knowlc g foi those who paid attention to it (e.g Chaffee, Ward, Scott,& 1 ipton, ‘970) ov Fe was naming his foe, not vet sure whether to hphenate rhphrase hmi e cffc but about to push forward with a series of criticisms ofthe ode de rues in understandi Fo he f ‘11cr range of relations among mediaand polit es 1winatirg in a thoroughgoing critique curn-histoncal reconstructionof th model unde the rubric of “th hegirnings of political communication researchin th Uni ed ‘tates’ ChalIce, 1977, 1978, Chaffbe & Choe, 1980: Chaffee &l-iochhein-ier, 198; ChalIce & Wilson, 1) 7 -

‘&hiie ChalIbe crtt:cized lin-uted effects as a model for political comr-nnnication,the young cn°cal niedia sociologist Todd Git1tn would cast it in broader relict asthe dominant model for media research writ large

— in his thoroughgoing andtnfluentiai critiqoc, Mcdit: Sncaiogs - ‘the Dominant Paradigm” ‘1978’, Gitlin didn’tLiSC the nes’ limited efiects label, but hs eloquent opening salvo made clear whathis taiget si

- mid be: Ssnce the S-cond World War, as mass media in the United Stateshair become more concenrrareo in ownership, more centralized in operations, morenational in reach, more perr’asis e in prcsenre sociological study of the media hasbeen domr a d bs the theme ut the relat s powerlessness of the broadcasters” ip.205 . Shor ly e free Gutlin made a pos rtul identiHing assertior 1 he dominantparadigm in h he d since \Verl Was I h s been, clearly, the luster of ideas,meaod rd g nociatad ii Pau F I azarsfrld and his schoti oS a chhi” sa c a r h u r -i r r ,id v co-u airirudi al arel b o’ “'‘r 1

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r ed atn a id o a ‘ i or 1- media are rot ver imp wtant in he o rtos f pubi p binu the wF le c nfigu a ion,’ he went m ‘themime tia ng e 1- o his he nos kely, he two step flow of c r r urn a

tions 71(dstlir proce d d to unleash s oe a ing itique of Lazarstel he dominant

oaradigrn t e ftcld thmv, n shaped by hem, v,hieh he traced ho I he People’.s1 azaeCld, Bcrelson o’ rhaudet, 1ia the classic Columbsa crud’; ot the 1930

presidenrta cc mon cainpaiglo, through Tsiappcr s “deiiniris-e compilation of thefield s early stag c ilic Efit. of Hiss Commt’tti,nticn (1960,. He des oted most ofins attcntton honeser to Elihu Katz and Lazarsfeld’s Personal Influence (2005’. based

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‘itlri s 1 iqo flew at the dawning of a new mo ne i in Cia s i s arC whatI led t bgi in g of the decomposition of the go’ng paradigr l se I ‘(p 206).

v del c fe i cC Chaffee s P littcal C rnmuntcatiou (1975), Maxwell McCombsinC Donald SF an s Agenda Setting Function of the Mass Media (1972), and “in

‘gland, the altcrntive approach of cultural studies,’ mentioning Swan Idlis workamong others (Gitlin, 1978. p. 246, n.2; compare Gouldner, l976, pp. 149 150). Hallwould weigh in with his own influential critique of Lazarsfeld a few years later, pivoting from it to announcing the rediscovery of the ideological dimension by “thecritical paradigm in media studies’ then being revived by cultural studies Hall, 1982,p. 651. Gitlin might ha1c drawn e idence for the decomposition of the paradigm fromoth&r sources as neil, including the right-leaning Ge man public opinion researcherinC theorist Piisabetii Noelle-Neumarn 197.1, who had advocated a ‘return to theoilcepl of p werful wass media’ Draw ing on openings provided by the British

51 iologistsJercmy l’unstall (1970) and Halioran. Elliot and Murdoch (1970), Noellehe mann asked if researchers were asking the righ questions about media, and5 ug it (likc ( thn a id others would) to broaden the frame to consider macro level,sues, Ohserv ng the news media’s ability to create a limate of public opinion and

acm lemi cum ilative effects, she called into question t e dea of audience selectivec, and aigued that the media had the powei to initiate what she would soon call aspiral of silence’ whereby those who perceived themlelves to hold minority posi

tions not fa ored in journalistic coverage would remain quiet about them, and thesupposedly dominant views would grow in support and relative standing. Her crCtique meant that inc limited effects model was attacked from left, right, and center;and from both within and beyond the borders of ohjecnvist social science.

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Birthing the “Two Step Fow” The People’s Choiceand Its Coumbian Rivak

in the summer of l940 a dozen or so women living in Erie Countla Ohio laid thegroundwork for what others would call the “dominant paradigm.” They weresorkng with Elmo Wilson and Hazel Gaudet. who had taken up residence inSandusky and were o\e”seelng a naior study conducted by Lazarsfelds OfficeRadio Research (ORRI vhich had just moved from Newark to Columbia. Also collaborating was inmo Rper the pioneering marketing and public opinion surrey

rc’searcher who thU k we headed the Fortune Survey Funded by the Ro.kU P ‘rFoundation and money I a’ arsfeld drew from marketing and consulting work doneat the ORR, the Erie C unt- study was an ambitious effort at tracking the interplayof political propaganda public opinion, and voting behavior over the course of the1940 presidential election campaign.

Between May and November, the speciallx trained local women knocked on thedoor of every fourth house in Sanduskv and the rural towns of the counrvi recruited3,000 local citizens, and interviewed each one multiple times during the unfoldingpresidential campaign. They gathered a wealth of information about each respondent. recorded their political preferences and communicative invohement in the campaign, and followed up with open-ended questions when someone reported changing

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ho t etm media ifec s Lazarsfeld actually aspired to address ongterm and Instit itional effects as well Katz, 2001, Lazarsfeld & Merton, 1948). Merto i was less aptto wr te about effrcts as was Herta Hcrzog who left the ORR in 1943 to head ther sea ch deprrtment at McCann bricks m where she d ssem1nated media researchtechniques into adve t i g and marke ing ‘see Giadwell 19°9 Bes di s the Kate

r itf study, \4erto s funct o ialist analys s is best cxc uphfied ‘n his superb 1948ss y with Laz sfeld, wh ch pc sits three riddle range conc opts t desunibe ongoingiedia processes enforcing social norms, conferring pualie status and narcotizing

c rizens (1 azarsfeld & Merton, 1948, see Simonsoi & sVeirrjann, 2003). Herta Herzog940, 1941, 1944), meanwhile, pioneered the study of audience gratifications, which

vorked out through a deep understanding of psychology as understood by Karlar d Charlotte Buhier, Hadley Cantnil and Freud Bernard Berelson ç1949 would

- tF e gratiflcat,on paradigm in more social dir tensions in his classic study of a19 5 new’paper strike. Through the 1940s, then, the I nited effects paradigm wasn’teven dominant at Columbia, much less the rest of the overlapping fields of propaganda, public opinion and mass communications research

There was diversity at Columbia, but also a family resemblance across researchprojects which distinguished them from other approaches represented in this volumeand from eartier versions of social research at Columbia Lazarsfeld and Merton set

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i i i Jus ie i sc atm erception from (oh r ibia, see Sriitf,I Vat un and F e d a i ‘igf ts re sea tered ac oss class c Columbia writings

hon th 1940s but as ra c elerrerts or ong an eclectic array )f theoretical irfiuences that also include Dur1the m Cabrie Tarde, Adoiphe Qu telet Talcot Parsons,and the pragmatists it s worth remembering, too, that whereas Horkheimer sln;atut k,r 2”-’al ° huI c’ch endowment that supportud it, LazarsfeldBureau r ceded to support itself in an era when foundations and funding agencieswere just beginning to provide grants to the social sciences, This need would affectthe kind of research the group did, The People is Choice was funded by the RockefellerI oundation, which was broadly concerned with US culture and civic life’ by Lifemagazine, s hi-h as intere e in the i fluence of its publications and by incomegenerated by corn nerciai narketing rsearch done by the Bureau, A large subseque t study r Decatu I hnois about which more in a moment - was in turnfunded largely by the magazine publisher Macfadden Publications, financially driverby the iv arketabilty f the two step flow model to commercial funders (Morriso i

006)

Beyond its differe des r in- thc Srankturt group Columbia difibred from Cf cagon several ways too Fo’ ore hung Columbia conducted far more funded research

than its ‘v dv ester i nvo organizing larger-scale research-team projects of the sortrepresented by their co r munity based voting and social influence studies, (The mostfamous team based media p oject at Chicago in the postwar era Kurt and GladysLang s [1968 classicstudyofth I’ve crowdvs, telexusualexperience of the MacArthurDay parade vas conducted by graduate student volunteers who set themselves uparound the parade route) Besides their differing political economies, Chicago styleresearch tended to work in a broadly symbolic interactionist tradition, attending to

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THE RISE. P “1) ALL OF SHE LiMITEd L -F ECTS MODEL 643

cu1ta naGd, t5it1L ita nsenb, and coroL1n1tr lOt na:uns rCated tomedta aid conlni ncatto1. Mertons kate Smith stud and -hirzo earls work onsoap OCIS Ii%ifner’ certainie attsncled to meaning tnkng and remated culturaiissues. hut ilme mainstream of empincal iesearch am Coharnbia attended inure to flowsot tnttuence iou helms torai et-Lts Drought 00 torouch masi media. beyond ihcpeL; Jca I fault hoes a u iha mat I h b i charting s ortant

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Persona nfluence and TwoStep Mows n the 1950s

in the summe’- of 19 15. women to Decatur, Illinois peribrined the communicatiselabor that led a decade later to the publication of Katz and Lazarsfeld s Personal

Imiflueiice ifhich mote than any other text narrowed the conceptual landscape ofColumbia medma n-search and established th limited effects model. The study wasrunded bp \lacfadden Puhiicatons, publisher of, among other periodicals, thepopular lowbrow women’s magazine True Stoty and the general interest Libertymagazine o ‘i whose editorial pages Bernarr Macfadder had once hoisted that heh d mo e influence politically on the masses than any one individual in the UnitedS ates” quoted ir Simonson, 2006, p. 12) True Story had commercial interest in thewo step II w idea along with the finding that opinion leaders operated in all social

st ata hot s of wh ch seived as fodder to persuade advertisers that there wet ejaijable mm ltiplier effects to running ads with them, Time magazine had funded asimilar study a year earlier, searching out what Merton would re name influentials in his administrative and scholarly write-ups of his field study in Dover, Newletsev iMerton 1943, 1949).

In januars 1945, Lazar’feid and Merton hired a young C Wright Mills to overseefield reearci’ us Decatur Summeru 2006, pp 2—29 He would work ‘th HelenDinerman and mheima Ehrlich, two researchc-rs at the newly renamed Bureau -Csppied Social Research trained in the panel technique by Jeannette Green lhevs noD recruit so c 15 local women t conduct rcpeated ir terviews vv th 800 Decaturomen to detc n mc how they made up their minds about marketing a1id political

s (Dougi 200o). I. was ti i first time Mill a ovcrseen a large rip nealudy, nd it woula b the v edge that drow F is and Lazarsfllid apart, setting in

r mon ore f the defining intellectual bteaks in po wa sociology (Summ rs 2006).Tm ang thri duff rences. Mills f )und the strut ture of apunton leadet ship and interpctsonatm niluc ice to he less democratic than I azarstm lJ had ucen trumpeting sinusTue People f L?rorcc,

Afte more than a decade of tras ails following the field study in Decatur. PersomioiItifluence was published. l’hrough rhetorically compeLing narratives that served to

nmagnits ts ow siFnifiuance, Personal intluentt insenred one of the most persistentand macrum atc accounts of the history of media research, and helped convinet

a number of readers that mass media were nut in themselves important social forces.i’hough t nowhere uses theterm “limited effects “ Personal Influence laid out a problematic and tropes that - amplified by Katz, Mapper, and other formeu’ Columbiagraduate students settled into the limited effects model, It was really two books inone Parr I. “The Part Played by People A New 1-orus flu the Study of Mass MediaLifects, ‘ ss as a revrsion of Katz’s dissertat m which was in turn an extension of aa po he wrote fou a riajor but unpubiisf ed tudy of US television funded and la crmulled) by he Ford Foundation çkat’- 1953’ Morrison, 2000, see also Buxton 2009ft presented a tale of discovering ustervening variables’ in effects of mass communication, including the variable of interpersonal relations and opinion leaders, andconsolidated Columbia research on the topic, including their second communitybased voting study (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, & McPhee, 1954). It also included a highlyinfluential history of the field. whch purportedly grew from an era when the audience was conceived as “an atornistic mass of millions of readers, listeners, and moviegoers prepared to receise the Message.” and “es cry Message was seen 1 as a directand powerful stimulus to action which would illicit immediate response” (Katz &Lazarsfeld, 2005, p. 16. This image would later be associated with the “hypodermicmodel’ Gitlin referenced, though it was essentially a straw man that referenced noactual earlier work, As Jefferson Pooley (2006) and Debora Lubken (2008) have convincungly shown, Personal Influence invented a flawed “other” to which it claimedsuperiority Something analogous would happen an the I 970s when the “limitedeffects model” was rhetorically mobilized by its critics.

Meanwhile, the second part of Personal Influence, “The Flow of Everyday Influencein a Midwestern Cen na’wj.’ presented and interpreted the decade-old data fromDecatur in a manner that has been roundly criticized by social scientists and criticssince Relying on self-reports of the Decatur women, it concluded that interpersonaltnfluence was more important than mass media in decisions made about shopping.movie-going, fashion, and public affairs, It analyzed opinion leadership in those four’realms, and concluded with consideration of the two step flow and interpersonalinfluence. Like The Peoples Choice, Pet’cotial Influence fits nicely rnto a liberal pluralistworldview and presented a reassuring picture to mid-century US citizens - opinionleaders came from all social strata and through face to-face conversation helped limitthe force of mass media: the book functioned as a democratic apologetic in the fa eof fears of a mass soc ety McCormack, 2006, Scannell 2006), Some reviewers cnticized the evidence advarced as support for the two-step flow theor but mostaccepted the book claim that interpersonal outweighed media influence in indu

idual decision-making. Kurt and Gladys Lang (2006) base argued that the book‘heralded a clear shift in the rhetoric ‘ oF socmolugmsts and political scientists surrounding the importance of maw c-omrnunication and toward a minmmalmst’ view ofmedia effects” that pushed out alternative conceptions pp. 165. 167, These includedthe broadly symbolic interactionist perspectives developed by the Fangs and othersat the University of Chicago. which mapped alternative paradigms of media sociologv Lang & Lang, 1961, 1968’.

Though th n-malnt siew of media posu sh1ed the acadnivis cLot L. hamodel rcuaiix omained two cii rianpine ide-i one of uhoha could iìo se000rr

the an of more robust media p n-er. On the onc hand the laim that sclcctis usa d g up norm ma-n-cd the dir ut nfluence of mass media fed a conclusion suf

e a it ss C )lUmb a research cart iced ii a statement fro n summar article

a s n a-i i at or do sc a ma n Scie t cau e o

a ci cffbcts hi n-her for ct’o as among nd hroagl us of d a it g

tactc s and influer cc whic ic ally re’ide ness ciia -i r iracfr’n a cc t ibucrc agc’t, but not the sole cause. in a process ot reinrorcing 0 existing cOndit3ons

Kapper. 1917, p. 458L Reinforcing existing conditions’ could be taken as the stan-of a theory of media and idcoiogcai hegemons. a direction Lazarsfeld and Men-onI94 feinted toward a decade earlier Simonson & VVeimann. 200.3). But PersonaL

Injluence dialed the resolution of the viewing frame down to the individual, hortterm, and decision making level, occluding the bigger picture and downplaying thedative significance of mass media as a social fin-ce

Ih two step flow idea nould be put to other uses howe or Beyond suggestingthe nterpersonal mediation and herefore limits of media power, it also pointedtoward diffusion, larger-scale communicative flows, and social mechanrms ofenhancing media effectivity In this iteration of the two-step flow media campaignscombined with word-of-mouth diffusion to cascade through social networks Runningalongside rhetoric of comparatively limited media influence, then. Columbiaresearchers also lay down a vision of communication in a networked society. In thisregard, the Columbia paradigm merged with diffusion studies conducted by ruralon ologists, with work in international development, and with psychological warfare

efforts coordinated by the US government in collaboration with communicationresearchers (Simpson, 1994), all of whom looked at conversations as potential multipliers of media influence.

The opinion leader, Interpersonal influence, and flow -of communlcation ideas hadentered the state-sponsored Cold War arsenal of pscchological warfare by the late1940s. Frankfurt School émigré and former Bureau affiliate Leo Lowentha± hadbecome research director of the VOice of America. which funded opinion leadershipand audience studios in Norway, Sweden, and o her European and Latin Americancountries in 1948 1949, explicitly understood as a contribution to “psychologicalwarfare’ 1Klapper & Lowenthal, 1951). Iwo years later, the Voice of America fundedSi ular survey work in the strategic Near Eat on atries of Turkey Lebanon EgyptSyria Jordan. and Iran collecting information about media behavior and seeking outopir ion leaders in towns and cities. At the same in-ic, the Bureau prepared a surveyresearch manual, Are 14b Hitting Our Targeti. for an immediate predecessor of thUS Information Agency whose mission wa to influence foreign publics in the USnational interest; it guided opinion leader studie’. in the Philippines and elsewhereSimpson, 1994, p. 73c ‘I’he Near East study would be published as Daniel Lerner5

(I 958)Passing of iraditional Society, an infamous articulation of modernization thec rva well as a fascinating historical portrait of communication, politics, and socier ‘ii

THE RISc AND i-ALt OF THE LM)TED E)-FECTS uv3ODEL 645

:bos ux stii important countrtes. Snapchots of opmion leadershm arc capturedtlituugnur ‘g.. PP So- 2. 1b5 - leo. z-i ‘4o, 33 i-338

in the cc c i tinw, University at Wash ngtc n sociologist Stuart Dodd and graduatestu lents lik - Melvin DeFleur advanced he mass communication and i aterpersonal

ii r uci in ugn sudic of a rpla’ i aliet d ops for the US Air Force and owrtlvdec c (II. Their Project Re e - study (1951 1953) was a rathe rer. arkable

cit’s A I s udies of mars leaflet dcc ,n the Pacific Northwest, which built oftns(Ju rahuv extended the general Idea ot conlmuiucatis’c tlow s laid out in TJe

Pta pie -s C1oico Dodd and his students meticulously charted geographical difthsionpathways, as well as maximally efficient ratios of leaflets diopped to reception of themessage illePleur & Larsen. 1987. pp. vii—xxxii; Dodd. 1952; Lowery & DeFleur.1995, pp .113 237,, Their work gave rise to a series of additional studies and publicaions that advanced the mediated-and interpersonal diffusion model of mass com

munication, with specific attention to news stories) e .g.,Danielson, 1956; Deutschmann& Danielson, 1956; Larsen & Hill, I 94 ) ar d rumor (e.g , DeFleur, 1962). Meanwhile,ural sociologists at Iowa State University studying rho adoption of modern farming

practices developed their own pictures of the roles played by mass media and face-to-fact’ contacts in the diffusion of information Real & Bohlen. 1957; Rogers. 1962;Rogers & Real. 1Q5; see also Valente & Rogers. 19051. lhrough the 1960s, the modelof flows contributed to n-hat Everett Rogers (1978) would call the dominant paradigm of development research, partly organized around the idea that “mass communication was . . a very powerful and direct force for development

Columbia socinlogists rarely cited the Washington group’s work, however. nor muchkom Chicago, ho sing as ad t solid iv their own lineage as it passed from Lazarsfeldand Me o to t en flvorably placed and influential network of former studentsthrough wF ar cray Nk f ols Clark (1998) has called the ‘Columbia sociology machine.’Lven then, however, Columbia media studios varied, with some more fasorablv placedar-id better amplified bc’ the machine than others. A number of excellent studies layclearly outside the realm of Lazarsfeldian effects or n-so-step flow studies — includingLeila Sussmann’s 1916. study of mail to the president. Warren Breed’s 0955, 1958critical functionalist accounus of news, and Charles \Vright’s 11959) synthetic introducnon to a functionalist sociology of mass communication, Katz and others consolidatedthe two step flow and diffusion ideas, howexer, and underscored the argnmenr fromPersonal Influence that aicdia power to bring about changc was relatively limitedColeman Katz & Her zel 1957; Katz, 1957, 19601, lhis line of second generation

Columbia thinking would eventually rise to symbolic dominance.

Consolidation and_Challenge_n the 1960s

Joseph Klapper s Effects of Ma s Communication came out in 19o0, consolidating theconceptual vocabulary of “effects” by surveying a wide but also limited body of social

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Kiappet ‘bnok isas cidcly cited though itt. rral intluenc- is harder u distern InC ‘umbit wostep low and effects nodels were both citended nd aidcind u

c 1960s Raymond Bauc i,196 I, condensed thc. Dmited eflec. s hypothesis lilt) theirageofik obstiracaudien c whichle i tlydecl red ‘adetense. lofad ersmgandw asmedr p.32r. dmtungi hargethatcndcaIreeadicrsu datr mkc of the p sad’rt. Lu stèld and ‘len..eI ‘1 )n positcd a mud .r

QOY of r ntmurdca,tons Sb bile orb.. is dtninguisleed ‘eay and rearb’ cementimuinns : opinion ltader.s Deurschmann & Dinidson :o60’ din attention ‘o

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‘me Gitlin i ‘Cm %eigbed m wtI’ hi’. Intluentia! critique. the limited eflèctsmodel ‘a’ clean’. nn its d’s — slope. ssith. riticc bo* ritbin and catside obiecth 1st‘.OCt lCtC

Limited Effects Since the 1980s

B r’.- n-id I 9%Os. the ‘limited effects moat’ had becore a rhetorical commorp¼ce‘1 tna’. c’ ‘mutt .ii:ui”n dilL! radia stad’es .ised to talk abnut. ‘d-pdrate. normativtktank dedeg iarc- -‘e peting theone and ore’taiions TIe limited e1tects‘ii is 1, lsronvtl ferci’scKlapc andoth• dd his&Vcre ‘ uldakcttspl a‘nsk stow . It hrldai edot tic arendb F h’iycd nc‘io.’tl • ..I’&t. ‘.‘a •i’ . 2’ ;Prn t 1... pa’c’ ti x4nch “let a.f etfrc.% was

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...nc- n..e ‘h e .- t i•i. i xtendi the itt. t m Pr’o’ Tafl’wnec that all‘tu e f md son, cncer ,em’elvcs “h tile %oiidn v’th at‘tart the. i tnt igui c tleoucs fnnitcd ,wefleffcctscharted hisny ftheirc., pnrt,a ddefendcdl..ratsfèl tan-styleconurunicutons rc•seaitl as t had d° ‘ped aftcr the class’ v )rk ot the. 1940s and 1950s.

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HE I 1SF AND FALL OF THE LIMITED EFFECTS MODEL 649

i gi te g k r e u eLi Y e am v I k fe uaa F i 1 1 e S6j g r ‘air rd c p ‘ I icc

i dis ha i ale Fe ‘myth riassi er cdia impact a d d irrdrgh f 1 ri ted effe ts (cf. La le 19C6

a i ii Cs1 u din to r ‘act rF a rh fir ited efi’ cc dcio a di’ ed alt i i e is vF ch or e alt rn oprc a F

rcrre1 uric r be t I era tude ,( r ar C ie h V o c t2 1 al p cal con c (Schiller 8), humanis cto ca s udonhe 98’ or ‘orrpc irg soual ci itific theor cs likc agenda setting

McCombs 1981). political socialization (Cha fec & Elochl’ cimer, 1985 Mos his &Moore 1982) o nformation processing (Fntman 1989). in short, in the 1980sInvited effects came to serve as a symbolic boundary marker with corsiderable

rhetorical powe in teaching, textbooks, and research about media‘I h opinion leade and two step flow comp nents of the model have in the

rica time taken or new life in network theo y and studies of lnternetrelated dif’fus c i. F e nz Eulau (1)80) aid K tz s student Gabriel Weimann (1982, 1994) joinedC her ibia ideas to a new generation of network analysis techniques. Others incorpora ed part of the classic model into increasingly sophisticated network m dlsthat tracked diffusion (Valente 1996), social capital (Burt 1999), and marketingand social epidemics (Watts, 2007, Watts & Dorrs 2007), Featured as the NumF ccOne Breakthrough Idea” of 200/ in the harvard Business Review Duncan Watts snotion ot the accidental ‘nfluentials” shifted attention from influential individualsto ne work structures that allow influence to cascade widely Campaign researchers

o itinue to find variations on the two step flow idea useful eg., Hornik, 2006’Southwell & Yzer, 2007 It has provided a tool for mapping Internet-related diffunon and influence patterns related to medicine, politics, and climate change campaigns among other topics (Case Johnson Andrews Allard & Kelly, 2009, Nisbet& Kotcher, 2009’ Norris & Curice, 2008). The Columbia flow paradigm lives on,nd helps to explai i ne family of r diated soc’al processes More recently, it hasbee i oined by a rec ival of the idea of limited effects within political communicaion and p rsuasion research, reflecting on “the continued detachm nt of individu

als from group based society, and the increasing capacity of consumers to chooseFom a multitude of media channels’ Lance Bennett and Shanto Iyengar (200R(

f r i istance, have argued that we are nte ing ‘a new era of minimal conseque ices” (pp 708, 725, see also Bennett & Iyengar 2010; Holbert Garrette &Gleason 2010).

Conclusion

I’he rise and fall of the limited effects model turns out to be a more complex andinteresting story than might be suggested by its place in the collective imagination

iten p0 y me ia studies Let nc end by summarizing and eLecting on whatI I c b a ri th I ss is f hi i ci I episode I have a ed sow e of ft eintelle tual n.h utional, and rhetor’ origins and fault lines of the wodel andshown boy hese developed ocer time I grew out of Columbia’s Office of Radio

ch ri ‘h e rI” 1940s mcdi ted thinugh women intervieweis in threc si’ alli o ial -i ies nd taki ig hape h uyh tF ob ectivist language and m ddle a ge

e r )f C c lumbia so ology The tep llov of commun cations wa, ofF se niiddl am ge theoretica e nked in it. development to the conceptual

problematics of propaganda and p blic opin on, the new research method of thepanel interview; and funded investigations that served the purposes of media organizations and commercial marketing as v dl as progressive tolerance campaigns andthe social scientific pursuit of new knowledge. The two-step flow came to be linkedto a view of the mass communication process that posited a number of interveningpsychological and social mechanisms limiting the ability of purposive media campaigns to change people’s attitudes and behaviors. This finding led to the conclusionthat most of the time media play a reinforcement role Together, these semiindepender t lementc came together into what its critics named the limited effectsmodel,

Since the l9Os, the flow; limiting mechanisms, and reinforcement ideas have allfmnd places in a range of research and thinking. ‘1 his traverses work done bothwithin the Columbia lineage and by critics of it. The discovery’ of people as intermediaries and disseminators fed into both research and practice in diffusion, developmerit, marketing, and psychological warfare. It is one of the birth points forunderstanding commun on network’ and flows, The idea that audienc s can be“obstinate ‘ resisting the efforts and messages that come to them through massmedia, cas n turn fed images of the active audience in uses and gratificationsresearch, Since the 1970s, active audiences have also been a staple in cultural studies,though rarely with positive acknowledgment of the Columbia tradition that preceded it, Audiences who resist or put media to active v ork in their social envirorments have been heroes across wide swaths of media studies, which from a grandehistorical vantage point complexifies and disperses core insights of I 940s Columb awork. Reinforcement, meanwhile, is itself a core concept in Marxian and other er ii

cal media studies, worned out through Althusserian, Gramscian, Foucauldian ind

other theoretical idioms, I he Columbians came to their conclusion from very different political and intelle ual horizons but their baseline conclusions about media s

power to reinforce do ruinant atritudes public opinions, and behaviors clearly pointedin complementary directions Katz, 1980, p. 134). That they rarely drew that conclusion I azarsfeld and Mertor tl)48) being an exception is of course significant, andsupports their critics charge tha their middle-range theory was so ‘iologically myopicand obfuscating Still, as Katz 1987, 2005) has skillfully shown, a good number ofcontemporary research programs can be cast as extensions of early Columbiainsights. Though the limited effects model was itself rather limited, it still flowsthrough our histories and contemporary work.

NOTE

Rotlisiold Me.’ s ,\socat,.,r rJu atr’fl Cl urna1lsirl SF1 ,o,fuj-.,, e

u.sr b, Es Biu1cr ,.‘tid j $1 Mci cull, Commu’ai iiVfl d 1n I S urnou c B’’,

S andcr, M 200l Ste’ven haffee Pr fcs or ,n1c’iti ft Cornmunicauon, dead at 65tanfhrd Report 18 May Retrieved ftp 201 ‘i, rom http’ new stanford edo

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Communication

An Idiosyncratic Presentation ofan Emerging SubfieldRobert W. McChesney

ABSTRACT

The political economy of communication has three main components. First, it

addresses in a critical manner how the media system interacts with and affects theoverall disposition of power in society Second, it examines hew market structures.advertising support, labor relations, profit motivation, technologies, and government policies shape media industries, journalistic practices, occupational sociologyand the nature and content of the news and entertaimnent. The detailed examination of the policymaking process is the third core component. Political economicanalysis suests that media development has been inflected most strongly at eriCcal junctures, moments hen media technologies, political power, and economicstructures simultaneously undergo stress and change. The present moment suggests the potential ft>r political economic study of the media to have real impact.

‘What follows s on 1dm ncratic presentation of the area of research called the “pi P0

cal economy of communication’ or the “political econom) of media” I justib hisapproach because the sobfleld is small and has only a loosely recognizcd canoe atthis point. M) aim s to c nt bute to the process of developing our understandingof this field of research, ts history, the great influences upon its development, andits immense potential and importance going forward.

TJc Into iIticnai Lucvcl’’edzI et 7LdaStslicc First Oditiun

General Editor Angharad N \‘aldis a

Volume I Media history and the Foundations of Media Studies. Edited bvJohn Neronc.C 2013 Blackwell Publishing ltd. Pub ished 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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