Social Learning Theory in Media

In the psychological studies, in the crime studies, social learning was a new topic that was promoted by Albert

Bandura. Nowadays social learning is under consideration by a lot of people. Mass media is considered as the

important component of any society, it actually is known as the fourth pillar of the establishment. New

generation depends a lot on the mass media for the information gathering and entertainment.

History

Like all social studies, social studies is also based on the behavioral observation and study. As described above it

was originated as a result of the crime study. Basics of this study lies on the fact that the actions of the

humans are derived from their interaction with other people and their observation.

According to behavioral sciences younger people are faster at learning than the elders; their

fresh minds are capable of quicker observation and longer memory. From the very beginning

humans are very adaptive for the behaviors of the people around them. They are more or less

the same as the people around them tend to do.

Now with the increasing importance of media, it has penetrated into the everyday use of the

people. Therefore it has major influence on the development of the learning behaviors of the

modern society.

Significance of Theory in Media

Importance of media has increased many times in the last few years, hence the social learning

is increasing because of the media. In the start mass media was dependent on the newspaper,

radio, etc. now with the invention of internet mass media has grown faster and influencing.

Social networking sites are a performing a larger share in the social learning process as it is

dependent on the social interactions. At present this deeper influence cannot be removed from

the lives of the people. This non virtual world of the internet has helped people do all the things

that they do not afford in the real life. It has crossed the limits of impossibilities and physical

restriction.

Magic bullet theory in mass media

This theory is also known as hypodermic needle theory, this theory says that nowadays media is too active and influencing that it implies all its affects on the people like a fired bullet or the needle on the viewers of the media. The theory was put forward in 1930, during the behavioral study of World War 1.

The main idea of this theory was that the influence of the media is very strong no one can hide or save himself from that. It makes the people accept the ideas thrown by it, without research of cognitive actions.

Two-step flow theory

‘Two step’ theory is the modern and popular media theory that is generated from the diffusion

hypothesis. It was put forward by the Lazarsfeld and his fellows; he presented the idea that the

message flow from the media is not just an instant. The media throws the message and the

audience has the ability to choose to adopt the message or not. They had the study group of 93

people in which they studied that when people exposed to media, their responses and

observations were different towards the messages of the media.

In 1960s Marshal Mcluhan and cultural studies made improvement in this theory by

researching the cultural aspects of the places in learning. The research was made on the basis

of observation of natural behaviors except for the study of the controlled groups. He said that

the nature and behavior of the person facing the media is more important in the influence

rather than the strength of the content of the media

He also put forward the idea of the global village, in his view the internet connecting the far

away people make people feel that they are near to each other. And they become used to the

people of those places.