Mass Media Use and the "Revolution of Rising Frustrations"

Lerner's hypothesis of a "revolution of rising frustrations" as expectations generated by mass media outraced economic growth in developing countries has been widely accepted. Yet neither existing data nor much of current thinking about mass media social effects would support such a theory. In a three-year panel study of EI Salvadoran junior high school students, the relationship of early mass media use to subsequent change in social expectation is traced. Clear evidence related an increase in educational and occupational aspirations and a decrease in desire to live in an urban area to increased television exposure. These results were interpreted to suggest that media affects expectation only insofar as other elements of the social environment reinforce such changes.