Conceptualizing Mass Media Effect

Scholars have generated evidence of a wide variety of mass media effects over almost 9 decades of research. Although each of these effects has been defined in a relatively clear manner, there has been much less conceptualizing about what constitutes a mass media effect in general. Rarely have scholars provided a formal definition of mass media effect, instead opting to provide a definition in either an ostensive or primitive manner. In this essay, a conceptualization of “mass media effect” at the most general level is synthesized from this previous definitional work. The proposed conceptualization posits 4 general kinds of mass media effects: gradual long-term change in magnitude, reinforcement, immediate shift, and short-term fluctuation change.