KLAPPERâ€™S PHENOMENSITIC THEORY:Klapperâ€™s Generalizations, Criticism

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Theories of Communication MCM 511

LESSON 13

KLAPPER'S PHENOMENSITIC THEORY

Elite Pluralism

Like the other examples of limited effects theory, elite pluralism assumes that media have little ability to

directly influence people. Media alone cannot alter politics. Elite pluralism argues that media, in the

name of stability should reinforce political party loyalties and assist the parties to develop and maintain

large voter coalitions. Media shouldn't be expected to lead public opinion but rather reinforce it.

If change is to occur, it must come from the pluralistic groups and be negotiated and enacted by the

leaders of these groups.

This idea was spawned partly as an effort to make sense of the voter research initiated by Lazarsfeld in

the 1948 election. He and his colleagues found inconsistencies between their empirical observation of

typical voters and the assumption that classical democratic theory made. Classical democratic theory-

assumed that every one must be well informed and politically active.

But the new perspective based on empirical data showed that average people didn't care about politics.

Voting decisions were more likely to be based on personal influence than on reasoned consideration of

the various candidates. So they argued that voter apathy weren't really a problem for the political

system as a whole. They argued that we are better off if our political system changes very slowly over

time as result of gradual conversions. They believed that the important factor was not the quality of

voting decisions but rather their stability.

Klapper's Phenomenistic Theory

In 1960 Joseph Klapper at Colombia University concerned that average people exaggerated the power

of media. He introduced what he called PHENOMENISTIC THEORY.

He argued that media rarely have any direct effects and are relatively powerless when compared with

other social and psychological factors such as social status, group membership, strongly held attitudes,

education and so forth. His theory is often referred to now as reinforcements theory because a key

assertion is that the primary influence of media is to reinforce (not change) existing attitudes and

behaviors.

Instead of disrupting society and creating unexpected social change, media generally serve as agents of

the status quo, giving people more reasons to go on believing and acting as they already do.

He argued that there simply are too many barriers to media influence for drastic changes to occur except

under very unusual circumstances.

Klapper's Generalizations

Mass communication ordinarily does not serve as a necessary and sufficient cause of audience

effects, but rather functions among and through a nexus of mediating factors and influences.

These mediating factors are such that they typically render mass communication a contributory

agent, but not as the sole cause in a process of reinforcing the existing conditions. Regardless of

the condition in question and regardless of whether the effect in question be social or individual

the media are more likely to reinforce than to change.

On such occasions as mass communication does function in the service of change , one of the

two conditions is likely to exist; Either:

The mediating factors will be found to be inoperative and the effect of the media will be found

to be direct;

Or the mediating factors, which normally favor reinforcement, will be found to be impelling

toward change.

There are certain residual situations in which mass communication seems to produce direct

effects, or directly and of itself to serve certain psychophysical functions.

Theories of Communication MCM 511

The efficacy of mass communication, either as a contributory agent or as an agent of direct

effect, is affected by various aspects of the media and communications themselves or of the

communication situation, including e.g. aspects of textual organization, the nature of the source

and medium, the existing climate of public opinion and the like.

Criticism

· Downplays reinforcement as an important media effect

· Is too specific to its time and media environment (no television)

· Klapper's "nexus of mediation variables " that is church , family and school began to lose their

powerful position in people's so socialization - and therefore in limiting media effects

· Many critical scholars see this as media's most negative influence

Assumptions of the limited effects paradigm

· Empirical social research methods can be used to generate theory through an inductive research

process.

· Exploratory, descriptive research is expected to produce empirical generalizations that can later

be combined to form middle-range theories.

· Eventually, middle-range notions can be combined to create broad, powerful social theories that

are firmly grounded in empirical facts.

· The role of mass media in society is limited; media primarily reinforce existing social trends

and only rarely initiate social change.

· The media will cause change only if the many barriers to their influence are broken down by

highly unusual circumstances.

· The empirical mass communication research supported this assumption. In study after study,

little evidence of strong media influence was found.

· Mass media's role in the lives of individuals is limited, but it can be dysfunctional for some

types of people.

· Media provide a convenient and inexpensive source of entertainment and information.

· But neither use has much long-term or important impact on the daily life of most of people.

· Almost all information is either ignored or quickly forgotten.

· Entertainment mainly provides a temporary distraction from work, allowing people to relax and

enjoy themselves so that they can go back to work refreshed.

· People who are adversely affected by media tend to have severe personality or social adjustment

problems; they would be deeply troubled even if media weren't available.

· The U.S. political and social system is both stable and equitable

· Although not democratic in the classical sense, the U.S. system id nevertheless a viable and

humane system that respects and nurtures cultural pluralism while preserving social order,

· There is no need for radical reform.

· Media play a limited, but nonetheless useful, functional role within the larger society.

· Potentially harmful effects can be detected and prevented should any appear.

Drawbacks of the Limited Effects Paradigm

· Both survey research and experiments have serious methodological limitations that were not

adequately recognized or acknowledged.

· Empirical researchers were anxious to popularize their approach and sometimes made

exaggerated claims for it.

· Naïve people outside the empirical research community made false assumptions about the

power and utility of this type of research.

· When empirical researchers were directly challenged in the late 1960s, they were slow to

acknowledged limitations of their work and reacted defensively.

· The methodological limitations of early empirical social research led to findings that

systematically underestimated the influence of mass media for society and for individuals.

Theories of Communication MCM 511

Researchers like Lazarsfeld and Hovland were inherently cautious. They didn't want to infer the

existence of effects that might not be there spurious effects.

The researchers developed methods designed to guard against this, but they risked overlooking

or dismissing evidence that could have been interpreted as an argument for significant media

effects.

In their conclusion, they often failed to emphasize that they might be overlooking many types of

media effects because they had no way of measuring them.

Early empirical research centered around whether media had immediate, powerful, direct

effects; other types of influence were ignored.

First, the mass society paradigm, which had been dominant, asserted that such effects existed

and should be easy to observe. This paradigm needed to be evaluated and the early limited

effects research did so.

Second, the early research couldn't "see" an effect, it didn't exist. Only later, did researchers

develop techniques that permitted other types of influence to be empirically assessed.

Contributions of the Limited Effects Paradigm

· The limited effects paradigm effectively replaced mass society theory as the dominant

perspective on media.

· The limited effects paradigm lessened unjustified fears about massive, uncontrollable media

effects.

· This benefited media practitioners.

· Most important, it helped ease pressures for direct government censorship of media and

permitted media practitioners to implement useful forms of self-censorship.

· The paradigm prioritized empirical observation and downgraded highly speculative forms of

theory construction.

· It demonstrated the practicality and utility of empirical research and inspired development of

broad range of innovative methods of data collection as well as new techniques for data

analysis.

· These empirical techniques have proved to be powerful and useful for specific purposes.

· If the paradigm had not become dominant, scientists might not have devoted the time and

resources necessary to develop these techniques.

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