Exam 5: The Consolidation of the Media Effects Trend

A contemporary criticism of functionalism and systems theory is that they have a bias in favor of the status quo.

Paul Lazarsfeld branded the use of surveys and experiments to probe media audiences and interpret consumer attitudes and behaviors ____.

Middle-range theory provided an ideal rationale and justification for even grander, more large-scale investigations of media influence.

Lazarsfeld's research on the two-step flow of media influence demonstrated that opinion leaders existed at all levels of society and the flow of their influence tended to be __________.

One contemporary criticism of Klapper's phenoministic theory is that it equates reinforcement with no effects.

Mass entertainment theory argues that ________.

Functional analysis was appealing to Robert Merton and his followers because of its __________.

Cybernetics is the study of regulation and control in complex machines.

_________ explain only limited domains or ranges of action that had been or could be explored using empirical research.

According to functionalists, consequences of practices that are unintended and difficult to observe are _______.