COMM 4643 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Interpersonal Communication, Social Cognitive Theory, Selective Perception
Document Summary
Moral panic: a feeling of fear spread among a large number of people that some evil threatens the well-being of society. The cube: process: the process which media may influence people. Types of observations: casual observations, think of people watching, systematic observations, structured observation, allows us to differentiate between single cases and widespread phenomena and effects. Goals of social science: prediction, explanation/understanding, prediction focuses on what; explanation focuses on why, control, prediction and explanation can be used to control or change a phenomenon. Types of methods: focus groups, gather relevant people together (8-12 per group, have facilitator run a discussion (person in charge of running the questions, responses aggregated to provide insights and patterns, group think: a. In an effort to create/maintain agreement or harmony, groups of people will minimize conflict by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints: may be persuaded by other people in the room instead of the content itself, asch conformity experiment, 1950s.
