PAPER #42 - Psychological Effects of Mass Media on the Consumers - A Review.

Problem statement: Mass media is a constant and persistent environment in our lives, so its influence goes very deep. It has a significant impact on the people's beliefs, attitudes, opinions, emotions, values and even behavior. But what are the psychological effects of consuming mass media? Can be mass media considered a public threat, like some of the authors argued? Purpose of study: This study aims to make a review of the literature on the mass media psychological effects on the public and to propose some solutions for the negative ones. We will analyze the media psychological effects following their polarization. Research Methods: This study represents a literature review on the mass media psychological effects on the public. Findings: The negative effects of mass-media, as the recent researches show, are: television violence causes an increase in violent and aggressive behavior, for both male and females, children, adolescents and adults, for people who are normally aggressive or nonaggressive; longitudinal studies have shown correlations over time of childhood viewing of media violence with later adolescent and adult aggressive behavior. Violence in video games and in news also increases the aggressive behavior. Highly publicized suicides are followed by an increase in suicides among the populace in short term. The positive effects of mass media mentioned by the literature are: positive influence on health behavior change, through health communication campaigns; a cathartic effect on people, due to the cultural content of the media. Films and cartoons can be intentionally used by the therapists, with positive effects on people's personality. Conclusions: Both pro-social and antisocial attitudes and behaviors can be learned from mass media. The effects of mass media exposure should include as mediators the social and material environment, the influence of the family and school, individual characteristics. We think that the most important solution is educating the children and the young people to select and criticize the mass media content. More education and more information about these effects should be given to people. An increased collaboration between cultural institutions and mass media is needed, in order to improve the quality of the media content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]