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6. SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY OF MASS COMMUNICATION 127

give insufficient attention to the increasingly powerful role that the sym-
bolic environment plays in present-day human lives. Whereas previously,
modeling influences were largely confined to the behavior patterns exhib-
ited in one’s immediate environment, the accelerated growth of video
delivery technologies has vastly expanded the range of models to which
members of society are exposed day in and day out. By drawing on these
modeled patterns of thought and behavior, observers can transcend the
bounds of their immediate environment. New ideas, values, behavior pat-
terns, and social practices are now being rapidly diffused by symbolic
modeling worldwide in ways that foster a globally distributed conscious-
ness (Bandura, 1986, 2000d). Because the symbolic environment occupies
a major part of people’s everyday lives, much of the social construction of
reality and shaping of public consciousness occurs through electronic
acculturation. At the societal level, the electronic modes of influence are
transforming how social systems operate and serving as a major vehicle
for sociopolitical change. The study of acculturation in the present elec-
tronic age must be broadened to include electronic acculturation.

Mechanisms Governing Observational Learning

Because symbolic modeling is central to full understanding of the effects
of mass communication, the modeling aspect of social cognitive theory is
discussed in somewhat greater detail. Observational learning is governed
by four subfunctions, which are summarized in Fig. 6.2.
Attentional processes determine what is selectively observed in the
profusion of modeling influences and what information is extracted from
ongoing modeled events. A number of factors influence the exploration
and construal of what is modeled. Some of these determinants concern
the cognitive skills, preconceptions, and value preferences of the ob-
servers. Others are related to the salience, attractiveness, and functional
value of the modeled activities themselves. Still other factors are the struc-
tural arrangements of human interactions and associational networks,
which largely determine the types of models to which people have ready
access.
People cannot be much influenced by observed events if they do not
symbolically code and remember them. A second major subfunction gov-
erning observational learning concerns the construction of cognitive rep-
resentations. In social cognitive theory, observers construct generative
conceptions of styles of behavior from modeled exemplars rather than
merely scripts of habitual routines. Retention involves an active process of
transforming and restructuring information conveyed by modeled events
into rules and conceptions for memory representation. Retention is
greatly aided by symbolic transformations of modeled information into