Page 248 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

9. POLITICAL COMMUNICATION EFFECTS 237

1979). Interpersonal discussion helps people decide how to vote and may
stimulate turnout except where the others in the conversational network
are of the opposite party. Even discussion with strangers may affect vot-
ing. Noelle-Neumann (1984) reported that willingness to express a partic-
ular side of an issue in conversations with strangers ultimately led to
change in opinion toward that side. Popkin (1990) found that in the early
primary states where door-to-door canvassing is still possible, people
contacted by one candidate’s supporters subsequently paid more atten-
tion to all candidates in the news. This had the effect of increasing turnout
on primary election day.

Systemic Effects

Two very different processes are implied by systemic effects. The first are
media effects on individuals that have consequences for societal and com-
munity systems. The second involves the influence of the collective fea-
tures of institutions on individual behavior. The two are examples of
micro-to-macro and macro-to-micro processes (McLeod, Pan, & Rucinski,
1995; Pan & McLeod, 1991).
Connecting micro individual-level effects and macro institutional-level
consequences poses several difficult problems. First, systemic conse-
quences are manifested through institutional policies, practices, and laws
and other outcomes that transcend individual judgments. Second, sys-
temic consequences are not reducible to the simple aggregation of
individual-level effects. The distribution of effects, for example, can be of
great theoretical significance, as in knowledge gap issues (Tichenor et al.,
1970). Quite different concepts and theories are appropriate to various
micro and macro levels (McLeod & Blumler, 1987). Finally, democratic
practices involve collective forms of action such as socal movements
whose fate involves the connection of groups to information and power.
In lieu of formal attempts at cross-level theorizing, we can take current
problems with the political system and work backward to possible ways
in which the media might be responsible. The problems of the American
political system are well documented. Despite substantial increases in
educational attainment over several decades, there has been no corre-
sponding increase in knowledge (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996) and a sub-
stantial decline in voter turnout and certain other indicators of participa-
tion have been noted with alarm (Putnam, 1995, 2000). Unfortunately, the
search for causes of political system stagnation has been confined largely
to the potential displacement effects of spending time with television.
More substantial progress over the past decade has been made in
research on macro-systemic to micro-individual effects. The structure of
the person’s discussion network influences participation (Huckfeldt &