マス・コミュニケーション効果の心理学的分析視点

抄録

I. Types of mass communication effects.
Effects of mass communication, which have been dealt with by psychoegoists, may be classified into two types : (A) effects of “communication content” upon receptor's comprehensions and attitudes, (B) effects of “presence of media in the life space” upon personality development.
II. An approach to the effects of communication contents.
Contacts with contents transmitted through mass media are indirect experiences and are different from direct contacts with the real world. Therefore, psychologists are primarily interested in the assimilatory process of these indirect experiences.
Past studies seem to have faults both in theoretical frameworks and in research strategies especially, it was hypothesized that transmitted contents are left intact in every mind. Nowadays, however, these tendencies are completely rejected in theoretical works and are gradually disappearing in the field researches. Generally accepted view, as represented by Klapper, is that “Mass communication functions among and through a nexus of mediating factors and influences.”
There seem to be two important types of the mediating factors : the social agent (e.g. opinion leader) and the individual personality structure. Psychological studies mainly deal with the assimilatory processes of experiences into the personality structure. These processes may be described as follows : (1) A human personality is the product of past experiences. It reflects his living condition and his activities in it. (2) A new experience is assimilated into his personality structure. (3) In this assimilatory process of the new experience, changes take place in personality structure itself. Based on these theoretical considerations, three research strategies were proposed. 1) Accumulation of case studies. 2) Classification of subjects by the patterns of effects. 3) Researches about changes in effects brought about by guidance and instruction.
III. An approach to the effects of presence of media.
Here the effects caused by the appearance of the new mass media, as well as its following changes in life schedules, are examined. It is still more difficult to study this type of effects. Especially it is almost impossible to know the causal relationships and the process of the influence.
But, in other fields of psychology, e.g. “Parental attitudes and personality formation”, the progress was remarkable from correlational studies of two attributes to genetic and clinical studies of their dynamic relations. We may well expect the same thing in the research of long-term effects of mass communication.
From this point of view, the design of TV-gr. vs non TV-gr. comparison in TV effect surveys must be put to severe criticism.
IV. Psychological vs sociological approach to mass communication research.
Concerning the psychological and sociological research in mass communication, three points were discussed :
1) Foresight about the possibility of utilizing the research findings.
2) Social determination of psychological process in mass communication.
3) Some views on the assimilation.