Selective Exposure To Communication

Dolf Zillmann, Jennings Bryant

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136560392
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

First published in 1985. Research into what is usually referred to as mass communication has concentrated on the societal impact of the media. The ways in which these media influence people and affect their behavior have been at issue. For the most part, undesirable effects were pondered and documented. Only a few desirable effects received similar attention and scrutiny. The research preoccupation with impact has been so pronounced that, comparatively speaking, next to no attention has been paid to questions such as why people enjoy whatever they elect to watch or hear, and more fundamentally, why they elect to watch or hear, in the first place, whatever it is that they elect to watch or hear. Without a symposium on research into selective exposure to informative and entertaining messages nor a publication that brought together the recent research in this area, this volume was put together in an effort to end this dilemma and to put selective-exposure research on the map as a significant research venture.

1 Selective-Exposure Phenomena

Dolf Zillmann
Indiana University

Jennings Bryant
University of Houston

At any moment, an enormity of stimuli impinges on the living organism. The organism neither is equipped to handle this stimulus onslaught, nor would it be meaningful in terms of self- and species-preservation to accomplish such a task. Survival, it seems, is well served by the neglect of most potential information. Or to put it more positively, survival is well served by a selective reduction of information, that is, a reduction to behaviorally significant cues to which the organism can respond in an adaptive fashion.

The selection of information is controlled, first of all, by the build of the organism—specifically, the build of the sensory organs. Potential information (i.e., any physical process) that fails to stimulate these organs is obviously immaterial to the behavior of the organism. However, the “physical” reception of information by no means guarantees that the information is of any behavioral consequence. The organism focuses its perceptual efforts in unique ways, and it tends to utilize its limited capacity for processing received information in particular ways also. Focusing attention implies, of course, that not all available information can be given equal attention and that some information might not receive any attention. Focusing, then, implies selection. And as not all perceived information can be processed (i.e., behaviorally utilized or stored for later retrieval and behavioral utilization), processing also entails selection. But whereas sensory selection is fixed with the build of the organism, perceptual focus and selective processing are behavioral processes that are characterized by considerable plasticity. Although many of these selective processes are automatic and mechanical, many others are under volitional control and deliberate.

The various processes under consideration are perhaps best illustrated by considering early humans. Cave dwellers, for instance, were probably often surrounded by signals from numerous animals. They were ill equipped for visual perception in dim light and in the dark, and they missed out on much of the barely audible and inaudible vocalizations of creatures such as bats. They were equipped, however, to respond quickly to sudden noises produced in their immediate vicinity and to vivid peripherally received visual events. The automatic reaction was one of spatial adjustment for the purpose of attaining superior perceptual control of the sources of information. This reaction is known as the orienting response, and its obvious survival value lies in the creation of a readiness for fight and flight. The reflexive adjustment was likely to be followed by selective attention, such as to a threatening animal's teeth and claws rather than its tail and fur condition. The processing of an encounter of this sort was then equally “idiosyncratic.” Generally speaking, whatever made the biggest impression (e.g., the pain from a bite and all the cues associated with that experience) was likely to be focused on in rehearsal and memory. This, of course, is just another way of saying that some happenings received disproportionate, selective attention in rehearsal and memory. The selective commission of perceived events to memory—at the expense of many other simultaneously occurring events of less significance—ultimately gave impetus to paying attention deliberately: An animal that was recognized as dangerous, for instance, had to be tracked perceptually in preparation for fight or flight. The survival value of such attentional behavior is again quite obvious. Needless to say, perceptual tracking is not specific to fight-flight reactions. It applies to all essentials in life, such as the attainment of food, shelter, and mate.

What, in this illustration, could and should be considered selective exposure? Not the sensory constitution of the organism with its implications for selective access to the physical world. Not the transitory checking out of an event as a result of orienting and defensive responses. Not the reflexively controlled focusing on certain events in the sensory field that characterizes selective attention. And not the screening for salient elements in the processing of the percepts that is usually referred to as rehearsal or selective rehearsal, nor the implications thereof for selective recall. Selective exposure, instead, designates behavior that is deliberately performed to attain and sustain perceptual control of particular stimulus events.

According to this definition, selective exposure subsumes anything from closely watching a poisonous snake in the grass, following the flight of a bumblebee, listening to a birdcall, watching the road and other cars as we travel down the highway, reading the newspaper, listening to records in solitude or while keeping an eye on the children, and watching television intently or while doing the dishes.

Selective exposure can be accomplished with little effort, or it may require great energy expenditure. Reading a book, for instance, is comparatively nonstrenuous physically. Watching a car race from the pits, in contrast, demands rapid head and body adjustments that can be strenuous. Differences in energy expenditure in the service of the act of perception per se might be considered trivial, however, when compared with expenditures engendered in the attainment and maintenance of perceptual control that relies on locomotor pursuit. Watching one's children play baseball in the backyard, for instance, is selective exposure that might require stepping out of the house. Going to Shea Stadium to see the Mets play calls for a somewhat greater effort. Visiting Europe is more effortful yet, despite the fact that most of the movement necessary is accomplished while sitting in a cushioned seat. However, such energy expenditure reduces to insignificance when one compares it to self-powered locomotion to places and events to which exposure is sought. Hunting deer in the mountains, for instance, entails selective exposure that is highly energy consuming.

These rather obvious considerations of energy expenditure associated with the attainment and maintenance of selective exposure prepare us for a look at the cultural evolution of such exposure. Like other animals, humans were at first limited to selective exposure by self-powered locomotion. Irrespective of motives for exposure, persons could elect to pursue perceptually what was happening “here and now.” To the extent that this was possible, they could walk, swim, ride, or paddle to places where events occurred to which they sought exposure. They could also forgo direct exposure and content themselves with verbal accounts of these events or with poor iconic representations (e.g., drawings of athletic events). Only rather recently has it become technically and economically feasible for large numbers of people to ship their bodies with reasonable speed to the places to which they seek exposure. Almost all Americans now can see the Grand Canyon in person, and uncounted Japanese can enjoy direct exposure to Salzburg and Mozart's home. In principle, people move themselves and are being moved to locales of interest, so that they can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste the events to which they seek unmitigated perceptual access; and technology has greatly facilitated this process. At the same time, however, technology has accomplished the reverse as well: It has found ways to move events of interest to the people. Specifically, technology has provided means to represent physical events visually and auditorily (or audio-visually) with great fidelity, to store these representations, and to revive them at any later time. And whereas little progress has been made in the iconic conservation and manipulation over time of tactile and olfactory stimuli, audio-visual representation often exhibits “hyperfidelity” by furnishing visual and auditory access to events that goes beyond the capabilities of the unarmed eye and ear. Through screen and speaker, then, the world at large can be audio-visually accessed. Selective exposure to potentially all existing audio-visual environments can be accomplished with the flick of a dial or the push of a button.

Selective exposure to an ever increasing number of environments has become low-energy armchair behavior. By pushing hand-held remote controls, any number of events can be accessed; and access can just as readily be abandoned in favor of exposure to other events. Television viewers can effortlessly jump from exposure to news events in China to a soccer match in Italy, and from a nature film about Norwegian reindeer to a domestic comedy show or dramatic street violence. Whatever tickles their fancy, for whatever reason, may be consumed— and abandoned upon a moment's dissatisfaction. The selection of particular programs may be thought out and planned. But it may also be spontaneous and rather mindless, even mechanically determined. And as viewers might go back and forth between programs in efforts to catch most of the significant events in two or more, so can they alternate exposure to representations on the screen and their immediate environment. Selective exposure, then, need not be construed as a continual, uninterrupted effort at sustaining perceptual control. Especially if a particular set of events is information-poor such that perceptual control can be maintained with intermittent attention, exposure is likely to be divided between two or more environmental settings. Someone cooking a meal, for instance, might well be able to keep an eye on pots and pans while peeking in on the news. And a child may watch Mister Rogers and, in a dull moment, continue to play with her toys—only to look back at the set when the trolley bell rings for the trip to the Land of Make Believe. It seems that visual attention to the screen is often unnecessary for exposure to occur, as continued auditory attention suffices for message comprehension and also cues the necessary return of visual attention.

Notwithstanding these complications, the choice situations for selective exposure to television are quite clear. The elementary choice is between no exposure and exposure. The characteristic choice presupposes this elementary decision and is among a finite number of available offerings (i.e., broadcasts and programs off cable, disk, tape, etc.). Although it is assumed that these choices are made for the purpose of attaining and sustaining perceptual control of the selected programs, exposure cannot be expected to be complete. Visual and auditory attention are likely to be drawn away from the represented events. This nonattention, usually the result of happenings in the immediate environment, can be visual, auditory, or both; and it can be momentary or extensive. A mother, for instance, might be inclined to watch her favorite soap, but be forced to attend to her child for much of the time. Her selective exposure obviously will have alternated between show and child. She exposed herself to both sets of events. This may have been in succession. But it is also conceivable that her auditory attention, unlike her visual attention, was never critically disrupted. The answer to questions such as “Was she selectively exposed to the entire program?” can only be arbitrary. Selective exposure in mixed or multiple media consumption leads to similarly indefinite assessments. How is exposure that fluctuates between a simultaneously consumed radio concert and a sitcom on television or between various athletic contests on different monitors to be apportioned? The simplest empirical approach appears to lie in determining the time periods during which behavioral efforts at attaining and sustaining perceptual control of particular representations were immediately evident to an observer.

However, for all practical purposes, the discussed difficulties in deciding on what was and what was not selective exposure to a particular program or program segment can be circumvented by determining whether or not exposure to the program or the segment was intended and! or was the primary perceptual activity during the time course of the program or segment. Such conceptualization accommodates esoteric practices of mixed and multiple media consumption. But more important, it handles the characteristic exposure condition: one set, with one person in charge of selecting programs, one at a time—granted distractions and social influences on the choice.

The fact that the new communication technology allows the manipulation of audio-visual environments with enormous ease and provides an abundance of program choices at all times undoubtedly will have significant behavioral and social effects. Some effects are obtrusive. The sheer amount of television viewing in whatever form (i.e., broadcasts, off cable, disk, tape, etc.) attests that exposure to the environments presented on the monitor is more engaging and presumably more enjoyable than many alternative, immediate environments. There are few social circumstances and emotional conditions that are consistently preferred over the environments on the screen. The television environment outshines and outglamours the common home, and the actions it entails outdo the daily dread by a wide margin. At a most basal level, once the monitor runs and fills the home with flashes of color and brightness, with rapid motion, and with drastic sound-level changes, it is difficult to resist paying attention to it. The active television screen is, so to speak, the last thing in the house to which its inhabitant will perceptually habituate.

The stimulus wealth of television, sometimes referred to as rapid-fire exposition, has been met with some concern. However, the great issues of social concern have been content related. The ubiquity of violent crime in drama, in particular, has been thought to promote crime and violence in society as well as a fear of becoming a victim of crime or violence. In so-called effects research, an enormous number of investigations have probed this issue and its ramifications. The determination of ill effects of exposure to whatever is abundantly present in media fare has altogether dominated mass communication research. Why people enjoy whatever they enjoy and why they seek exposure to whatever they seek exposure to are questions that have been met with surprising indifference. This is not to say that enjoyment of entertaining television fare has received no attention at all. Nor is it to deny that meticulous counts of exactly who consumes what how often and so forth have been compiled routinely, along with the answers to some questions as to why viewers liked this and not that. It is to say, however, that compared to effects research the study of why people elect to consume some messages and not others has been greatly neglected. Selective-exposure research has been scarce, sporadic, and eclectic. It is this volume's mission to correct this situation by bringing together the widely dispersed, conceptually and methodologically diverse approaches to the phenomenon of selective exposure, and it is hoped that such integration and focusing will highlight the phenomenon and its significance and stimulate exploratory interest.

The issues for selective-exposure research are manifold. What stable selective tendencies, or message-consumption preferences, or tastes as traits exist in what kind of person? How and why were they formed? What is their fate, and how can they be altered? What consequence have moods and emotions for message selection? What about states of general excitedness and states of boredom and fatigue? What are the implications for message selection of holding particular beliefs and convictions? Why do some people take a strong interest in public-affairs information, whereas others resort to fiction? Why do some people turn to comedy, others to serious drama? Why to comedy or drama under particular circumstances? What attracts some to tragedy? Why do some yearn for horror movies and others, or the same people at different times, for musicals? What is it about sports that draws people to the screen? And what is it that makes people go fishing and turn their backs to the screen, at least temporarily?

The common element in all these questions is the following dependent variable: the effect on message selection for consumption. Not the effect of the consumption of selected messages; nor, as in conventional media-effects research, the effect of the consumption of messages that, for the most part, were selected by a party other than the consumer.

Such conceptual focus is not only epistemologically warranted in that it promotes the exploration of choice behavior regarding message consumption, but it also leads to and, in fact, demands reinterpretations and qualifications of much media-effects research. In experimental research, as a rule, exposure to messages is forced. Subjects are randomly assigned to consumption conditions, and the effect of specific assignments is ascertained relative to that of others. This procedure is appropriate as long as it can be assumed that all messages whose effects on a variable of interest are being compared are at least once in a while, by choice and under similar circumstances, consumed by the respondents. Such an assumption is often untenable, however; and if so, qualifications need be placed on any findings. Let us assume, for instance, that it has been demonstrated that exposure to situation comedy reduces the anger and aggressive behavior of angry people. Can it be concluded from this that, given the preponderance of such programs on television, situation comedy helps to curb anger and aggression in society? Not with confidence, as it is conceivable that in acute anger most persons would refrain from exposing themselves to laughter and merriment. Comedy might be consumed mainly in states other than anger, and consumers thus would not attain a potential benefit of exposure to comedy. Consequently, it could be contended that comedy alleviates much anger only if it had been demonstrated that: (a) angry persons' exposure to these materials has an anger-reducing impact and (b) angry persons seek or, at least, do not avoid exposure to comedy. Similarly, if it had been demonstrated that exposure to erotica alleviates feelings of depression, it would still have to be shown that depressed persons are drawn to consuming erotica before it could be contended that erotica curb depression under conditions in which consumption is left to the consumers (i.e., they are free, in their particular state, to consume whatever they feel like consuming).

It should be clear that the argument here is not that exposure effects tend to be determined on subjects who, when free to do as they please, would never elect to expose themselves to the materials in question. Studying the effects on enjoyment of replay frequency in boxing telecasts, for instance, with subjects who are professedly opposed to boxing and would definitely not watch such programs obviously has little ecological validity, and the generalization of any effects to avid boxing fans is inadvisable and reckless. It is not such missampling of subjects and the resulting unwarranted conclusions about exposure effects on a population of interest that is at issue, but the possibility that exposure to communication is situation- and disposition-specific. It is this possibility that compromises the generalization of many exposure effects. This volume presents a considerable amount of evidence showing that the possibility is more than just that: It is a fact for selective-exposure behavior generally, and future effects research will have to face up to these complicating circumstances.

The selective-exposure conceptualization not only complicates the interpretation of numerous experimental findings, but also troubles much correlational work that seeks to support directional hypotheses. Although such efforts confront insurmountable methodological problems, they are commonly made—perhaps in hopes that they will supplement and complement approaches that are technically more compelling and thus help generate a consistent and coherent effects pattern. The directional or “effects” hypothesis that is often deemed supported by correlational data is, of course, the proposal that exposure to particular messages has specific effects on behavior. Irrespective of the possibility that a relationship ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• COMMUNICATION
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• 1. SELECTIVE-EXPOSURE PHENOMENA
• 2. COGNITIVE DISSONANCE IN SELECTIVE EXPOSURE
• 3. MEASURING EXPOSURE TO TELEVISION
• 4. INFORMATIONAL UTILITY AND SELECTIVE EXPOSURE TO ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA
• 5. DETERMINANTS OF TELEVISION VIEWING PREFERENCES
• 6. THOUGHT AND ACTION AS DETERMINANTS OF MEDIA EXPOSURE
• 7. FEAR OF VICTIMIZATION AND THE APPEAL OF CRIME DRAMA
• 8. AFFECT, MOOD, AND EMOTION AS DETERMINANTS OF SELECTIVE EXPOSURE
• 9. SELECTIVE EXPOSURE TO EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION
• 10. CABLE AND PROGRAM CHOICE
• 11. “PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM”: REPEATED EXPOSURE TO TELEVISION PROGRAMS
• Author Index
• Subject Index