Echelon
nineteenth century those in authority were of
the view that access by the mass of the popula-
tion to the printed word might turn docility into
uprising. Th e new mass-medium of the cinema
was similarly accused of a wide range of ‘eff ects’,
while TV, in the eyes of some, is responsible
for many of the ills of our time, as though such
media could be somehow divorced from the
social, political and cultural environment which
produce them.
A few generalized hypotheses about eff ects can
be tentatively posited: the media are probably
more likely to modify and reinforce attitudes
than change them; media impact will be greater
among the uncommitted (‘fl oating voters’) than
the committed; impact will be more infl uential
if all the media are saying more or less the same
thing at the same time (consistency); equally,
if the media are concentrating on a small rather
than diverse number of stories (intensity) and
if they are repeating messages, images, view-
points over and over again (frequency).
‘The timing of communication processes,’
writes Colin Seymour-Ure in Th e Political Impact
of Mass Media (Constable, 1974), ‘is probably
one of the most important determinants of mass
media eff ects.’ If the timing is right, the media
can often be the arbiters of crisis, by being in the
most prominent position to defi ne it. Because of
their agenda-setting capacity, the media have
infl uence upon the criteria which, in the public
domain, decide what is important and what is
not, what is normal and what is deviant, what
is consensus and what is dissensus, what is
signifi cant, or newsworthy, and what is marginal.
No summary of eff ects, however brief, should
neglect the role played, some would say most
powerfully, by the media in supporting, reinforc-
ing and cementing patterns of social control, not
least by maintaining and sometimes fashioning
the symbols of legitimate government. See
topic guide under media: power, effects,
influence.
▶Shearon A. Lowery and Melvyn L. DeFleur, Mile-
stones in Mass Media Research: Media Eff ects (Long-
man, 1995); Michael Xenos and Patricia Moy, ‘Direct
and diff erential eff ects of the Internet on political
and civil engagement’ (Journal of Communication,
December 2007); W. Lance Bennett and Shanto
Lyengar, ‘A new era of minimal eff ects? Th e changing
foundations of political communication’ (Journal of
Communication, December 2008).
★Eisenberg’s model of communication and
identity, 2001 In his article ‘Building a mystery:
toward a new theory of communication and
identity’ published in the Journal of Communica-particular than the traditional print medium.
Echelon An automated global computer intel-
ligence-gathering network run in partnership
between the UK Government Communication
Headquarter Agency (GCHQ) and the US
National Security, using the intelligence agen-
cies’ own network of satellite and listening bases
and also operated in Canada, Australia and New
Zealand. It has been estimated that Echelon
intercepts up to three billion communications
a day. So-termed Echelon Dictionaries search
intercepted messages according to target lists of
subjects and people. See surveillance.
▶James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and
the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies (Anchor,
2005); also his Th e Shadow Factory: Th e Ultra-Secret
NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America
(Doubleday, 2008).
Echo chamber eff ect Web publics are subject
to fragmentation, insulation from broader
sources of information and comment, in danger
of being a number of enclaves, talking between
themselves and only to themselves, in a chamber
that only echoes their own discourses. In ‘Th e
many faced “you” of social media’ published in
Journalism and Citizenship: New Agendas in
Communication (Routledge, 2009), edited by
Zizi Papacharissi, Sharon Meraz writes of ‘the
eff ect of limited argument pools and perspec-
tives’ in which the echo chamber eff ect can be
seen as a threat to democracy ‘because of nega-
tive informational cascades, which result when
groups remain insulated and homogenous in
both perspective and composition’.
Th e echo chamber eff ect, argues Meraz, ‘can be
exacerbated in social media environments that
depend on friendships and social information
fi ltering to determine popularity’. Th is can lead
to ‘collaborative fi ltering of news in some [blog]
sites’. What has been described as the ‘tyranny
of the minority’ can prove detrimental to the
openly democratic selection and presentation
of news and comment on Net sites. See power
law phenomenon.
Effects of the mass media Can be broadly
defined as any change induced directly or
indirectly by the recording, fi lming or reporting
of events. Analysts of effects, or impact, are
concerned with the modification of attitudes
and behaviour of individuals and groups. Th e
process of measuring these eff ects is immensely
complicated as the ground upon which the
measurements are taken is constantly shifting.
Th e actual eff ect of the media on audiences,
so far as it can be ascertained, is arguably less
significant than the perceived effect. In the