Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur’s dependency model of mass communication eff ects, 1976
the eff ects may be to activate or de-activate; to
formulate issues and infl uence their resolution.
Th ey may stimulate a range of behaviours, from
political demonstrations to altruistic acts such
as donating money to good causes. Th e authors
cite the model as avoiding ‘a seemingly unten-
able all-or-nothing position of saying either that
the media have no signifi cant impact on people
or society, or that the media have an unbounded
capacity to manipulate people and society’.
Where the model is open to most serious criti-
cism is in its assumption that the societal struc-
ture and the media structure are independent of
one another, and that these are in some sort of
equilibrium with audience. In many cases the
media are so interlinked with power structures
that a free interaction is more likely in theory
than in practice. See cognitive (and affec-
tive); cultural apparatus; hegemony;
mediation; power elite.
Band-wagon effect See noelle-neumann’s
spiral of silence model of public opinion,
1974.
Bandwidth Range of frequencies available for
carrying data and expressed in hertz (cycles per
second). Th e amount of traffi c a communication
channel can carry is roughly proportional to its
bandwidth. See broadband.
BARB Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board;
organization responsible for collecting and
collating TV viewing fi gures in the UK. Th e data
is gathered from over 5,000 homes of indepen-
dent TV-owning households representative of
the whole of the UK. Viewing habits are elec-
tronically monitored, requiring householders to
register their presence in the room where a TV is
located and switched on, and to deregister when
they switch off or leave the room. See audience
measurement.
★Barnlund’s transactional models of
communication, 1970 In ‘A transactional
model of communication’ in K.K. Sereno and
C.D. Mortensen, eds, Foundations of Commu-
nication Th eory (Harper & Row, 1970), Dean C.
Barnlund attempts to address the ‘complexities
of human communication’ which present ‘an
unbelievably diffi cult challenge to the student
of human aff airs’. His models pay due respect to
this complexity. For Barnlund, communication
both describes the evolution of meaning and
aims at the reduction of uncertainty. He stresses
that meaning is something ‘invented’, ‘assigned’,
‘given’ rather than something ‘received’: ‘Mean-
ings may be generated while a man stands alone
on a mountain trail or sits in the privacy of his
study speculating about internal doubt.’cal connotation, when it is seen as a device
to counter and control bias. More than any
other medium, public broadcasting aspires to
equilibrium. Being fair to all sides can have para-
doxical results: if one programme, for example,
condemns the destruction of Amazon rainfor-
ests, must the balance be sustained by allowing
a programme which defends that destruction?
It is questionable whether fairness is actually
achieved by giving air-time to ideas which fl out
the very principle of fairness.
Balance might ultimately mean always sitting
on the fence; it may indicate a position which
considers all standpoints to be tenable. Yet the
balanced position – the fulcrum, as it were –
from which other viewpoints are presented, has
to be decided by someone whose impartiality
in turn might be questioned by others.
Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur’s dependency
model of mass communication effects,
1976 (See also, dependency theory.) Sandra
Ball-Rokeach and Melvyn DeFleur’s model poses
the question, to what extent is contemporary
society dependent, for information and for view-
points, on the all-pervasive mass communication
industry; and, arising from this question, how far
are we dependent on the media for our orienta-
tion towards the world beyond our immediate
experience? In ‘A dependency model of mass
media effects’ in Communication Research, 3
(1976), the authors argue that the nature and
degree of dependency relate closely fi rst to the
extent to which society is subject to change,
confl ict or instability and second to the functions
of information provision and attitude-shaping of
the mass media within those social structures.
Th e model emphasizes the essentially interac-
tive nature of the processes of media effect.
Th ere are societal and media systems, and these
interact with audience, producing cognitive,
aff ective and behavioural eff ects, inducing vary-
ing degrees of dependency; in turn audience-
response feeds back and infl uences society and
media.
The cognitive effect is that which relates
to matters of the intellect and the affective
to matters of emotion. In the cognitive area,
the following areas of effect or influence are
identifi ed: creation and resolution of ambiguity;
attitude formation; agenda-setting; expansion
of people’s belief systems; value clarification.
Under the aff ective heading, the media may be
perceived as creating fear or anxiety; increasing
or decreasing morale and establishing a sense of
alienation.
In terms of the third category, behaviour,