Impact of the Media on the Art and Music Communities in Los Angeles

This paper is in response to two papers which addressed concern over the decline of the music and art communities in Los Angeles. These papers shared a similar notion that even though Los Angeles is the heart of the entertainment industry, the collectivist nature of the music and art industries that has brought so many people together over the years is slowly dissipating. More specifically, one paper touched on how media entertainment has contributed to the consumption of the arts community and the other paper addressed the decline of the music community with a specific focus on the closure of record stores as a result of the digital era. I will expand on these papers by addressing the impact of the mass media as a contributing factor to the decline of music and art communities.

Print media, radio and television spots, and internet sites are all ways of reaching large populations. Many media based sources have the capability of encouraging individuals to become more involved in the art and music communities. Unfortunately, this is not typically the case. Many of the messages conveyed through broadcast media are the driving force behind why so many people do not have to leave their homes to purchase music and persuade people to see the next box office thriller rather than adventuring out to an art gallery.

Mass Media Research           

Studies assessing media usage patterns indicate that many individuals prefer broadcast media (i.e., television and radio) over print media (La Ferle & Lee, 2005). La Ferle and Lee (2005) examined media use patterns among Anglo Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans. They discovered that all of the groups spent the most time with the major forms of broadcast media and the least amount of time with print media (least amount of time was spent reading newspapers). Moreover specifically, television was the most common form of media used. A recent study by Crano, Quist, and Winter (2005) investigated media use patterns among African American, White, Asian, and Latino ethnic samples. The findings from their study mimic the results of previous research. Specifically, the results indicated that the most hours were spent watching television. The results of these studies showed that although many forms of media are used, television is the most widely used media source.

Television

According to the Television Bureau of Advertising (2001), 98.2% of U.S. households own a television set. Additionally, more than 80% of children live in homes that have cable or satellite TV service (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005). The results from these studies highlights two issues: 1) The majority of individuals in the U.S. are spending many hours watching television, contributing to the a decline in participation in music and art communities and 2) Messages conveyed through television advertisements that encourage individuals to see movies or buy into the digital era are reaching a wide audience thus increasing the likelihood of steering people away from music and art communities.

Internet

The internet is another media source that capitalizes on a large audience by using the mass media to persuade individuals to buy certain products or promote entertainment events such as a new movie. According to a study conducted by MediaPost Communications (2002), 33% of children aged 8 to 17 said that the Web would be the medium they would want to have if they couldn't have any others. Television was picked by 26% of kids; telephone by 21%; and radio by 15%. In fact, it has been reported that 31% of kids have high speed internet access at home (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005). Teens reported using the internet for email (89%), searching entertainment sites (84%) and current events (76%), playing online games (81%), and instant messaging (75%; Madden & Rainie, 2005). Many advertisements shown on the internet, similar to television advertisements, contribute to the decline of music and art communities by encouraging individuals to seek out movies instead of art events and serves as a facilitator for individuals buying into the digital era - thus removing record stores from the equation.

Simultaneous Media Consumption

Previous research also indicates that in addition to individuals using different forms of media, simultaneous media use is also common. The Media Center at the American Press Institute (2003) conducted a study investigating simultaneous media consumption. The Simultaneous Media Usage Study (SIMM) was conducted online using Big Research's proprietary sampling technique, with 13,414 respondents participating. The results indicated that 70 percent of media users report that they at one time or another try to absorb two or more forms of media at once. More specifically, three quarters of U.S. television viewers read the newspaper while they watch TV (74.2%), two thirds reported going online while they watch TV (66.2%), and individuals indicated that when they wait for downloads from the Internet they listen to the radio (52.1%); watch TV (61.8%), and read the newspaper (20.2%). Again, highlighting the amount of time individuals subject themselves to mass media persuasion.

Media Perpetuates the Digital Era

The advertisements conveyed via television or the internet has led to the perpetuation of the digital era and the decline of participation in music and art communities. Specifically, the media plays a large role in encouraging individuals to download music and movies from the comfort of their own homes. According to the most recent survey of the Pew Internet & American Life Project (Madden & Rainie, 2005), approximately 36 million Americans—or 27% of internet users—say they download either music or video files and about half of them have found ways outside of traditional peer-to-peer networks or paid online services to swap their files. The Project’s national survey of 1,421 adult Internet users indicated that 19% of current music and video downloaders, or about 7 million adults, say they have downloaded files from someone else’s iPod or MP3 player. About 28%, or 10 million people, say they get music and video files via email and instant messages. However, there is some overlap between these two groups; 9% of downloaders say they have used both of these sources. Overall, 48% of current downloaders have used sources other than peer-to-peer networks or paid music and movie services to get music or video files. Beyond MP3 players, email and instant messaging, these alternative sources include music and movie websites, blogs and online review sites. Moreover, the percentage of internet users who say they download music files has increased from 18% in 2004 to 22% from the latest survey in 2005. The increased access of music at home or on various resources like Ipod’s and MP3 players has contributed to the decline of platforms that created music communities such as record stores and pulled people away from becoming involved in art communities.

Communication Research and Persuasion

Social psychological theories of persuasion suggest that messages conveyed in the media have the potential to be created in way that convinces viewers to spend money to see a movie, buy music online, and purchase various technological gadgets so that they do not have to leave their homes to seek entertainment.  The media applies persuasive tactics to the messages disseminated to the mass public to ensure products are sold and movies are sold out. The persuasive techniques used by the media help to explain why the entertainment industry has taken over art communities and why music stores are few and far between.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty & Wegener, 1999) will be applied as a framework to examine the role of the media in persuading individuals to embrace the entertainment industry and the digital era. The theory of the ELM is a social cognitive perspective on persuasion which explains the processes responsible for attitude formation and change. The ELM (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) is based on how motivated people are to assess attitude objects, issues, or arguments under consideration. Because attitudes are defined by a subjective evaluation of a particular issue or object, there is a desire for subjective evaluations to be valid. The ELM posits that attitude change is a function of the level of cognitive elaboration or information-processing activity that occurs regarding a particular attitude-relevant object. The ELM (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), a dual-process theory of information processing, articulates two processing routes through which attitude change may occur: central route processing and peripheral route processing. The more motivated and able people are to assess the central merits of the attitude object, the more likely they are to fully analyze all available object-relevant information. Therefore, when elaboration is high, people will assess object-relevant information in relation to knowledge that they already have and arrive at a reasoned attitude that is reinforced by supporting information (central route). Attitudes that change as a function of central route processing are enduring and persistent, resistant to counterarguments, and more strongly predictive of future behavior. These long-term and persistent changes are theorized to result from the enhanced level of cognitive processing that occurs, which increases the likelihood of developing more schematic knowledge in the direction of the elaboration (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty & Wegener, 1999).

Peripheral Route Processing

When elaboration is low, on the other hand, information analysis is reduced and attitude change can result from less resource-demanding processes that do not require effortful evaluation of the object-relevant information (peripheral route). Peripheral route processing is defined as requiring less intensive information-processing activity and less cognitive effort. Rather than being driven by intensive cognitive scrutiny, attitude changes that occur via the peripheral route result from the operation of cues inherent in the persuasion context. As a result, peripheral route attitude changes are temporary, susceptible to counterarguing, and weakly predictive of future behavior. Furthermore, attitudes that are changed by low effort processes are assumed to be weaker than attitudes that are changed to the same extent through high effort processes (Petty & Wegener, 1999).

Central Route Processing

Two factors can determine the extent to which a persuasive communication will be processed via the central route: motivation to process and degree of prior knowledge about the persuasive issue at hand (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty & Wegener, 1999). Motivation is generally associated with relatively more objective processing of the persuasive communication. 

Motivation to process

Motivation to process a persuasive communication is defined most centrally by the degree to which that communication is personally relevant or important for the individual. More precisely, it is defined as the degree to which the persuasive communication has consequences for the self (Petty & Cacioppo, 1990). When a given issue is personally important to individuals, they think about the issue much more which leads to a greater degree of cognitive elaboration. Therefore, there is a positive relationship between degree of personal involvement and degree of central route processing (Petty & Cacioppo, 1979, 1984).

Biased processing

Biased processing of a persuasive communication also leads to enhanced elaboration of message content. This type of processing occurs when the individual has more extensive prior knowledge about the arguments made concerning an object or issue in a persuasive communication. Persuasive communication that is consistent with an existent knowledge structure will generate a greater level of cognitive activity that is consistent with the communication (i.e., arguments supporting the persuasive communication will be generated). As a result, the individual will tend to retain his or her initial attitude. In contrast, a persuasive communication that is inconsistent with an existent knowledge structure will tend to generate a greater degree of counterarguing with the position. In this case, the initial attitude held by the recipient may still be retained (Cacioppo, Petty, & Sidera, 1982).Advertisements conveyed in the media may be created in way that follows the persuasive concepts such as the ELM to ensure that individuals buy into entertainment media and the digital era. In fact, theories of persuasion are discussed in the communication literature with the goal of helping professionals increase the effectiveness of communication to consumers (Rucker & Petty, 2006). The application of these persuasion concepts will increase the likelihood of convincing individuals they need to purchase an Ipod or to go see the new hit movie right away. The effectiveness of these advertisements continues to contribute to the decline of music stores and art seekers and their associated communities.

Marketing Research           

Total spending for advertising in the United States was about $236.7 billion (Price, 2005) with most spent on major media, including television, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet. An examination of marketing patterns illustrates that utilizing media use patterns and the central tenets of persuasion theories is effective in convincing individuals to buy into media entertainment and the digital era. According to a recent study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation (2005), the average American child grows up in a home with approximately 3.6 CD or tape players, 3.5 TVs, 3.3 radios, 2.9 VCRs/DVD players, 2.1 video game consoles, and 1.5 computers. Moreover, almost two-thirds of kids have a portable CD, tape, or MP3 player (65%), and half (55%) have a handheld video game player. The results also indicated that children ages 8 to 18 spend more time (44.5 hours per week- 61/2 hours daily) in front of computer, television, and game screens than any other activity in their lives except sleeping.  

Video Games

The media has also played a large role in encouraging individuals to become avid users of video games which has also contributed to the reason why people have steered away from getting involved in music and art communities. A national survey found that 92% of children, ages 2-17, play video and computer games (National Institute on Media and the Family, 2001). In another study by the Kaiser Family Foundation (2005), they found that 83% of kids, eight to eighteen, have at least one video game player in their home, 31% have 3 or more players, and 49% have video game players in their bedrooms. A closer look at marketing patterns sheds light on to why individuals are spending less time developing relationships in music or art communities and more time entertaining themselves in the privacy of their own homes.

Summary

In conclusion, an examination of media use patterns, persuasion theory, and marketing research suggests that the media plays a large role in the slow decline of music and art communities. Although the media has the capability of bringing the community back to music and art, research shows that a focus on promoting media entertainment and the digital era is taking the lead. Until the media starts persuading individuals to seek out an art show or to go buy a record and stops perpetuating media entertainment and the digital media, the rebirth of these communities is not likely. Hopefully there will be a turning point for music and art communities and Los Angeles will remain the movie and entertainment capital of the world.                                                                                     

References

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