How Does Media Influence Social Norms? Experimental Evidence on the Role of Common Knowledge

Abstract

How does media influence beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors? While many scholars have studied the effect of media on social and political outcomes, we know surprisingly little about the channels through which this effect operates. I argue that two mechanisms can account for its impact. Media provides new information that persuades individuals to accept it (individual channel), but also, media informs listeners about what others learn, thus facilitating coordination (social channel). Combining a field experiment with a plausibly natural experiment in Mexico, I disentangle these effects analyzing norms surrounding violence against women. I examine the effect of a radio program when it is transmitted privately versus when it is transmitted publicly. I find no evidence supporting the individual mechanism. The social channel, however, increased rejection of violence against women and increased support for gender equality, but unexpectedly increased pessimism about whether violence would decline in the future.

Communicating Sustainability: Using Community Media to Influence Rural People’s Intention to Adopt Sustainable Behaviour

“…Moreover, unlike the mainstream media, through participatory communications (i.e., conversations) at the radio premises or at the listeners' clubs and live phone-ins, the members can easily and freely debate on the rights and wrongs regarding a social issue or government policies. Thus, the community's people understand each other's expectations and reactions about an issue [130], either by directly participating in the conversations or by listening to the live broadcasts. Such direct interactions of community members with the communications initiated by community radio easily shape their social norms regarding sustainability.…”

“…Media can increase the perceptions of social approval or disapproval through broadcasting news stories on the impacts of a particular behaviour (what one should do and how to do it) and the consequences of policy actions (institutional signals) in society regarding that behaviour [129]. Media create common knowledge through transmitting to other individuals or groups of people what an individual or a group of people already know and what they are currently learning and why; if others participate in a particular action, it changes the norms of why one should do so [130]. Community radios demonstrate one community's members' best practices, the indigenous knowledge of rural people and the scientific knowledge of people from outside the area in the form of edutainment-based programs [24,25,85,122].…”

“…Moreover, unlike the mainstream media, in the participatory communication of CRs at the radio premises, as well as at the listeners' clubs, the members can easily and freely discuss rights and wrongs [131]. Thus, every member can understand every other member's reactions, government policy and other stakeholders' expectations regarding a social issue [130,132]. This, in turn, easily shapes social norms towards positive social change and sustainable development [74,127,133].…”

Ambulances are for emergencies: shifting behaviour through a research-informed behaviour change campaign

“…The findings of this project are consistent with the Theory of Planned Behaviour, which posits that behavioural intentions are influenced by attitudes (toward the behaviour), subjective norms (perceived social pressure to engage in the behaviour) and perceived behavioural control (apparent ease or difficulty of engaging in the behaviour) [6]. Mass media campaigns can ostensibly create a sense of social pressure because the messages are delivered on a large-scale and in a public manner so audiences not only receive the message but they know that the message is being received by many others [14]. The Save 000 for Emergencies campaign further harnessed the Theory of Planned Behaviour by first addressing attitudes towards the behaviour via Will's Story.…”

Colour cosmetics consumption among Moroccan women: Examining the nexus of attitudes, religion and the media

“…In other words subjective norms originate from the idea that a person or group of people will approve or disapprove a particular behaviour (Ham et al, ). Subjective norm is shaped by both interpersonal influence which involves the influence friends, family and significant others, and external sources' influence refers to influences by mass media, such as television, magazine and social media (Arias, ; Brown & Venkatesh, ; Burchell, Rettie, & Patel, ). Behavioural intention is indeed directly impacted the subjective norm (Ajzen & Albarracin, ).…”