How Media Influences Society And Market Segmentation, Part 1

Media influences society by affecting individuals and society at large. Several theories have been postulated to explain how media influences society.

This post concentrates on individual differences theory because it, like market segmentation, considers differences in people. However, this theory of how media influences society is to broad to cover in one post. So I’ll cover part of the individual differences theory today and finish it in my next post.

Media Influences Society: Introduction And Overview of Individual Differences Theory

Individual differences theory recognizes that media influences society one person at a time and that the media’s influence differs by people. It is based on the psychological basis of behavior. It is committed to the experimental method to test how media effects differ by individuals.

According to individual theory, how media influences society is determined by peoples:

• Personalities,
• Cognitive structures,
• Affectors
• Motivators, and
• Inheritance.

Media Influences Society Differently By People’s Personalities

Personality differs for each person. Some people are extroverted while others are introverted. Some people are more task oriented while others are more people oriented. These personality traits influence the media that people use and their preferences within a media group.

For example, Generation X doesn’t trust traditional mass media, but they listen to music on the radio. So while they are listening to their favorite music station, they also hear news blurbs and opinions that influence them.

As a Boomer, I don’t listen to music that much. I spend far more time with print media. But when I do listen to music, I prefer a different type of music than many Generation Xers. This preference is part generational and part personality. The generational differences and some personality characteristics can be predicted through market segmentation.

Media Influences Society Differently By People’s Cognitive Structures

People think differently and prefer different learning styles. Some people, like me, learn best by reading. Other people learn best by listening, while still others have to do something in order to learn it.

This is because people bring different skills and cognitive structures to their learning and media experiences. Someone like me, who learns best by reading, will use print media and be most influenced by it. Someone who learns best by listening will be more influenced by broadcast media.

Because print media traditionally is more conservative than broadcast media, what I learn from print media will differ from what another person learns from broadcast media. In general, print media will influence me to have a more conservative view of politics, economics, and society while broadcast media will influence a listener to have a more liberal view of each.

So how media influences society depends on each person’s personality and cognitive structure as noted in this post. Media also influences society individually by each person’s affectors, motivators and inheritance which I’ll cover in the post linked below:

How Media Influences Society And Market Segmentation, Part 2

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Posted 2-6-09: How Media Influences Society
And Market Segmentation, Part 1

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 4:19 am and is filed under Market Segmentation, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.