Do the media politically persuade citizens? A century of academic answers

Abstract

The media are a vital component of the democratic process, as they connect citizens with the actions of their leaders and provide a forum for debate and opinion formation. However, it is often assumed that audiences are a tabula rasa, defenseless against the almost absolute persuasive/manipulative power of the media. Yet, the reality of media effects on the public is far more intricate. Throughout these pages, the main scientific paradigms and theories that have attempted to explain this matter over the last century are summarized. The overview begins with the precientific origin of the discipline in the 1920s, when the media were regarded as all-powerful actors capable of manipulating the masses at will. A few decades later, the field would take a turn towards the opposite paradigm, one in which the media had minimal or at least limited persuasive capacity. In the 1960s, with the advent of television, social scientists revisited the idea (in a nuanced way) of strong effects, but this time with greater theoretical and empirical support. To conclude, the exposition delves into how the accumulated insights from the past eight decades work together to elucidate the persuasive effects of the media in today’s setting, characterized by fragmented audiences, the ubiquity of the internet and social networks, and the emergence of artificial intelligence.