Clarke Juanne N, Arnold Stephanie, Everest Michelle, Whitfield Kyle
Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ont. Canada.
Soc Sci Med. 2007 Jan;64(1):164-73. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2006.08.038. Epub 2006 Oct 11.
A number of studies have found an association between what people see, hear and read in the mass media and their corresponding actions and beliefs. This link has been demonstrated both at the micro and at the macro levels of analysis. However, when people are asked directly about the impact of mass media they tend to deny that they are personally affected. In fact, they tend to describe themselves as critical and skeptical media consumers. The purpose of this paper is to explore this contradiction through 12 in-depth focus group discussions undertaken in Ontario, Canada in 2004. Findings from the focus group interviews confirm earlier research in that people claimed that they were not susceptible to media influence. At the same time as they said that they took information from the mass media "with a grain of salt", they articulated sophisticated and nuanced accounts of how and why they evaluated some information as good and some as bad. In general they evaluated media stories on the basis of the values of allopathic medicine and positivistic science. Moreover, in the context of the focus groups and their explicit comments on their skepticism, they discussed health information from the magazine articles that they were given to read (on either HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, or a heart disease). Possible explanations for these paradoxical findings are discussed.
多项研究发现，人们在大众媒体中看到、听到和读到的内容与他们相应的行为和信念之间存在关联。这种联系在微观和宏观分析层面均已得到证实。然而，当直接询问人们大众媒体的影响时，他们往往否认自己受到了个人影响。事实上，他们倾向于将自己描述为批判性和怀疑性的媒体消费者。本文的目的是通过2004年在加拿大安大略省进行的12次深入焦点小组讨论来探究这一矛盾。焦点小组访谈的结果证实了早期的研究，即人们声称自己不易受到媒体影响。在表示对大众媒体的信息“持保留态度”的同时，他们阐述了关于如何以及为何将某些信息评估为好、某些信息评估为坏的复杂而细致入微的观点。总体而言，他们根据对抗疗法医学和实证科学的价值观来评估媒体报道。此外，在焦点小组的背景下以及他们对自身怀疑态度的明确评论中，他们讨论了所阅读的杂志文章（关于艾滋病毒/艾滋病、阿尔茨海默病或心脏病）中的健康信息。文中讨论了这些矛盾发现的可能解释。
