Media influence rises with how far audiences depend on media to understand a situation, so effects are largest where alternatives are fewest.
The theory explains why media effects appear inconsistent across studies: they are conditional on dependency, which varies. During a crisis, in an unfamiliar domain, or where personal experience is unavailable, dependency is high and influence follows. On matters people can check themselves, it is low.
In practice
- Coverage of a distant conflict shapes opinion far more than coverage of the local high street, which people can see.
- An internal communication is believed in proportion to how little else staff have to go on.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Communication & Media
- Essay
- Theories of what stands between an event and its audience