Effects of Mass Communication: Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral

There is a three-dimensional effect of mass communication, namely: cognitive, affective, and conative. Cognitive effects include increased awareness, learning, and additional knowledge. Effective effects associated with emotions, feelings, and attitude (attitude). While conative effects related to the behavior and intentions untuyk doing things in a certain way.

1. Cognitive effects

Cognitive effects are consequences arising in self-communicant that are informative for him. In the cognitive effects of this will be discussed about how the media can help people to learn useful information and develop cognitive skills. Through mass media, we obtain information about objects, people or places we have never visited directly.

Someone get information from television, that "Robot Gedek" capable of committing sodomy with boys under age. TV viewers, who do not know the origin becomes aware of the incident. Here the message delivered by the communicator communicant addressed to mind. In other words, the purpose of communicators just revolves around the attempt to tell only.

According to Mc. Luhan, the mass media is an extension of our sensory organs (sense extension theory; the theory of extension of sensory organs). With our mass media to obtain information about objects, people or places that we have never seen or have never visit in person. Reality shown by the reality of the mass media is already selected. We tend to obtain such information solely based on what media reported. Television often presents scenes of violence, television viewers tend to see the world harder, more insecure and more terrible.

Because the mass media selectively report the real world, then of course the media will affect the image formation of the social environment biased and unbalanced. Therefore, there was what is called a stereotype, namely a general idea of the individual, group, profession or society that does not change, is the cliche and often lame and untrue. For example, in the Indian film, women are often shown as being a crybaby, likes unexpected and often chatty. Looks like that, if done continuously, will create stereotypes in self Mass Communication audiences about people, objects or institution. Here is starting to feel the danger of the mass media. The influence of the mass media all the more, because in modern society people gained a lot of information about the world of mass media.

Meanwhile, the image of the person, for example, will be formed (also) by the role of agenda setting (determining / setting the agenda). This theory begins with the assumption that the mass media to filter the news, article, or writing that will be broadcast. Typically, the newspaper where the news set higher priority. It was their plan that influenced atmosphere was warm underway. For example, when one and a half pages in Media Indonesia proclaim the implementation of the National Leadership Meeting of the Golkar Party, means the journalist and the editor of the newspaper are setting us to portray an important information. Conversely if the next page on the same day, there is news Megawati visits to some areas, placed in the bottom left corner, and it was news only consists of three paragraphs. Means, this is the agenda setting of the media that this news is not as important. Inevitably, imaging and resources we are influenced agenda setting.

The mass media do not provide cognitive effects alone, but he gives the desired benefit society. This is the prosocial effects. When television cause us to better understand Indonesian was good and right, the television has prosocial cognitive effects. When the magazine presents the suffering of poor people in the countryside, and our hearts are moved to help them, the mass media has resulted in prosocial effects of affective. When you open the wallet newspapers natural disasters, urged us to donate, then we send money orders (or, now by way of transfer via a bank account) to the newspaper, then there prosocial behavioral effects.


2. Affective effects

This effect levels are higher than Cognitive effects. The purpose of mass communication is not just to tell the audience to be curious about something, but more than that, after knowing the information received, the audience is expected to feel it. For example, after we hear or read information about veteran artist Roy Marten jail for misuse of drugs, then within us will appear annoyance, pity, pity, or could be, happy. Feeling resentful, irritable or angry daat interpreted as irritation to the perpetration of Roy Marten. While the happy feeling is relief from the hater artist and life rah-rah happy over the arrest of public figures who tend to live rah-rah. As for compassion or pity can also be interpreted as the audience wondered why he committed the act.

Here are the factors that influence the affective effects of mass communication.

• Emotional Atmosphere
  From the examples above it can be concluded that our responses to a movie, advertisement, or piece of information, will be influenced by our emotional atmosphere. Sad movie will be very moving when we see it in a state is experiencing disappointment. Funny scenes will cause us laugh when we watch after benefit that is not unexpected.
  
• Cognitive Schema
  Cognitive schema is a script that is in our minds that describes the flow event. We know that in an action film, which has a play or actor / actress who often appears, on finally will win. Therefore we are not too worried when the hero falls from a cliff. We suspect, definitely would be helped too.
  
• Setting of exposure
  We would be very scared watching the movie "Suster Ngesot", for example, or other horror movies, when we watch alone in the old house, when heavy rain, and masts creaking house. Some research shows that the more children watch television in a state of fear alone or in dark places. Similarly, the reaction of others while watching will affect our emotions at the time to respond.
  
• Faktor predisposisi individual
  This factor indicates the extent to which people feel involved with the characters that appear in the mass media. With the identification of the audience, the reader, or listener, putting himself in a position figures. He felt what he felt the store. Therefore, when the identification character (called Identity) was defeated, he was also disappointed; when Identity is successful, he was excited.

3. Behavioral effects

Behavioral effects that arise as a result of self audiences in the form of the behavior, actions or activities. Scenes of violence in television and film will cause people to become violent. Cooking show program with Rudi Khaeruddin, for example, will cause the housewives follow new recipes. In fact, we never heard a child's primary school modeled on the wrestling scene Smack Down event which resulted in one person died from the wrestling scene. However, of all the information from the various media does not have the same effect.

Radio, television or movies in various countries have been used as a medium of education. Most reports have shown the real benefits of radio, television and film screenings. Some were reported failure. For example, when there is a criminal impressions on the program "Buser" in SCTV show information: elementary school children who commit suicide because not given pocket by parents. Attitude expected from the crime news is, that parents do not arbitrarily on his son, but what is gained, day or the day after that, it was reported there are the same actions that do elementary school children. This is what the difference effect behavior. Not all of the news, for example, will experience the success that audiences change for the better, but also could result in a failure that ended in a worse action.

Why the different effects? Learn from the mass media does not depend only element of stimuli in the mass media alone. We need a psychological theory that explains the events of this kind of learning. Psychologist theories that can explain the prosocial effects are social learning theory of Bandura. According to him, we learn not only from direct experience, but of impersonation or imitation (modeling). Behavior is the result of cognitive factors and environment. That is, we were able to have certain skills, if there is a positive braid between stimuli and characteristics that we observe ourselves.

Bandura describes the process of social learning in the four stages of the process: the process of attention, recall process (retention), motor reproduction processes, and motivational processes.

The beginning of the learning process is the emergence of events that can be observed directly or indirectly by someone. These events can be either a specific action (eg helping people drowned) or a picture of patterns of thought, called Bandura as "abstract modeling" (eg attitudes, values, or perceptions of social reality). We observe these events from people About a we. when the event was already observed, there was a first stage of social learning: attention. We just learn something if we pay attention. Every time we see a number of events that we can look up, but not all of the events that we noticed.

Attention alone is not enough to produce the effect of prosocial. Audiences should be able to keep its observations in the minds of his mind and called him back when they will act in accordance with the example given. To recall, observed events should be recorded in the form of imaginal and verbal. The first is called visual imagination, the mental picture of the events that we observe and keep that image in our memory. The second shows the representation in the form of language. According to Bandura, so that the event can be imitated, we not only had to record it in the memory, but also have to mentally imagine how we can carry out the actions we emulate. Visualize ourselves doing something referred to as a "rehearsal".

Furthermore, the process of reproduction means to reproduce the behavior or actions we observe. But do we actually implement exemplary behavior depends on the motivation? Motivation depends no confirmation. There are three kinds of affirmations that encourage us to act: external affirmation, an affirmation turns (vicarious reinforcement), and affirmation of self (self-reinforcement). Indonesian language teaching is good and true we have stored in our memory. We intend to practice it in conversation with our friend. We will do only when we know the other person will not be derided us or if we believe others will appreciate our actions. This is called an external affirmation. Thus, the language campaign premises in TVRI and newspaper work, if there is a climate that encourages the use of language is good and true premises.

We will also be motivated to do a good example of the behavior we see others who do the same being rewarded for his actions. Theoretically, it's hard to imitate Indonesian people right when officials have high reputation Indonesian language precisely wrong. We require confirmation of the turn. Although we do not get a reward (praise, recognition, status, and so on), but see others being rewarded because of what we want to look up to help the reproduction of the motor.

Finally exemplary action will we do if ourselves pushing the action. Encouragement of self that may arise from feeling satisfied, happy, or the fulfillment of the ideal self-image. We will follow the advice Indonesian language properly if we believe that in this way we contribute to the preservation of Indonesian.