Media Effects: Conceptualization of

AbstractThis entry presents a broad conceptual analysis of media effects. It begins with an examination of schemes used to organize this vast literature and uses a template to reveal four fundamental functions of media influence: acquiring, triggering, altering, and reinforcing. Altering and reinforcing exhibit themselves as baseline effects, developed over the long term, as the media interact with other influences to shape a person's level of risk for manifesting a media effect, either negative or positive. Acquiring and triggering exhibit themselves as fluctuation effects—sudden spikes from the baseline. The entry then explores six of the challenges of conceptualizing media effects and four additional challenges of conceptualizing the nature of media influence. The entry concludes with an outline of the new challenges media effects scholars face in moving forward as media undergo dramatic changes, then presents a seven‐stage model illuminating the evolving nature of the scholarly field of media effects.