Seminar: Edward Castronova

You are invited to the IU Department of Telecommunications Seminar (T600) Series.

Friday, September 11, 2009
12:30-1:45 p.m.
RTV226

Edward Castronova, IU Department of Telecommunications, will present, "An Evolutionary Theory of Media Effects."

Abstract:
This paper provides several formal models of social change in which media may or may not have an effect. The models are all based on evolutionary theory, which proposes that society changes as people adopt different ?types? or cultural variants on behavior. Such types have fitness that determines whether they grow or fade in the social jungle. When media is introduced into the jungle, we explore three kinds of possible media effects. First, does media affect the system?s state, that is, the number of types? Second, does it change the fitness of different types? Third, does it change the system?s resting point, it?s long-run equilibrium? We find that in introducing media to a general model of cultural evolution changes very little. Specifically, we show that even if a media effect can be demonstrated for individuals, it is generally not the case that these individual effects translate into a major social effect. We then explore two deeper refinements of the general model, one for the case of violence, and another for the case of social norms. We find that media is unlikely to affect violence, but very likely to affect social norms. We conclude with caveats and directions for future research.