Selective Exposure Theory - Klapper's Selective Exposure

Klapper's Selective Exposure

Joseph Klapper (1960) asserts that mass communication does not directly influence people, but just reinforces people’s predispositions. Mass communications play a role as a mediator in persuasive communication. The following are Klapper's five mediating factors and conditions to affect people:

• Predispositions and the related processes of selective exposure, selective perception, and selective retention.
• The groups, and the norms of groups, to which the audience members belong.
• Interpersonal dissemination of the content of communication
• The exercise of opinion leadership
• The nature of mass media in a free enterprise society.

Three basic concepts:

• Selective exposure - people keep away from communication of opposite hue.
• Selective perception - If people are confronting unsympathetic material, they do not perceive it, or make it fit for their existing opinion.
• Selective retention - Furthermore, they just simply forget the unsympathetic material.

Groups and group norms work as mediators. For example, one can be strongly disinclined to change to the Democratic Party if their family has voted Republican for a long time. In this case, the person’s predisposition to the political party is already set, so they don't perceive information about Democratic Party or change voting behavior because of mass communication. Klapper’s third assumption is inter-personal dissemination of mass communication. If someone is already exposed by close friends, which creates predisposition toward something, it will lead to an increase in exposure to mass communication and eventually reinforce the existing opinion. An opinion leader is also a crucial factor to form one's predisposition and can lead someone to be exposed by mass communication. The nature of commercial mass media also leads people to select certain types of media contents.