SELECTIVITY IN COMMUNICATION-II

(a) CONSISTENCY THEORIES:

According to this group, we consciously or subconsciously select from the flow of communication those ideas that fit in with our attitudes and values and that are consistent with our existing beliefs about the world. At the same time, we ignore, dismiss, misunderstand or forget those communications that would be ‘dissonant’ - that would not fit in. Thus, according to this approach, a person who believes in free enterprise would not be likely to read an article advocating government ownership of major industries or would not absorb much information even if she or he did read it. But someone who feels strongly about equal rights for women buys a magazine if he or she sees a story about female achievements in government or the professions featured on its cover.

One mechanism by which people can maintain and strengthen their existing view of the world and avoid having it disturbed by incongruent or unbalancing information, according to consistency theories, is ‘selective exposure’। This behaviour involves exposing oneself to messages that are consistent with one’s attitudes and beliefs and avoiding other messages। But it is difficult to avoid all dissonant communications, so one can do the next best thing: pay attention only to certain parts of the communication and disregard the rest। Social scientists usually refer to this as ‘selective perception’. Or, if one does pay attention to a potentially disturbing message, it may be possible to interpret it so that it will not conflict with the existing idea - one may conclude that it is untrue, unimportant, or does not really mean what it appears to mean. This might be called ‘selective interpretation’. Finally, people may forget dissonant information or may remember it in distorted form, a behaviour known as ‘selective recall’.


Several of these methods of maintaining psychological balance may be used at the same time। We may tune in to a television address by our favourite candidate but fail to notice that he stumbles and stutters when he comes to some words, and we may interpret his stands on issues as being much closer to ours than they actually are. In general, selective exposure and selective perception, although they do occur, seem to be less common patterns of behaviour than once thought. Selective interpretation and selective recall have held up a little better although there are many exceptions.



Active avoidance of unwelcome communications can be observed in the case of children who hold their hands over their ears when there is something they don’t want to hear. A well-known journalist has mentioned, “I don’t like fighting. Since I’ve been a child I’ve always covered my eyes with my hands and crouched low in my seat at the movies when the shooting and punching begins.”

For most older people, it is not necessary to put the hands over the ears or to close the eyes. They know where dissonant (lack of harmony )information IN communications are likely to be found and how to avoid them। When one pays attention to two conflicting communications, but learns more from one of them, selective perception may be at work. A survey of voter reaction to political propaganda in elections concluded that the voters do engage in selective perception, but it is not constant and depends considerably on whether people encounter the type of information that is most likely to activate their defences। Most of us have the capacity for selective perception, but this doesn’t mean that we always make use of it.

We may, however, engage in selective interpretation; that is, we may perceive dissonant information accurately but then interpret it, either consciously or subconsciously, in such a way that it does not throw out of balance our existing view of the world.

Memory too plays a role in preserving our existing attitudes and beliefs. This applies not only to what is remembered, but also to the form in which it is remembered. We learn and remember information more easily if it fits in somehow with what we already know.

Selective perception, interpretation, and recall may all be involved in the way an individual deals with communications about a particular subject.