Causality Issues
Assessing causality is obviously complex. What can we assume about how the messages/patterns/framings observed in a cultural text or set of texts influence people’s emotions, thoughts, or behavior?
Although it may be tempting to use the language of "influence" in our studies, we cannot assume that the content of cultural texts affects people’s behavior, decisions, or attitudes. As we show in the Approaches section, contemporary scholars of culture reject the notion that individuals are passive recipients of culture, unable to resist or reject it, although it may be quite difficult to do so (Milkie 1999; 2002). Scholars theorize that culture and people are interconnected, but establishing this empirically through content analysis alone is not possible. See Griswold’s (2012) Cultural Diamond paradigm identifying interconnections among the social world, creators of culture, receivers of culture, and cultural objects. Griswold (2012) purposefully does not specify causal directions in the diamond, stating that her approach “does not say what the relationship between any of the points should be, only that there is a relationship” (p. 15).
See Gamson and Modigliani (1989) in the Methodological Exemplars tab for an example of a causality discussion.
References
Griswold, Wendy. 2012. Cultures and Societies in a Changing World. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Milkie, Melissa A. 1999. "Social Comparisons, Reflected Appraisals, and Mass Media: The Impact of Pervasive Beauty Images on Black and White Girls' Self-Concepts." Social Psychology Quarterly 62:190-210.
Milkie, Melissa A. 2002. "Contested Images of Femininity: An Analysis of Cultural Gatekeepers' Struggles with the 'Real Girl' Critique." Gender & Society 16:839-59.
Although it may be tempting to use the language of "influence" in our studies, we cannot assume that the content of cultural texts affects people’s behavior, decisions, or attitudes. As we show in the Approaches section, contemporary scholars of culture reject the notion that individuals are passive recipients of culture, unable to resist or reject it, although it may be quite difficult to do so (Milkie 1999; 2002). Scholars theorize that culture and people are interconnected, but establishing this empirically through content analysis alone is not possible. See Griswold’s (2012) Cultural Diamond paradigm identifying interconnections among the social world, creators of culture, receivers of culture, and cultural objects. Griswold (2012) purposefully does not specify causal directions in the diamond, stating that her approach “does not say what the relationship between any of the points should be, only that there is a relationship” (p. 15).
See Gamson and Modigliani (1989) in the Methodological Exemplars tab for an example of a causality discussion.
References
Griswold, Wendy. 2012. Cultures and Societies in a Changing World. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Milkie, Melissa A. 1999. "Social Comparisons, Reflected Appraisals, and Mass Media: The Impact of Pervasive Beauty Images on Black and White Girls' Self-Concepts." Social Psychology Quarterly 62:190-210.
Milkie, Melissa A. 2002. "Contested Images of Femininity: An Analysis of Cultural Gatekeepers' Struggles with the 'Real Girl' Critique." Gender & Society 16:839-59.
