That a relationship between exposure to mass media, particularly news media, and attitudes exists has been supported by additional scholarship, particularly in the United States ( Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996 )

While mass media have been less studied, some theorists focused on the role that they play in modernization and argued that it was the key agent in bringing about development. Lerner argued that media exposed people who possess traditional values to the “modern” world, and that exposure in turn produced a desire to live in it. For him, media enabled the modernization process: “the importance of media in our theory is that it enlarges a person’s view of the world (‘opinion range’) and his capacity to imagine himself in new and strange situations (‘empathy’) in ways that will alter action” ( Lerner 1958, 96 ). Read more «Daniel Lerner ( 1958 ) saw mass media as the main catalyst for social change»