Media Symbol Systems and Cognitive Processes

Tools have played a central role in human evolution. Media, which are the focus of this book, are first and foremost tools provided by the culture, and our central concern is their influence on our thinking and learning. When considering media as tools, it is important to distinguish between the physical platform or hardware (i.e., the television set, computer, or video game system), formal features (i.e., audiovisual production features that characterize a medium), and the content (i.e., the topic or focus of a television program or software program) within it. The formal features are independent of content and are akin to a language, which is a psychological tool and a symbol system. Just as the words of a language are symbols that a listener has to decode, the formal features of media consist of symbol systems that the user has to decode to understand the message. The content is the material or message conveyed by the formal features, for example, a particular story, as well as the words and actions of the characters in the story. We start by presenting the theoretical framework of our analysis and then examine the formal features of each medium to understand their influence on cognitive processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)