Media Dependency
Theory
When does a media source
become difficult to replace?
Explore how audience goals, information resources and social conditions shape media influence through Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur’s dependency approach.
In this chapter · Open the contents
- The central idea
- What dependency means
- The three-part system
- When dependency changes
- Understanding, orientation and play
- Three families of effects
- The individual process
- Feedback and institutional power
- Dependency and related theories
- Dependency in digital communication
- Studying dependency
- Cases, strengths and limitations
- Watch the lecture
- Ten self-check questions
- Apply and investigate
- Glossary and readings
Explain reliance and investigate its consequences.
- Distinguish dependency from exposure, trust, preference and problematic use.
- Trace reciprocal relationships among society, media and audiences.
- Identify goal-related dependencies and three families of effects.
- Explain the individual process and compare related theories.
- Apply the framework to digital communication and design an evidence-based inquiry.
The importance of a message depends partly on what people need it to do.
On an ordinary evening, a commuter glances at a transport bulletin and moves on. After a sudden disruption, the same bulletin becomes essential. It may help the commuter understand what happened, choose a route and decide whether to travel.
The medium has not necessarily changed. The relationship between the person’s goals, the available information and the surrounding situation has.
Also called Media System Dependency Theory, the approach was introduced in a major 1976 article by Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach and Melvin L. DeFleur. It connects the audience, the media system and the wider social system.
A conditional account of influence
The theory asks when media are likely to matter more, for whom and for which outcomes. Its central claim concerns the conditions of influence rather than an unlimited power to manipulate everyone.
When media resources become more important for achieving a relevant goal, the potential for those resources to affect understanding, feelings or action can increase. The content encountered, alternative resources and social circumstances still matter.
Dependency is a relationship
A student may rely on one service for examination notices and another for relaxation. A newsroom may rely on public institutions for records, while those institutions rely on news coverage to reach citizens.
Ask what each participant needs, who controls the relevant resource and what alternatives are available. These questions reveal the relationship behind the act of media use.
Minutes of use cannot tell the whole story.
Dependency concerns the importance of a resource for accomplishing a goal. Watching a service frequently may accompany dependency, but frequency alone does not establish the relationship.
Someone might spend hours browsing material that can easily be replaced. Another might consult a notice for one minute because it provides information needed for an important decision.
| Concept | What it tells us | What else must be examined |
|---|---|---|
| Exposure | Whether or how often a person encounters media content. | What goal the encounter serves and what alternatives exist. |
| Dependency | How important media resources are for achieving a specified goal. | The resource, its availability and the strength of the relationship. |
| Trust | Whether a source or account is regarded as credible or reliable. | A person can need information while remaining sceptical about its source. |
| Preference | Which option a person likes or chooses when alternatives are available. | Preference may change without changing a resource’s practical importance. |
| Problematic use | A pattern associated with difficulty regulating use or with harmful consequences. | Dependency theory does not diagnose such a condition from reliance alone. |
Importance, alternatives and the task
Suppose a university publishes a timetable through one official channel. The channel may become important to students even if they dislike its design. If the same verified information becomes available through several usable routes, the relationship may change.
A nominal alternative is not always a practical substitute. It may arrive too late, require another language, cost too much or lack information relevant to the decision.
Breadth and intensity differ
A medium can serve many goals, giving the relationship breadth. A person can also depend intensely on a narrow resource during a particular period. Both are worth examining.
There is no universal formula that converts hours, functions and alternatives into an exact amount of media influence. Define the relationship and choose evidence suited to the question.
Place the audience within its institutions and information environment.
The general dependency model connects three levels. The social system includes institutions, patterns of stability and conflict, and the distribution of resources. The media system produces, selects and distributes information. The audience pursues goals under particular social conditions.
Each connecting line represents a reciprocal relationship. Society and media, society and audiences, and media and audiences can influence one another. The relationships are explained below.
| Relationship | One direction | Return influence |
|---|---|---|
| Society ↔ media | Institutions shape media resources, access and operating conditions. | Media circulate accounts through which institutions gain visibility, face criticism or seek support. |
| Media ↔ audiences | Media supply resources used for understanding, orientation and play. | Audience attention, choices, criticism and collective demands can affect media decisions. |
| Society ↔ audiences | Institutional arrangements shape people’s goals, opportunities and information needs. | People act within institutions, participate in public life and press for changes. |
Separate the levels without isolating them
Suppose residents seek information about a transport change. Their needs are shaped by work schedules and public services. Newsrooms depend on access to transport records. Public authorities may use media to explain the change, while residents’ responses can prompt further reporting.
The dependency relationship sits within this larger arrangement. A study limited to an individual’s screen time would miss much of the process.
Relationships can be unequal
Reciprocity does not mean equal power. A person may have few alternatives, while an institution controls a necessary record. A small newsroom may depend heavily on a source that can readily communicate through other outlets.
Study the direction and degree of each reliance. Drawing separate boxes for society and media is an analytical choice; it does not imply that media operate independently of dominant institutions.
Uncertainty can raise the value of information.
Ball-Rokeach and DeFleur connect stronger audience dependency with situations in which media perform central information functions and with periods of rapid change or pervasive conflict.
When familiar expectations become unreliable, people may seek accounts that help them interpret events and decide what to do. The important question is which resources they turn to and why.
What is happening?
Competing or incomplete accounts can make an established understanding difficult to sustain. People may seek explanation and comparison.
Why does it matter to me?
An event becomes more relevant when it affects a person’s work, studies, relationships or plans.
Who can provide what is needed?
Timeliness, access, language, detail and practical alternatives influence which source can serve the goal.
Where does the information originate?
A source may become central because it supplies records or accounts that other outlets also use.
A crisis does not produce one uniform response
Some people may rely more on broadcasting. Others may consult direct institutional notices, local contacts or a combination of sources. A service that loses credibility or becomes inaccessible may become less useful even as the need for information rises.
Distinguish the importance of obtaining information from dependence on one particular outlet. The two can move in different directions.
Everyday life also produces dependency
Media can remain important for routine learning, professional work, entertainment and companionship. A high-stakes disruption makes the relationship easier to notice, but instability is not a requirement for every form of reliance.
Compare the same person across goals and periods. A relationship can strengthen, weaken or shift as needs and available resources change.
The same medium can serve different goals.
Individual media-system dependency research groups goals under understanding, orientation and play. A more detailed typology distinguishes six relationships.
| Goal family | Relationship | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Understanding | Self-understanding: interpreting one’s own experiences, roles or identity. | A student uses accounts of university life to consider their own expectations. |
| Understanding | Social understanding: interpreting people, institutions and events. | A reader follows explanatory reporting to understand a transport dispute. |
| Orientation | Action orientation: obtaining guidance for decisions and tasks. | A commuter uses a bulletin to plan a journey. |
| Orientation | Interaction orientation: obtaining guidance for encounters with others. | A new employee consults material about professional communication before a meeting. |
| Play | Solitary play: enjoyment or relaxation pursued individually. | A listener uses a music programme to unwind. |
| Play | Social play: enjoyment or relaxation shared with others. | Friends organise a shared viewing and discussion of a performance. |
Specify the goal before measuring reliance
“How much do you depend on the internet?” leaves too much unspecified. A person may need it for official notices, use it casually for entertainment and avoid it for personal advice.
Ask about a particular resource and purpose. Then examine whether the resource helps achieve that purpose and whether usable alternatives exist.
Goals can overlap
A documentary may help someone interpret a public issue and provide material for conversation. A music programme can support both enjoyment and participation in a friendship group.
The typology organises questions; it need not force each encounter into one exclusive category. Record the relevant combination and distinguish it from the frequency of exposure.
Information includes cultural resources
In this approach, media resources extend beyond news updates and numerical data. Stories, performances and accounts of social life can also serve understanding, orientation and play.
The goal identifies the relationship. It does not by itself establish whether the information is accurate or the resulting activity beneficial.
Knowing, feeling and acting are different outcomes.
The model distinguishes cognitive, affective and behavioural effects. One encounter may involve more than one, but evidence of one does not automatically establish the others.
| Effect family | What may change | Example and evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Cognitive | Knowledge, interpretations, issue importance, beliefs or aspects of attitudes and values. | A person understands a revised timetable. Examine the accuracy and organisation of that understanding. |
| Affective | Feelings such as anxiety, reassurance, sympathy, anger or enjoyment. | A report increases concern about a disruption. Examine feelings with a suitable measure or account. |
| Behavioural | Actions, participation, avoidance or restraint. | A person changes a journey or attends a meeting. Examine what they actually do under specified conditions. |
Cognitive effects can clarify or confuse
A report may resolve uncertainty by supplying a coherent explanation. It may also create a mistaken belief, emphasise one issue or leave competing interpretations unresolved.
Learning that an explanation exists is different from understanding it, believing it or remembering it later. Choose the outcome you intend to study.
Affective effects need not be negative
Coverage can produce concern, but it can also reassure, amuse or strengthen sympathy. Strong feelings do not establish that a message was accepted or that action followed.
Activation and deactivation
Activation concerns media-related encouragement or initiation of action. Deactivation concerns discouragement, restraint or non-performance of an action that might otherwise have occurred.
Suppose a student reads a report and decides against attending an event. Establishing deactivation requires evidence about the prior intention, the message and other reasons for the decision. Absence alone is insufficient.
Similarly, an intention to act is not the same as action. A person may understand a notice and want to respond while lacking transport, time or permission.
An encounter can activate a goal and deepen attention.
The individual process model connects established dependency relationships with an encounter with particular content. A person may seek the material deliberately or notice it incidentally.
- 1 · Encounter and relevance
Active selection or a casual encounter
Active selectorChooses content relevant to an existing goal or dependency.
Casual observerEncounters content that may activate a relevant dependency.
If no relevant dependency is activated, the casual observer may leave the encounter.
- 2 · Dependency intensity and arousal
The material becomes consequential.
Stronger relevant dependencies can increase cognitive attention and affective arousal.
- 3 · Information processing
The person invests effort.
Attention and arousal can support greater involvement in examining, interpreting or relating the material.
- 4 · Potential effects
Understanding, feelings or action may change.
Involvement can increase the likelihood of effects; their direction and extent depend on content and conditions.
Incidental exposure can become purposeful
A commuter notices a headline while looking for something else. The headline concerns a route needed the next morning. The person stops, opens the report and compares the account with another source.
The initial encounter was incidental. Its relevance to a goal changed the subsequent attention.
Involvement is not agreement
A person may examine a report closely because it conflicts with what they know. More effort can lead to acceptance, qualification or rejection. Arousal can include concern or dislike as well as interest.
Read the pathway conditionally
The stages organise a proposed process. They do not guarantee that every encounter reaches an effect or that every person follows an identical sequence.
To test the pathway, distinguish the relevance of the goal, the intensity of reliance, attention, processing effort and the outcome. Reusing the same question for all five would conceal the relationships the model proposes.
Audience responses can become part of the next communication environment.
An effect on an audience need not remain an individual outcome. People can question a report, demand a correction, change their media choices or organise a collective response. Institutions and newsrooms may then adjust their practices.
Suppose a transport bulletin repeatedly omits information about an accessible route. Residents document the gap and raise it with journalists and officials. Subsequent bulletins include that information. The audience has influenced the resources on which it relies.
Trace the return pathway
A useful feedback account identifies what people did, who received the response and which decision changed. A complaint, a newsroom meeting and a revised bulletin are different points in the process.
Audience reaction can also be ignored or selectively recognised. The existence of a comment facility does not establish that public input affects a decision.
Media depend on other institutions
News organisations may need documents, technical expertise, finance, distribution or access to officials. Institutions may need media visibility, public attention or channels for explanation.
These dependencies can be reciprocal and unequal. The organisation supplying a crucial resource may have greater capacity to set conditions than the organisation seeking it.
Follow the origin of the resource
Several websites may reproduce the same notice. The appearance of multiple outlets does not necessarily create several independent sources of information.
Identify who produced the account, who verified it and who controls access to the underlying evidence. This helps connect individual reliance with institutional relationships.
Theories can examine the same encounter through different questions.
Media dependency and uses and gratifications both recognise purposeful media use. Their explanatory emphasis differs. Dependency asks how goal achievement rests on resources organised within relationships of power and social structure.
Uses and gratifications gives particular attention to needs, motives, media choices and the gratifications sought or obtained. The approaches overlap, but their questions are not interchangeable.
| Approach | Central question | In a transport-information example |
|---|---|---|
| Media system dependency | Under what relationships and conditions do media resources become important for goals and effects? | How does reliance change when routes are disrupted and alternatives are limited? |
| Uses and gratifications | What do people seek from media, and what satisfactions do they obtain? | Why does a person choose one bulletin or service? |
| Agenda-setting | How does media emphasis relate to the importance people assign to issues? | Does repeated coverage make transport disruption more prominent in public concern? |
| Cultivation | How do sustained patterns of media exposure relate to views of social reality? | Would a longer pattern of coverage relate to a broader view of the city? |
Connect explanations without merging them
A person may choose a report to satisfy an information need. Limited alternatives may strengthen reliance on it. Repeated attention to one issue may affect its perceived importance.
These propositions concern different relationships and timescales. A study must specify which it intends to examine and what evidence would distinguish the claims.
Activity and structure belong together
An audience can choose actively while its options remain constrained by access, language, institutional rules or available reporting. Active selection does not establish independence from the information environment.
Ball-Rokeach’s 1998 comparison of dependency and uses and gratifications is especially useful for examining their differing accounts of audiences, interpersonal networks and media power.
Identify the resource beneath the screen.
A digital service may combine news, conversation, entertainment, search and access to institutions. Its importance can therefore differ sharply across tasks.
Begin by defining the level of the relationship: a broad medium, a type of content, an outlet, a particular service or a source within it. Dependence on online examination information is not necessarily dependence on one social-media account.
| Level or resource | Question | What to avoid assuming |
|---|---|---|
| Medium or channel | Is this route important for obtaining relevant material? | Use of the internet does not establish reliance on every service within it. |
| Genre or content category | Does a type of programming or reporting serve the goal? | General media use may hide a strong reliance on a narrow category. |
| Source or service | What distinctive resource does this provider supply? | A liked source is not necessarily difficult to replace. |
| Institutional origin | Who produces the records or accounts circulated by others? | Multiple reposts do not establish independent verification. |
More choice can redistribute dependency
A person can compare several outlets and become less reliant on one editor’s account. Yet those outlets may share an upstream supplier, a distribution route or access to the same institutional records.
Study the actual alternatives and their origins. The number of visible options alone cannot settle whether a resource is replaceable.
AI-related information reliance
Suppose a student uses an assistant to summarise readings. The relevant questions concern the goal, the resource supplied and the ability to proceed through other routes.
Does the student use it to locate material, understand an argument or generate a first draft? Can the student check the source and explain the result independently? Frequent use, perceived helpfulness and accuracy remain different questions.
Dependency theory can guide such an inquiry. The behaviour of a particular service, the quality of its outputs and the student’s learning require direct evidence.
Measure reliance and effects separately.
A dependency study needs more than a question about screen time. Specify the person or organisation, the goal, the resource, the period and the alternatives.
For example: “During the timetable change, how important was this bulletin for planning a journey?” is more focused than “How dependent are you on media?” Follow it with questions about what the bulletin supplied and what the participant could use instead.
Build a chain of evidence
- Relationship: evidence that the resource matters for a defined goal.
- Encounter: evidence about the content received and when it was encountered.
- Process: evidence of attention, interpretation or checking.
- Outcome: a separate measure of understanding, feeling or behaviour.
- Conditions: relevant information about alternatives, prior beliefs, institutional rules and ability to act.
Two research landmarks
Grant, Guthrie and Ball-Rokeach’s 1991 study of television shopping examined relationships among dependence on television, dependence on a genre and relationships with programme hosts. It shows the value of specifying the level of reliance rather than treating all television use as the same relationship.
Riffe, Lacy and Varouhakis’s 2008 study examined internet use for in-depth, specialised information. It provides a historical example of distinguishing purposeful information use from general exposure. Its findings describe the population and period studied, rather than the present media environment.
Association is a beginning
If people who report greater reliance also report greater anxiety, several explanations remain possible. Reliance may affect exposure and feelings; anxiety may increase information seeking; or the seriousness of the situation may affect both.
Repeated observations, temporal ordering and comparison of alternative explanations can strengthen the inquiry. A one-time survey cannot automatically establish every link in a process model.
Choose measures that fit the claim
Use established instruments where they match the construct and population. New questions can help explore a setting, but a reliable and valid scale requires development and evaluation. An interview prompt or classroom worksheet is not a validated measure merely because it uses theoretical vocabulary.
Explain when media matter without granting them unlimited power.
Dependency theory connects purposeful activity with social conditions and resource relationships. It makes room for both powerful and limited effects by asking what changes the conditions of influence.
Case 1 · A travel bulletin becomes central during a disruption
Suppose a series of route changes leaves commuters unsure how to reach work. A regional bulletin gathers verified updates, compares routes and explains changes. Some residents also receive detailed information through workplace contacts.
Apply the theory: identify social understanding and action-orientation goals. Compare the bulletin’s importance with the usefulness of alternatives, including interpersonal sources.
Possible effects: commuters may understand the changes, feel reassured or concerned, and alter a journey. Measure each outcome separately.
Evidence: compare reliance and information use before and during the disruption, record the content encountered and examine actual travel decisions. Increased need for information does not prove equal dependence on one outlet.
Case 2 · A short official notice carries high importance
Suppose students consult a university portal for a revised examination timetable. Most spend little time on it, but the notice is necessary for planning attendance. Several social-media pages reproduce the same notice.
Apply the theory: low exposure time can coexist with strong goal-related reliance. Distinguish the portal’s institutional origin from the secondary routes through which the notice travels.
Possible effects: students may correct their understanding and change a plan. Some may still be unable to attend because of unrelated constraints.
Evidence: ask what information students needed, which version they encountered, how they checked it and what they did. Counting reposts would not reveal the number of independent sources.
Case 3 · Shared entertainment supports a friendship group
Suppose a group of friends follows a regional music programme and meets regularly to discuss performances. The programme supplies material for enjoyment, conversation and a shared weekly activity.
Apply the theory: examine social play and any overlapping understanding or interaction goals. Ask which parts of the activity could continue through another programme or an offline event.
Possible benefits: enjoyment and opportunities for shared participation. Possible difficulty: members without reliable access may find it harder to join the conversation.
Evidence: combine accounts of the programme’s role with observations of the group’s activities and available alternatives. Strong reliance for social play does not, by itself, establish problematic use.
What the model contributes
- It links audience goals with institutions and wider social conditions.
- It explains why influence can differ across people, situations and periods.
- It distinguishes several outcomes and allows feedback into media and society.
- It directs attention towards the importance and replaceability of information resources.
Questions that sharpen its application
- Measurement: has reliance been measured directly, or inferred from exposure alone?
- Institutional power: who controls the resource and the conditions under which it circulates?
- Interpersonal relationships: do friends, colleagues or community groups supply alternatives or interpret media accounts?
- Causal direction: could the outcome also influence information seeking and reliance?
- Scope: which particular medium, source, genre or function is involved?
A diagram that separates media from society can understate their close institutional connections if read too literally. Examine ownership, access, finance and source relationships instead of assuming autonomous systems.
Likewise, identifying dependency does not specify the direction of every effect. A person can rely on a resource while checking, contesting or resisting its account.
Follow the movement from the system to the individual encounter.
Watch Dr. USP’s What is Media Dependency Theory. As you listen, identify the social conditions, the resource being used and the outcome under discussion.
Watch the lecture on YouTube ↗
| Time | Focus | Pause and ask |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00–01:45 | Origins and the audience–media–society relationship. | What goal and information resource would define a dependency? |
| 01:45–03:45 | Social instability and cognitive, affective and behavioural effects. | Which outcome is being described, and how could it be measured? |
| 03:45–05:10 | The general model and reciprocal relationships. | What evidence would show feedback from audiences? |
| 05:10–06:55 | Active selection, casual encounters, arousal and processing. | When can an incidental encounter become relevant to a goal? |
| 06:55–08:20 | Conditional effects and the model’s strengths. | Why can close attention coexist with disagreement? |
| 08:20–end | Feedback, institutional connections and limitations. | What would be missed by treating media as independent of society? |
After viewing
Choose one ordinary media encounter. Write three sentences: what the person wanted to achieve, why the resource mattered and what evidence would establish an effect.
Then revise the example by adding a useful alternative source. Explain how that change might affect the dependency relationship.
Choose an answer, then examine the explanation.
Read every option before revealing the answer. Use the explanations to keep reliance, exposure, processing and effects distinct.
01What does media dependency principally describe?
Reveal answer and explanation
Answer: C. The theory concerns goal–resource relationships. Exposure, trust and preference are related but distinct concepts.
02Who introduced the major 1976 dependency model?
Reveal answer and explanation
Answer: A. Their article, A Dependency Model of Mass-Media Effects, connected audiences, media and society.
03A student consults a portal for one minute to obtain an essential timetable. What follows?
Reveal answer and explanation
Answer: D. The resource’s importance for a goal is different from the time spent using it.
04Which goal concerns guidance for carrying out a task?
Reveal answer and explanation
Answer: B. Action orientation concerns decisions and tasks; interaction orientation concerns encounters with other people.
05A person becomes more worried after a report. Which effect is described most directly?
Reveal answer and explanation
Answer: C. Affective effects concern feelings. Knowledge and action require separate evidence.
06What would help establish behavioural deactivation?
Reveal answer and explanation
Answer: A. Deactivation requires an account of the action, prior circumstances and the media-related reason for restraint.
07What can happen after a casual encounter with content?
Reveal answer and explanation
Answer: D. Incidental exposure can become purposeful when it connects with a goal. The later process remains conditional.
08Why does greater processing effort not guarantee persuasion?
Reveal answer and explanation
Answer: B. Involvement increases engagement with material; its direction and consequences still depend on the account and the audience.
09Five websites reproduce the same institutional notice. What should a researcher examine?
Reveal answer and explanation
Answer: C. Visible alternatives may share an upstream resource. Count and independence are different properties.
10A survey finds that reliance and anxiety are associated. What is the sound conclusion?
Reveal answer and explanation
Answer: A. Prior anxiety, event severity and other conditions could contribute. One association does not establish the entire causal pathway.
Build a dependency profile for a defined goal.
Activity 1 · Conduct a goal–resource interview
Choose a routine task such as planning a journey, following a course or organising a shared leisure activity. Ask a willing participant how information resources enter that task.
- Goal: what is the participant trying to achieve?
- Resource: what does the medium supply that helps?
- Importance: what would become difficult without that resource?
- Alternatives: what other sources are usable, timely and accessible?
- Encounter: was the relevant material sought deliberately or encountered casually?
- Outcome: what changed in understanding, feeling or action?
Use the answers to organise a qualitative account. Distinguish what the participant reports from what can be observed or checked.
Activity 2 · Compare an ordinary period with a disruption
Select one source and one goal. Compare its role during routine conditions and a clearly defined change. Record the following dimensions rather than assuming that every form of dependency increased.
| Dimension | Record in each period | Interpretation question |
|---|---|---|
| Goal importance | What decisions or activities are at stake? | Did the need change? |
| Resource supplied | Which explanation, record or service was available? | What made it useful for the goal? |
| Alternatives | Which other sources could genuinely substitute? | Did access or usefulness change? |
| Attention and checking | How was the material examined or compared? | Did involvement change, and why? |
| Outcome | Separate evidence about understanding, feeling and action. | Which effect is supported by the record? |
Research extension · Does reliance precede an effect?
Question: during a defined information change, does prior goal-related reliance predict later understanding or action after accounting for relevant conditions?
Possible design: follow participants over time. Record initial knowledge, reliance, alternative sources and the importance of the task. Then identify relevant exposure and a later, separately measured outcome.
Analysis: preserve temporal order and account for event severity, prior trust, access and practical ability to act. Examine whether the outcome also predicts later information seeking.
Interpretation: a relationship can support the proposed explanation while leaving alternatives unresolved. Stronger causal claims require an appropriate design and evidence about the process.
Reporting: protect participants’ privacy and distinguish theory-based questions from validated measures. Avoid collecting private messages when a participant’s account or public record can answer the question.
Examination and seminar prompts
- Short answer: define media dependency and distinguish it from exposure.
- Model explanation: trace relationships among society, media and audiences.
- Application: explain how a change in alternatives could alter reliance.
- Comparison: distinguish dependency theory from uses and gratifications.
- Critical discussion: explain why a media–society diagram should not imply independent systems.
- Research proposal: investigate one cognitive, affective or behavioural outcome.
Return to the relationship behind media use.
- Media system dependency
- A relationship in which achieving goals depends on resources supplied through a media system.
- Goal
- The understanding, orientation, play or other purpose that makes a resource relevant.
- Information resource
- Material or access used to support a goal, including explanation, guidance and cultural content.
- Dependency intensity
- The strength of relevant reliance in a specified relationship and situation.
- Alternatives
- Other usable resources that can serve the same goal.
- Social understanding
- Interpreting people, institutions and events.
- Action orientation
- Guidance for decisions and tasks.
- Interaction orientation
- Guidance for encounters with others.
- Social play
- Enjoyment or relaxation shared with others.
- Cognitive effect
- A change involving knowledge, interpretation, beliefs or related judgements.
- Affective effect
- A change in feelings.
- Behavioural effect
- A change in action or restraint.
- Activation / deactivation
- Encouragement of action or discouragement of an action that might otherwise occur.
- Feedback
- A return influence through which audience responses affect media or wider institutions.
- Contingency
- The dependence of a proposed effect on specified relationships and conditions.
Core and further readings
- Ball-Rokeach, S. J., & DeFleur, M. L. (1976). A dependency model of mass-media effects. Communication Research, 3(1), 3–21. Article DOI ↗
The foundational statement linking audiences, media resources and the social system.
- Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1985). The origins of individual media-system dependency: A sociological framework. Communication Research, 12(4), 485–510. Article DOI ↗
Examines structural and individual conditions through which dependency relationships develop.
- DeFleur, M. L., & Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1989). Theories of mass communication (5th ed.). Longman. Bibliothèque nationale de France record ↗
Consult the media system dependency discussion for the connection between system relationships and individual processes.
- Grant, A. E., Guthrie, K. K., & Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1991). Television shopping: A media system dependency perspective. Communication Research, 18(6), 773–798. Article DOI ↗
A study of relationships at the medium, genre and programme-host levels.
- Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1998). A theory of media power and a theory of media use: Different stories, questions, and ways of thinking. Mass Communication and Society, 1(1–2), 5–40. Article DOI ↗
A direct comparison with uses and gratifications. The journal publication is from 1998, although publisher metadata also records a later online date.
- Riffe, D., Lacy, S., & Varouhakis, M. (2008). Media system dependency theory and using the internet for in-depth, specialized information. The Web Journal of Mass Communication Research, 11. Full article ↗
A historical application examining purposeful use of specialised information.
- Dr. USP. What is media dependency theory [Video]. YouTube. Watch the lecture ↗
The chapter in six statements
- Dependency concerns a relationship between goals and resources, extending beyond time spent with media.
- Society, media and audiences influence one another through relationships that can be unequal.
- Uncertainty, resource importance and available alternatives can change the conditions of reliance.
- Understanding, orientation and play organise different goals; cognitive, affective and behavioural effects identify different outcomes.
- Selection, arousal and processing form a conditional pathway rather than a guarantee of persuasion.
- A convincing study measures reliance and effects separately and examines feedback and rival explanations.
Follow the resource into selection, learning and personal influence.
Gatekeeping Theory examines how information becomes available through selection. Social Cognitive Theory turns towards learning through observation and experience. Two-Step Flow Theory helps trace personal influence and the interpretation of media accounts through relationships.
Choose one source you consult and ask: what do you need from it, what could replace it, and what difference does relying on it make?
Back to the chapter opening ↑