A schema theory

Schema is a mental structure to help us understand how things work.  The term schema was first introduced in 1923 by developmental psychologist Jean Piaget. Piaget proposed a theory of cognitive development that utilised schema as one of its key components.

 

Piaget defined schemas as basic units of knowledge that related to all aspects of the world. He said that different schemas are mentally applied in appropriate situations to help people both comprehend and interpret information.

 

To Piaget, cognitive development hinges on (to depend on something completely) an individual acquiring more schemas and increasing the nuance and complexity of existing schemas.

The concept of schema was later described by psychologist Frederic Bartlett in 1932.  Bartlett conducted experiments that tested how schemas factored into people’s memory of events.

He suggested that schemas help people process and remember information. So when an individual is confronted with information that fits their existing schema, they will interpret it based on that cognitive framework. However, information that doesn’t fit into an existing schema will be forgotten.

 A schema is always connected to other schemas in a web of associations Although schemas can vary in their accessibility, they are long-term, relatively permanent structures that are capable of being searched, retrieved, and stored again.

Types of Schemas

There are many kinds of schemas that assist us in understanding the world around us, the people we interact with, and even ourselves.

 Types of schemas include:

• Object schemas, which help us understand and interpret inanimate objects, including what different objects are and how they work. For example, we have a schema for what a phone is and how to use it. Our computer schema may also include subcategories like editing, gaming, and working with computer.
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• Person schemas, which are created to help us understand specific people. It help us such a way that how the way an individual looks, the way they act, what they like and don’t like, and their personality traits.
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• Social schemas, which help us understand how to behave in different social situations. For example, Social schemas relate to social situations and relationships, and they shape our understanding of how individuals interact with one another. For example,the schema for "friendship" could include expectations for how friends treat one another, such as being supportive and trustworthy. 
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• Event schemas,  which include the sequence of actions and behaviors one expects during a given event. For example, when an individual enter into class room,  they can wear an identity card, on time attend the lecture selecting a seat, silencing their mobile phone, observing  the class carefully, and taking notes.
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• Self-schemas, which help us understand ourselves. You can focus on what you know , who are you and what is your history and future,
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• Role schemas, which incorporate our expectations of how a person in a specific social role will behave. For example, we expect a professor to be intellectual, commanding and clam. While not all professors will act that way, our schema sets our expectations of each professor we interact with.

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Functions Of Schemas

Schemas can help us efficiently learn and understand new information, 

With regard to media effects, schemas have three main functions 

First, they facilitate the processing of information because they enable individuals to organize and retrieve information in a structured manner.   Schemas lend a sense of order to our understanding of the world. 

  Second, schemas determine which bits of information are perceived and processed by individuals. Schemas structure the way in which we perceive the world: when a message is matched against a schema, elements of the message are ordered in a manner that reflects the structure of the schema. Ex. Women issues

 Third and last, schemas help individuals to fill in the gaps when information is incomplete. Individuals are likely to go beyond the information that is presented in the media because they draw inferences that are congruent ( having the same size and shape ) with their pre-existing schemas.

 According to schema theory, people are cognitive misers because they strive to process the incoming information economically. 

Therefore, people do not attend to all the information they are exposed to. When confronted with new, incoming information, people draw on their existing schemas to understand and to assimilate the message. 

eg Murder of women

When individuals cannot identify a schema to understand the message, either they can attempt to establish a new schema, or the information cannot be integrated. 

In fact, schema theory posits that schema-irrelevant information tends to be ignored, and will therefore not be memorized.

  A Schema Theory Perspective On Media Effects

The most extensive application of schema theory in communication research concerns news reception and news effects. 

 As Graber (1984) observed, people would not be able to tame the information tide without their schemas. 

Schema theory helps to explain how people represent the public agenda, learn from the news, resist media information, and change their existing attitudes.

Schemas And Agenda Setting

From a schema theory perspective, issues can be understood as individual schemas. These schemas are stored in long-term memory; they can be retrieved and made salient by media coverage.

Agenda-setting- Schema

Agenda setting and framing studies show that news media influence how people develop schema and place priorities on issues.  An agenda-setting effect can be described as an interaction between individual schemas and the amount of media coverage.

According to schema theory, this effect depends on two crucial features.

1. First, the more frequently a schema is activated, the higher is its accessibility and the more likely are agenda-setting effects.

2Second, however, the amount of schema activation depends on the fit between the issue schema and the individual schema. 

Schema learning: 

Rumelhart (1980) suggests three broad processes of schema learning:  accretion, tuning, and restructuring.

Accretion refers to the accumulation of new information into an existing schema, following the schematic structure that is already present. This kind of learning allows the acquisition of large amounts of specific knowledge about a given topic. With regard to media effects, the process of accretion explains why prior knowledge is associated with greater learning.

Tuning of an existing schema 

 Tuning involves the gradual modification of a schema. This can occur by continuously upgrading it in the direction of the current experience, for instance by adding a new slot to the schema or by generalizing a schema to other situations 

Cognitive restructuring is a technique that has been successfully used to help people change the way they think. When used for stress management, the goal is to replace stress-producing thoughts 

 

SchemaResistance To Change

Information from the media becomes subject to a schematic filtering. Rarely do individuals process the new information in a neutral and unbiased manner.  Individuals mainly extract personally relevant information that suits their personal schemas. News of Tax, Tax for media equipment. 

Resistance to schema - three other major factors

1.     the level of initial schema development, 

  This idea corresponds to persuasion theory, which suggests that more knowledgeable people are more difficult to persuade .For example, it is more difficult to change an expert’s schema than a novice’s.

2.     the ambiguity or consonance of the incoming information, The ambiguity of the incoming information also impacts the resistance to schema change. 

3.     the frequency of the inconsistent information. The simple frequency of inconsistent information is a crucial predictor of schema change.