It is important to use a broad perspective on media effects in order to understand the incredibly wide range of influence the media exert and also to appreciate the truly wide range of effects research that has been produced by media scholars. However, when people in their everyday lives think about media effect, they typically limit their thinking to negative things that happen to other people after watching too much “bad” content. For example, people believe that exposure to media violence causes aggression; media stories with sexual depictions lead to risky sexual behaviors; and bad language leads to coarse expression in the population. These beliefs continually show up in public opinion polls. And these topics are popular among media effects researchers. This type of public opinion and this type of research are so prevalent that many people have come to think of media particular media messages. This perspective is useful starting place for thinking about media effects, but then we need to move on to a broader perspective. To begin this movement toward a broader perspective, let’s examine the key issues we need to deal with when considering a complete conceptualization of media effects