Media effects have many interpretations. There could be political, social, cultural, psychological, economical and moral effects of media depending upon the perspective we investigate. Advertisers are interested in the effects of media on the consumers. Parents are concerned about the effects of media on the children. Media may offer adult material or material that provokes violence and delinquency. Media effects could be long term or short term and deep or superficial. The fashion of the day is an example of short term effect. Some effects are permanent, and some transient..

Media effects could be considered as influences and impacts. These could be distinguished semantically.  Even media must be defined properly. Media could be considered as a channel or vehicle of content or could be considered as an industry and business. In social sciences, all the terms are not standardised.

The team effects assumes that the media is an actor and the audience it caters to is acted upon. It assumes passivity of the audience. This is not always true. Media effects do not work in isolation but in collaboration with many other variables. These effects do change the attitude and behaviour of the people.Such change corresponds to how individual and group respond to the various stimuli provided by the mass media. Media influence is exerted even without changing the behaviour of the people.

We can say media and its audience interact with each other in a complex way. It is better to use the term interaction rather than effects.Just as media offers a variety of content, the audience receiving it also is diverse and varied. The context of media consumption also varies a great deal.