The idea that mass media do not have much power to directly influence the audience led to the concept of:

The idea that mass media cannot directly and strongly sway audiences gave rise to the limited effects concept.

Research found media influence to be filtered by personal ties, prior beliefs and selective processes.

Mass effects assumes the opposite, that media powerfully and uniformly move a whole audience.

Individual effects points to person-level variation but is not the name for this weakened-influence view.

Regulated effects suggests controlled or governed impact, which is not what this idea proposes.

The limited effects tradition replaced the earlier belief in an all-powerful, direct media impact.