3. Criticisms of Hypodermic Syringe Model

Question 1

1. Prevents Real Life Violence

Answer 1

• Catharsis: Fesbach and Sanger: found screen violence can provide a safe outlet for people’s aggressive tendencies.
- In their study, a large sample of boys were given a certain selection of TV for 6 weeks. The group that had only seen aggressive content were less aggressive in behaviour than those who had not seen any.

• Sensitization: Young: argue that seeing effects of violence (E.g. suffering) can make us more aware of consequences and less inclined.

Question 2

2. Criticisms of Bandura et al

Answer 2

• Gauntlett: questions the findings of Bandura et al because children do not behave as naturally under laboratory conditions as they would do in their everyday environment.

• Such studies are not clear how ‘violence’ should be defined..
- Different types: cartoons, authentic violence as seen in images of war and fictional violence, deaths on news bulletins and sports (e.g. boxing)

• Does not contextualise violence.

• Morrison found that the context of violence is important.
• Morrison: out of a set number of violent clips, all interviewees found a clip of a man beating his wife to be most disturbing in Ken Loach’s ‘Ladybird’ due to the realism of the scene.
• By Contrast, a clip from Pulp Fiction, in which a man is killed during an innocent conversation (spraying blood) was seen as humorous instead of violent due to the context of the light-hearted dialogue.

Question 3

3. Children as Sophisticated Consumers

Answer 3

• Many believe children are not as vulnerable as suggested…

• Buckingham: found that children are more sophisticated in their understanding of media content and much more media literate.
- E.g. B’s sample could differentiate between real and fictional violence

Question 4

4. Audiences Are Not Homogeneous

Answer 4

• Sociologists are critical of this model because they believe it fails to recognize that audiences are not homogenous.
• Characteristics such as age, maturity, class and education will impact how audiences respond to media content.

Question 5

5. Scapegoating the Media

Answer 5

• Hypodermic syringe model focuses almost entirely on media.
• Other factors such as drugs, childhood trauma and mental illness
• Michael Moore: claims that you could blame bowling for Columbine in the same way that many blame the media (E.g. both killers enjoyed it)

Question 6

Summary

Answer 6

1. Prevents Real Life Violence
2. Criticisms of Bandura et al
3. Children as Sophisticated Consumers
4. Audiences are not Homogenous
5. Scapegoating the Media