6.5 Theorists

Question 1

Adorno and Horkheimer

Hypodermic Syringe model

Answer 1

This theory of media effects is associated with neo-Marxists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer in the 1940s, who had managed to escape Nazi Germany and resettled in America.

They noted that there were similarities between the ‘propaganda industry’ in Nazi Germany’ and what they called the ‘Culture Industry’ in the United States.

Adorno and Max Horkheimer theorised that popular culture in the USA was like a factory producing standardized content which was used to manipulate a passive mass audience.

They argued that consumption of the ‘dumbed down’ content of popular culture made people passive and false psychological needs that could only be met and satisfied by the products of capitalism.

The ultimate function of the culture industry was thus to manipulate audiences into becoming good consumers and keeping capitalism going.

Question 2

Newson

Answer 2

Newson Theorised that the effects of media violence on children were more subtle and gradual. She argued that continued exposure to violence in films over several years ‘desenstised’ children and teenagers to violence and that they came to see violence as a norm, and as a possible way of solving problems. She also argued that television and film violence tended to encourage people to identify with the violent perpetrators, rather than the victims.

Newson’s research led to increased censorship in the film industry – for example, the British Board of Film was given the power to apply age certificates and T.V. companies agreed on a 9.00 watershed, before which shows would not feature significant sexual or violent scenes.

Question 3

Gauntlett

Answer 3

Gauntlett (1998), however, suggested that strong media, weak audience models have a basic flaw: they see audiences as uncritical individuals, easily influenced by whatever they read, see or hear. Gauntlett also suggested that the empirical evidence for direct media effects is weak, partly because most research takes place under artificial conditions, such as a laboratory. These do not adequately represent the real situations and contexts in which people use the media:

• Bandura et al.’s (1961) ‘Bobo doll’ experiment is frequently cited as evidence that watching televised violence produces violence in children. One of the many weaknesses of the study was that the children were ‘rated for violence’ by adult assessors, which raises questions about the objectivity of the research.
• Belson (1978) also claimed that prolonged exposure to media violence produces violent behaviour in young males.
• Hagell and Newburn (1994), however, found a general lack of interest in television among young offenders. Rather the causes of their deviance was traced back to troubled personal lives and dysfunctional families.

Question 4

Katz and Lazarfield

Normative model

Answer 4

Suggested a two-step flow model, in which messages flow in two distinct steps:
1. From the media to opinion formers – people who directly receive a message, such as a news report, are interested enough to want to relay it to others and influential enough for them to take note of the message.
2. From opinion formers to people in their social network, those who receive the original message in a mediated form – edited, condensed, embellished – from people such as family and friends (primary groups).

This effects model views the audience as active and influenced by influential opinion leaders, rather than directly by media content.

Katz and Lazarfeld argued that social networks were dominated by opinion leaders, who were influential people within social networks with the power to influence how others around them saw the world.

Opinion Leaders are exposed to media content, and they then share their interpretation of that content with the wider audience. Thus media content goes through two stages, with the wider audience being primarily influenced by the views of the active opinion leaders rather than being influenced directly by media content.

Question 5

Klapper

Uses and Gratification model

Answer 5

Argues that people’s beliefs are related to their social groups (primary groups being the most significant). One important role of a secondary group such as the media was to reinforce, either positively or negatively, the beliefs already formed. This suggests a very limited type of media effect, which can be seen, for example, in people choosing to read newspapers whose political stance they agree with, so that their views match.

Question 6

Festinger

Uses and Gratification Model

Answer 6

Argued that people actively seek out media content which affirms their already existing views of the world.

Question 7

McQuail

Answer 7

Suggested four primary uses and gratifications:
* Entertainment: as a diversion from everyday life, such as for relaxing after a day working.
* Social solidarity: talking about a shared experience, such as seeing the same film or television programme or playing the same online game, serves an integrating function by making people feel they have things in common.
* Identity: to create or maintain a sense of ‘who we are’. It is a resource, from reading lifestyle magazines to maintaining a Facebook presence, used to construct and maintain and project a sense of self.
* Surveillance: providing news and information about an increasingly complex world.

Question 8

Morley

The reception analysis model of audience effects

Answer 8

Reception analysis model states there three main types of ‘reading’ which audiences make of media content:

• The dominant reading: which is the same as the media content creators.
• The oppositional reading: which opposes the views expressed in the media
• The Negotiated reading: where people interpret media content to fit in with their own lives.

The reception analysis model is an ‘active audience’ model associated with Morley (1980) who conducted research on how several different groups of people interpreted media messages.

According to Morley audiences came from many different cultures and thus there were many possible ‘negotiated’ readings. He further argued that individuals had many aspects to their identities, and they interpreted media content in a variety of ways, often chopping and changing their interpretations over time.

Morley thus believed that audiences were active rather than passive and their interpretations were not always easy to predict.

Question 9

Chandler

Answer 9

For Chandler, the media ‘induces a general mindset’ around particular areas of social life, such as crime, taking on a hegemonic role where some beliefs are encouraged and others discouraged.

Question 10

Gerbner et al

Answer 10

Gerbner suggested: ‘The continual repetition of patterns (myths, ideologies, “facts”, relationships, etc.) serve to define the world and legitimize the social order’.

Question 11

Hall

Answer 11

Argued that media texts, such as advertisements,
involve:
* encoding – the ideas the author wants an audience to grasp
* decoding – how an audience interprets or decodes the message, depending on factors such as their social background or the context in which the message is received.

Question 12

Hall

Answer 12

Suggests three main ways a media message is read by
an audience: hegemonic codes, negotiated codes and oppositional codes.
* Hegemonic codes: the audience shares the assumptions and Interpretations of the author and reads the message in the way it is intended.
* Negotiated codes: although an audience broadly shares the author’s views, they modify their interpretation in the light of their own particular knowledge, beliefs or attitudes.
* Oppositional codes: an audience is antagonistic towards the media source or message and therefore rejects or attempts to challenge the message.

Question 13

Gerbner

Answer 13

Argued that the media has grown so powerful and pervasive in global societies that it creates mythical realities for audiences who immerse themselves in media content.

The heavier an individual’s media consumption, from watching television, reading newspapers, surfing the web or social networking, the more likely they are to be drawn into a ‘fantasy world’ of the media’s creation, such as believing that crime and violence are more widespread than they actually are.

This now includes people who are taken in by fake news or conspiracy theories.

Question 14

Rose

Answer 14

Argues that a researcher requires a thorough understanding of their subject matter if they are to identify and understand the symbols, codes and conventions involved. An analysis of the Indian film industry, for example, would be difficult for a researcher with little or no knowledge of this culture and genre.

Question 15

Livingstone and Hargrave

Answer 15

Alternatively, Livingstone and Hargrave (2006) argue that in relation to rap music lyrics, ‘different people do not interpret content in the same way’. For example, there is a difference between the interpretation of ‘fans of a genre vs. those who only occasionally view’ and this, they argue, makes it ‘risky to draw conclusions about
media effects’

Question 16

Livingstone and Hargrave

Answer 16

Livingstone and Hargrave also suggest that the
consumption context affects how it is experienced and therefore its possible effect. This relates to:

• Physical consumption – whether this is shared or consumed alone.
• Mental consumption – how different audiences understand the context of the behaviour portrayed in something like a television programme, for example the extent to which they identify and empathise with those portrayed. In addition, it is difficult to know how research carried out in one society, such as India or the USA, can be applied to different societies that have different: cultures – where there may, for example, be different levels of tolerance to violent and sexually explicit content media regulations governing what can be shown in media such as television media content.

Question 17

Staiger

Answer 17

However, argues that audiences are increasingly perverse spectators – they use media in their own way and for their own means
through activated meanings created by how they interact with media.

This creates, in effect, an uncertainty principle: the meaning of a TV programme, for example, is created by how it is consumed, such that the meaning of a drama or news broadcast changes each time it is viewed by different individuals. It is, therefore, impossible to quantify a media effect in any meaningful or clear way because, Staiger argues, any ‘impact is changed each time it is identified’.

Question 18

Lechner

Answer 18

Argues that this creates media homogenisation by developing a ‘consumerist culture, in which standard commodities are promoted by global marketing campaigns to create similar lifestyles’.

Question 19

Kraeplin

Answer 19

Notes how ‘popular teen magazines link appearance and consumerism’. Here, globalised media contribute to the development of a consumption culture in which the buying of goods and services, from mobile phones to social networks funded by advertising, is an end in itself.

Question 20

Adorno and Horkheimer

Answer 20

These negative impacts are explained by traditional Marxists in terms of manipulation theories. These suggest that the media directly influence audience perceptions and beliefs. In a mass society characterised by social isolation and alienation, the media become a source of mass culture through the agency of what Adorno and Horkheimer termed a ‘culture industry’. Audiences are uniquely receptive to whatever the media transmit because there are few links to alternative sources of information.