Media - Audience Participation Flashcards
What are the different audience models?
1) Passive (greatly influenced because they are passive) - The audience are sponges and simply absorb media messages; personal bias in the content we see creates echo chambers, and the new media has enabled us to only be aware of our worldview
- Hypodermic syringe model (HSM) - the media is constantly inputting ideas and information and perspectives into your ideologies and you become passive because you simply follow their narratives
2) In between - two-step flow model; one step is you begin being passive, and you turn out to be active
3) Active (audience influence depends) - we choose what media we interact with because we have agency and choice, and we act on our own accord and choices
- Uses and gratification model
- Selective filter
- Reception Analysis Model
- Postmodernist model
Features of the hypodermic syringe model
1) Copycat violence - this is when individuals who observe violence will repeat it due to the behaviour being rewarded
2) Disinhibition effect - refers to a lack of restraint caused by the lifting or suspension of normal rules that govern everyday behaviour, such as road rage
3) Desensitisation - Newson; violent imagery in films is too easily available and exposure to screen violence encouraged young viewers to identify with violent perpetrators rather than victims, and the subjection of the youth to violence in the media has a ‘drip-drip’ effect on young people over the course of their childhood and result in their becoming desensitised to violence and are socialised into believing it as normal and a problem solving device
- Husemann - those who are exposed to violence in early life will be more violent in their later life
3) Censorship - Newsom - report led to direct censorship of the film industry, with introduction of age certificates and insist film makers make cuts relating to bad language, scenes of drug use and violence - voluntary censorship of the 9:00pm watershed for programmes featuring violence, bad language or sex
Functionalism - mass media have a hypodermic effect in being responsible as an agent of socialisation for boundary maintenance as mass media representations of crime reinforce social expectations about normal and abnormal behaviour
Criticisms of the hypodermic syringe model
- Catharsis - prevention of real life violence - Fesbach and Sanger (1971) found that screen violence can actually provide a safe outlet for people being aggressive (catharsis) - study looking at boys who either watched aggressive TV or non-aggressive TV and found that the aggressive group were actually less aggressive in reality, and so it is suggested it has a cathartic effect
- Sensitisation - similarly, some sociologists argues that seeing the effects of violence and especially the pain and suffering that it causes to the victim and their families - may make viewers more sensitive of the consequences of violence and so are less likely to commit it - Ramos; participants are more empathetic towards victim suffering when watching real violence
- Empathy - refers to the ability to identify with and understand another person’s situation from their perspective
Methodological perspective -
- Gauntlett - artificial contexts lack ecological validity, laboratory context and demand characteristics
- Do not define violence as one operationalised variable
- Does not put violence into context - people shown movies that have realistic violence care more than movies which have comedic violence
- Tackles social problems of violence backwards - Belson; because they reacted positively to violence, the media violence must have caused the initial violence - however, Gauntlett explains they may just be viewing preferences because they are inherently violent
- Children as sophisticated media users - ability to distinguish cartoon and real violence, and sending inappropriate images is a pastime of most British teenagers
- Scapegoating the media - Columbine shooting - media was blamed, as it was with Jamie Bulger but it does not take into account other factors; youth violence has also fallen in the last two decades
Sociologists - how the audience is affected by media
1) Orbach and Wolf - Media representations of femininity may be producing a generation of females that who suffer from eating disorders
2) Dines - Men’s consumption of pornography may be harmful in terms of encouraging negative attitudes towards women
3) Marcuse - The media transmits a ‘mass culture’ which is directly injected into the hearts and minds of the population making them more vulnerable to ruling class propaganda
4) Norris - Media coverage on political behaviour can influence voting behaviour
5) Bandura - Looked for a direct cause-and-effect relationship between media and violence. They studied children in a laboratory and how they interacted with a ‘bobo doll’. They concluded that violent media content causes copycat violence
6) McCabe and Martin - Screen violence causes ‘disinhibition’.
7) Newson - Children and teenages are subject to 1000’s of images meaning they are desensitised into accepting violent behaviour.
Methodological issues of studying media effects
- Attributing any effect to the media can be difficult. Other agents/ factors influence our interpretation of the media and therefore its effect can not be measured.
- The polysemic interpretations mean that it is difficult to pinpoint which influence was media and which was from elsewhere.
- Can’t determine which media produce causes the effect on the audience in a media saturated environment.
- Impossible to establish what people’s belief, values and behaviour might have been without any media influence. They may have already had these ideas.
- In a media saturated society meaning it is impossible to compare different effects between those that have been exposed and those that haven’t
Active audience models
- They are critical of the HSM because it assumes audiences are homogenous e.g. share similar characteristics but in reality audiences share very different social features and this influences how they interact with the media and interpret it
- Audiences interpret and actively choose how they respond
The two-step flow model - a bridge between active and passive
Psychological -
- Katz and Lazarsfeld suggest personal relationships and social networks are dominated by ‘opinion leaders’ - people with influence because they are looked up to and listened too, and they usually have strong ideas about many matters, which they gain from exposure to a range of media content
Two steps and stages of media content before it has an effect:
1) The opinion leader is exposed to media content
2) The opinion leader disseminates their interpretation of that content and those who respect the leader are influenced by their opinion
- The media therefore is not directly influencing the audience, and by choosing their opinion leader the audience becomes active
Evaluation of the two-step flow model
+ More voluntarism to audience ideals
- Opinion leader may have been subjected to an imitative or desensitising effect, such as a street gang leader convincing others violence is acceptable because they have been exposed to screen violence that promotes it as a problem-solving strategy
- People who are more at risk of being influenced by the media may be socially isolated and not be on any social networks, preventing an opinion leader being identified who could healthily interpret the media for them
The uses and gratifications model - Active (pluralism)
Blumler and McQuail and Lull:
- People use the media to satisfy the needs they have, either biological, psychological or social and these needs are relative
- The way the audience uses the media to gratify its needs will depend on social influences of gender etc
4 basic needs TV used to satisfy
1) Diversion - Watson; use the media to escape routines and ease worries - immersion in media makes up for a lack of satisfaction in their daily lives
2) Personal relationships - Watson; we know more about characters in TV than we do our own neighbours and so the media compensates for decline of community in our lives
3) Personal identity - people use media to modify their identities and people are allowed to use the media to present their identities in a way they can control
4) Surveillance - people use the media to obtain information and news about the social world in order to help them make up their minds on particular issues - gratification of this need has taken on an interactive quality with the growing popularity of Twitter etc has led to a rise in user-based content
- This gratification makes the audience an active user - they manipulate the media for their own needs
Evidence -
1) Books such as Fifty Shades of Grey compensate for a lack of romance and excitement in personal relationships (same as watching sexually explicit media)- disabled people use online virtual reality sites as avatars can do what they cannot
2) Socially isolated elderly people see soap opera characters as companions they can identify with and worry about in absence of interaction with family members
3) LGBTQ+ youth may use LGBTQ+ characters to help them make decisions about their sexuality
Evaluation of the uses and gratification model
- Methodology of the approach has little research on how audiences interpret and gratify themselves using media - depends too much on audience motivation
- Fails to appreciate different social groups interpret the same media differently, and so are gratified different ways
- Marxism - exaggerates audience’s freedom to interpret what they choose - GUMG suggest the agenda set by the media makes it difficult to interpret media outside of its ideological constraints - Royal Family is always positively presented
- Postmodernism - each individual has specific needs and the function of a media-rich postmodern society is to provide plurality of media choices in order to meet individual tastes of gratification
Selective filter theory - Active (pluralism)
Klapper - for a media message to have an effect, it must pass these filters:
1) Selective exposure - audience has to choose to read or listen to specific media content (no effect if they are not seen or heard) but what they choose depends on their interests and social characteristics
2) Selective perception - the audience may view media content but can reject it because it does not fit their perception of the social world
3) Selective retention - media content has to stick in the mind to have an effect - people only really remembers what they broadly agree with
Klapper argues these 3 filters involve active choice on the audience’s behalf, and it challenges the idea of a homogenous audience suggested by the HSM.
Examples:
- Stage 1 - most horror films are aimed at a young teenage audience, and the film certificate denies entry to some films
- Stage 2 - heavy smoker may ignore the content of a TV programme that discusses smoking and its links to lung cancer
- Stage 2 - Festinger - people seek out media that confirms their world view
- Stage 3 - Berry’s research into knowledgeable, well-motivated grammar school sixth formers found they retained only 60% of news stories they were tested on just minutes after viewing them
- Stage 3 - Postman argued we live in a ‘three minute culture’; attention span of three minutes on media content
Evaluation of the selective filter model
+ Solves HSM criticisms
- People may choose to consume media outside their interests for other motivations e.g. education
Cultural effects model - Active (Neo-Marxism)
Cultural effects model -
- Media is mainly concerned with having a powerful ideological influence and transmitting capitalist values and norms - some Marxists suggest this is due to the influence of owners, others suggest it is due to capitalist market conditions with the GUMG suggesting it is a by-product of social backgrounds of journalists
- Media audience is made up of a variety of people and social characteristics who have different experiences - interpretations therefore differ
- Media content contains strong ideological messages that reflects the values of owners and producers expect audiences (who lack direct experience of an issue) to interpret media content in a particular way or agree with their own preferred reading
- Media coverage of an issue results in most people coming to believe media perspectives on a particular issue is correct and reflect a consensus that does not challenge the ruling class
- Drip-drip effect - media content imbued with ideological values - TV in particular being dumbed down and consequently audiences lack critical thinking about the state of the world and reinforces false class consciousness’ about wealth being deserved and happiness being found in money - in the long term we all share the the values of the rich unconsciously
- Media content helps to manage and benefit from capitalist society to obtain the active consent of the majority - audiences interpret different ways in confined limits
Evidence for the cultural effects model
Media coverage of the working class gives the impression these conditions are the result of choice and claim benefits for this group is not justified - welfare ‘scroungers’
Iyengar and Simon - found a framing effect in a study of news coverage of the Gulf War; respondents who relied on TV news, emphasising the view of journalists in with US troops, expressed greater support for the military rather than diplomatic solutions
Andsager - analysed the attempts of interest groups to influence the abortion debate, and found pro-life groups were more successful in getting their views into the mainstream as this is what the journalists believed also (as males)
Curran - frequent reading of particular newspapers means the immersion of the reader into a particular ideological way of seeing and interpreting the world
- This view of the world may affect some readers in that they may interpret such ideology as common sense or as a product of their own choices - cultural effects theory argues that most types of media probably have these ideological effects in the long term
Evaluation of the cultural effects model
- Cultural effects are difficult to operationalise and measure
- Pluralists question that these cultural effects benefit the capitalist elite because the professionalism and objectivity of journalists ensures media output benefits the audience (market model) - views are shown because the audience have them, not because the audience need to be taught them
- Diversity of media content also means that the idea of a homogenous worldview underpinned by capitalist ideology is simply untrue
