Media Effects Flashcards
What is the term for media being interpreted in various ways? (debate about audience passivity)
Polysemic
What is the Hypodermic Syringe Model? (MARXIST)
Sees the media as brainwashing the public w/ ruling class ideology, bias view supporting capitalism. Part of the ISA, false class consciousness, and the audience is a passive, homogenous group unable to reject messages of the media.
What are the strengths of the Hypodermic Syringe Model?
- Bandura’s study of the Bobo doll, and copycat violence like James Bulger/Columbine shootings.
- Moral panics.
What are the weaknesses of the Hypodermic Syringe Model?
- Audiences are highly diverse, different responses.
- Basic, as it sees media influence as being direct and unstoppable.
- Feshbach and Sanger = media as a deterrent.
- Watershed.
What is the Two Step Flow Model? (PLURALISTS)
Lazarsfeld and Katz = responsibility lay in hands of opinion leaders (people who everyone listens to), who are part of an active audience, taking ideas from the media and then influencing more passive audience members with their own interpretations.
Message from producer/editor is intercepted by an opinion leader, acting as a filter as to what message is received. This is then shared to wider audiences.
What are the strengths of the Two Step Flow Model?
Lazarsfeld = based on voting patterns in USA, found this was affected by how your family voted.
- Can be applied to contemporary society: influencers, tweets, review websites etc.
What are the weaknesses of the Two Step Flow Model?
- Someone may have numerous opinion leaders in their lives with conflicting views.
- Assumes that most people are victims of media content.
What is the Uses and Gratifications model? (PLURALISTS/FUNCTIONALISTS)
Blumler and Katz = audiences as even more active than 2-step flow, as they use the media to satisfy their own needs and wants: we control how we use it and how it impacts us.
For personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance (to gain knowledge). This may explain gender divides and generational divides in media usage.
What are the strengths of the Uses and Grats model?
- McQuail et al = suggests that soaps like ‘This morning’ meet the social need for companionship.
- Windhal = media is a ‘functional alternative’ to real interactions.
What are the weaknesses of the Uses and Grats model?
- Media seen as relatively powerless, not completely true.
- Ignore the dysfunctional nature of the media, suggests that it is performing the function of pleasing the public.
- Cannot explain media violence related crimes e.g Natural Born Killers.
What is the Selective Filter Model? (INTERACTIONISTS)
Klapper = people take a selective approach when choosing what they want to watch/read: selective exposure (choice), selective perception (acceptance), selective retention (remembering). Each is a step in the media affecting us.
Suggests we play an active part in what we read/what we let affect us, not a homogenous group.
But sometimes we select messages we don’t agree with, and remember messages we don’t want to.
What is the Cultural Effects theory? (NEO-MARXIST)
The media has a powerful influence on diverse audiences, and people will interpret things in different ways depending on their culture. Philo = some audience members will accept media messages, others will reject.
Philo = dominant ideological messages that can be accepted, but also challenged / resist bias messages. This depends on cultural background.
What is the Drip-Drip Effect?
When continual exposure to particular images/stories gradually shapes people’s ideas about the world e.g if women are portrayed as housewives, this is how we will see women over time.
What are the strengths of the Cultural Effects theory?
- Supported by Hall’s ‘black mugger’ study = reaction based on culture.
- Acknowledges that the effect is not immediate, therefore control is more subtle.
- Appears that we are more accepting of violence being shown on TV e.g previously banned shows like Eaten Alive being available on streaming services.
What are the weaknesses of the Cultural Effects theory?
Marxists = audience is not that active, unable to resist media messages.
Hard to find evidence to support as research would have to be done over time.
What do Feminists say about media effects?
The media is run by men, for men, to enforce a patriarchal society. E.g programmes showing traditional gender roles, reinforces male domination.
Link between pornography and real life sexual violence.
Dworkin = pornography trivialises rape and makes men ‘increasingly callous to cruelty’, as well as less satisfied w/ partners. But research shows the opposite of this, pornography having a positive role in real life behaviour.
What do Postmodernists say about media effects?
What are criticisms of the Postmodernist view of media effects?
