Media Effects Theory💡

Question 1

Who created the Media Effects Theory?

Answer 1

Albert Bandura, a Canadian researcher and psychologist.

Question 2

What did Bandura believe?

Answer 2

Bandura believed that media messages were implanted into the audience’s mind, and they are passive to media messages, resulting in copycat behaviour.
He also believed using violent media products makes us as people violent.

Question 3

What experiment did Albert Bandura conduct?

Answer 3

The Bobo Doll Experiment.

Question 4

What was the Bobo Doll experiment?

Answer 4

Dozens of 3-6-year-olds taken into a room, and shown a video of an aggressive adult violently attacking a Bobo doll. Then, taken into a room and given a Bobo doll. They all replicated the same behaviour as the adults (hostile language, violent attacking). A bunch of other children just given the Bobo doll without being shown the video, and they played with it peacefully.

Question 5

What are the issues with this experiment? (6)

Answer 5

1. Children want to please the adults observing them, so will go accordingly.
2. They are in strange surroundings, so will not act how they would normally.
3. Dolls aren’t people - does being violent to a doll mean you would be violent to a real person?
4. Controversial with its credibility as they are young kids.
5. Most of the kids would have never seen a Bobo Doll before, so the video they saw of the adults attacking it, they would have taken that as an instruction on how to play with it.
6. Many other factors like upbring, age, peer and parental influences.