Media Other

Question 1

Hypodermic Needle Theory

Answer 1

• Here, the messages in media texts are injected into the audience by the powerful, syringe-like, media
• The audience is powerless to resist
• Therefore, the media works like a drug and the audience is drugged, addicted, doped or duped.
• The Frankfurt School theorised in the 1920s and 30s that the mass media acted to restrict and control audiences to the benefit of corporate capitalism and governments

Question 2

The Copycat Theory

Answer 2

Key evidence Bobo Doll

• The media produce inactivity, make us into students who won’t pass their exams or ‘couch potatoes’ who make no effort to get a job
• The media produces violent ‘copycat’ behaviour or mindless shopping in response to advertisements
• Children watched a video where an adult violently attacked a clown toy called a Bobo Doll. The children were then taken to a room with attractive toys that they were not permitted to touch. The children were then led to another room with Bobo Dolls. 88% of the children imitated the violent behaviour that they had earlier viewed. 8 months later 40% of the children reproduced the same violent behaviour

Question 3

Uses and Gratifications

Answer 3

• Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs for:
• Surveillance (Information) - to gather information around us
• Escapism/pleasure - consuming a media text so we can escape our own lives.
• Personal identity - you identify with characters or actions or situations
• Personal relationships - are there any programmes you watch because your friends do or because you feel lonely

Question 4

Goodwin

Music Video Theory

Answer 4

1 - Relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
2 - Relationship between the music and the visuals.
3 - Music videos have genre characteristics
4 - Often due to the demands of the record label, artists videos will include many close ups of the artist and will often develop motifs that recur across multiple videos
5 - Emphasis on ‘looking
6 - Intertextual references

Question 5

Laura Mulvey

Male Gaze

Answer 5

Traditional films present men as active; controlling subjects and treat women as passive objects of desire (Men do the looking; women are there to be looked at).

Women are placed in the male gaze

• Voyeurism - the practice of gaining sexual pleasure from watching others when they are naked or engaged in sexual activity.
• Narcissism - excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one’s physical appearance.
• Scopophilia - The pleasure in looking at other people’s bodies as (particularly, erotic) objects. -
• This idea features in a lot of Hitchcock films, looking at women as objects rather than people.