Media - Relationship with audience

Question 1

Reception Theory

Answer 1

Emphasizes the role of audience interpretation in understanding media messages.

Question 2

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Answer 2

Audiences actively seek media to fulfill specific needs (e.g., entertainment, information).

Question 3

Hypodermic Needle Model

Answer 3

Suggests media has a direct and immediate influence on audiences, often seen in propaganda.

Question 4

Media content is shaped by - factors

Answer 4

cultural, political, and economic factors.

Question 5

Media content is shaped by - Presentation styles

Answer 5

(e.g., sensationalism, objectivity) influence how audiences perceive and interpret information.

Question 6

Media content is shaped by - choice

Answer 6

The choice of language, visuals, and framing can evoke specific emotions or reactions

Question 7

Audiences are

Answer 7

not passive; they actively interpret and respond to media content.

Question 8

Factors which affect how media messages are received

Answer 8

age, gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic background

Question 9

Audiences may…

Answer 9

accept, reject, or reinterpret media messages based on their own experiences and beliefs.

Question 10

Impact on Society

Answer 10

Media shapes public opinion, cultural norms, and societal values.

It can reinforce stereotypes or challenge them, depending on the content and presentation.

Media also plays a role in agenda-setting, highlighting certain issues while ignoring others.

Question 11

PROBLEMS RESEARCHING THE MEDIA - social factors

Answer 11

Other social factors are involved in effects, and difficult to distinguish which is the cause

Question 12

PROBLEMS RESEARCHING THE MEDIA - separate

Answer 12

It is impossible to separate multiple effects of the media, e.g. stereotypes, violence, consumerism.

Question 13

PROBLEMS RESEARCHING THE MEDIA - responsible

Answer 13

It is hard to identify a particular part of the media responsible as people use many types

Question 14

PROBLEMS RESEARCHING THE MEDIA - control group

Answer 14

Impossible to have ‘control group’ without media

Question 15

PROBLEMS RESEARCHING THE MEDIA - identify

Answer 15

It is hard to identify a particular part of the media responsible, as people use many types

Question 16

THE HYPODERMIC SYRINGE MODEL ( ! )

Answer 16

PASSIVE AUDIENCES

Question 17

The hypodermic syringe model (context)

Answer 17

• earliest model of media effects
• popular with many people who fear the moral effects of the media

Question 18

The hypodermic syringe model (what)

Answer 18

media like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience, who are a powerless mass with little choice but to be influenced

Question 19

The hypodermic syringe model (hypothetical examples)

Answer 19

if you watch something violent, you may go and do something violent.

Question 20

The hypodermic syringe model (actual examples)

Answer 20

films such as The Exorcist and A Clockwork Orange which have been banned, partly because of a belief that they might
encourage people to copy the situations within them

Question 21

The hypodermic syringe model - real life example

Answer 21

1993 Toddler James Bulger
- was abducted from a shopping centre in
Liverpool, tortured and murdered by 2-10-year old boys.
- According to the press, they mimicked scenes from the film Child’s Play 3
- The SunNewspaper attempted to get other violent films banned.
- After this time such films were referred to as “Video nasties”.

Question 22

The hypodermic syringe model - criticisms

Answer 22

● Assumes the audience is homogenous, reacting the same way to all media.
● Assumes the audience is gullible and easily manipulated
● Assumes the media and its owners have enormous power
● Little evidence to support it

Question 23

ACTIVE AUDIENCES

Answer 23

THE TWO STEP FLOW MODEL

Question 24

The 2 step flow model - what

Answer 24

• whatever our experience of the media, we will be likely to discuss it with others.
  -If we respect their opinion, the chances are that we will be more likely to be affected by

Question 25

The 2 step flow model - calls people...

Answer 25

opinion leaders

Question 26

do you think a friend's ideas about a media text could ever affect your behaviour in any way? This is what some people have suggested happened in the Jamie Bulger case

Answer 26

one of the two children talked about a film he had seen and influenced the other's behaviour.

Question 27

The 2 step flow model - problem

Answer 27

● Opinion leaders are not one simple group, and may have different opinions (e.g. teachers, parents and bosses). (Therefore there could be many steps) ● It still considers the audience as passive to an extent ● New media has disrupted the idea of ‘opinion leaders’ creating more of them and/or alternatives to them

Question 28

THE CULTURAL EFFECTS MODEL (DRIP DRIP EFFECT) , sees audience as

Answer 28

passive (in a way but not like the hypodermic syringe)

Question 29

Drip drip effect: effect of the media is less...

Answer 29

immediate than suggested by the hypodermic syringe model

Question 30

Drip drip effect: what type of model

Answer 30

Marxist model which suggests that the media is a very powerful tool in transmitting capitalist ideas, norms and values

Question 31

Drip drip effect: suggests media content contains...

Answer 31

strong IDEOLOGICAL messages that reflect the values of those who own, control and produce the media.

Question 32

Drip drip effect: Marxists would argue that audiences have been

Answer 32

exposed over a long period of time to a slow ‘drip drip’ effect process

Question 33

drip drip process

Answer 33

* Media content gradually gains ideological values which are transmitted over a long period of time. * Eventually, most people come to accept the preferred reading of such events in the mass media.

Question 34

drip drip model : Morley

Answer 34

explains that prefered reading is the most common of the three reading types

Question 35

drip drip model : Morley , 3 reading types

Answer 35

Preferred reading - Reading and interpreting a story in the way that it was intending to be interpreted as. Negotiated reading - Reading and interpreting a story generally in the intended way, but making some amendments. Oppositional reading - Rejecting the story and seeing through the dominant ideology.

Question 36

other name for drip drip effect

Answer 36

cultural effects model

Question 37

drip drip effect: Those producing the media

Answer 37

promote a particular interpretation of events - the preferred reading

Question 38

drip drip effect: Those lacking direct experience...

Answer 38

of the events covered in the media are likely to accept this preferred reading

Question 39

drip drip effect: Those with direct experience of events being covered are...

Answer 39

more likely to reject the preferred reading

Question 40

drip drip effect: Repetition of the preferred reading over a period of time means that

Answer 40

most people accept it and it becomes part of our culture.

Question 41

drip drip effect/cultural effects model: GMG produced extensive evidence to show...

Answer 41

limited ability to ever reject media. For example, during the minor’s strike in the 1980s, all viewers, even those sympathetic with the minors’ cause, believed they were responsible for the trouble.

Question 42

criticisms of cultural effects model / drip drip method

Answer 42

assumes that all journalists and media owners have and use the dominant ideology - when some do not (especially in the age of new media).

Question 43

Uses and Gratification model, audience

Answer 43

model with the most active audience, and the weakest effects of the media

Question 44

Uses and Gratification model suggest that

Answer 44

we use the media in any way that we want, when we want, for specific purposes

Question 45

Uses & Gratification model: McQuail (1972) and Lull (1990, 1995) identified five main uses:

Answer 45

- Diversion (leisure, relaxation & escape) - Personal relationships (either with people in the media, or through the media) - Personal identity (e.g. music choice) - Surveillance (e.g. the news) - Background wallpaper (using media whilst doing other things)

Question 46

what approach is the uses and gratification model

Answer 46

can be seen as pluralist

Question 47

uses and gratification model - audience & ideology

Answer 47

Believe the audience is active - and if a media outlet constantly spouted ideology that the audience didn’t believe or agree with, they would have no audience, therefore would not make money, and therefore would go out of business

Question 48

uses and gratification model - criticisms

Answer 48

● Overestimates the ability of the audience to be critical & active ● Underestimates the power of media and its owners. ● You could argue that although it appears as though the consumer chooses how they use the media, you could say it's the media who ultimately provide all of those choices.

Question 49

Violence & the media - research conclusions (main points)

Answer 49

● Copycatting ● Catharsis ● Desensitisation ● Sensitisation

Question 50

Violence & the media - research conclusions Copycatting linked to...

Answer 50

the hypodermic syringe model.

Question 51

Violence & the media - research conclusions Catharsis :

Answer 51

People are less violent as they live out their violent tendencies through the media rather than in real life

Question 52

Violence & the media - research conclusions Desensitisation :

Answer 52

- Exposure to violence in the media normalises it. - Linked to the drip drip effect.

Question 53

Violence & the media - research conclusions Sensitisation :

Answer 53

Exposure to violence in the media exposes people to its consequences, and therefore makes them less tolerant of it.

Question 54

Problems researching media violence

Answer 54

● The term ‘media violence’ is far too broad (Real life or not? Boxing or shootings?) ● Does not always consider how people interpret what they consume ● Impossible to avoid the Hawthorne effect ● Laboratory experiments only show short time periods ● Usually involve small samples ● Impossible to separate from other possible causes ● No control group without media exposure

Question 55

Violence in the media is now a major part of...

Answer 55

popular culture - for example in computer games, in tv programmes and movies, and on websites, more people are exposed to violent media imagery than ever before. - Some have concluded that such media violence is responsible for more real-life violence in society, though the reliability of the evidence on which this conclusion is based on is widely disputed by many sociologists.