Passive Audience Models Flashcards
What negative effect does on-screen violence have on young audiences?
It exerts an overwhelmingly negative effect on impressionable young audiences.
This belief has led to increased state control over and censorship of the media in Britain.
Who sees a cause-effect relationship between screen violence and real-life violence?
Gerbner (2002).
Some feminists sociologists (Dworkin and Morgan) also suggest a strong relationship between pornography consumption and sexual crime.
What do Orbach and Wolf argue about media representation?
They argue that there’s a causal link between the representation of size zero models in magazines and eating disorders.
How can media coverage of political issues influence behavior?
It can influence voting behavior, as claimed by Norris.
What do neomarxists argue about media transmission?
Media transmit a mass culture through ideologically conditioning making audience vulnerable to ruling class propaganda
Particularly the Frankfurt school like Marcuse
What does the Hypodermic Syringe Model believe?
It believes there is a direct correlation between media violence and antisocial behavior.
This model suggests that children and teenagers are particularly vulnerable to media content.
Which theorists are associated with the Hypodermic Syringe Model?
Adorno and Horkheimer.
They noted similarities between the propaganda industry in Nazi Germany and the culture industry in the US.
What is the ultimate function of the culture industry according to Adorno and Horkheimer?
To manipulate audiences into becoming good consumers and maintaining capitalism.
Consumption of simple content creates passivity and false psychological needs that can only be satisfied by capitalism
What is the hypodermic syringe model?
Person controlling the needle is the media generators
- message is the liquid inside
- person on the recieving end is the passive unaware patient (audience)
What does the Hypodermic Syringe Model imply about the audience?
Its a homogeneous mass (all the same) thats passive and uncritical of media content.
Makes possible for content creators to use media production to manipulate vulnerable audiences into thinking/acting certain ways
What is an example of media causing panic among audiences?
The original radio adaptation of ‘War of the Worlds’.
Some listeners believed they were hearing a news report and fled.
What kind of advertising was used in campaigns behind Trump and Brexit?
Sophisticated targeted advertising to influence voters.
What are methodological critiques of the hypodermic syringe model?
- Artificial behaviour in lab conditions (invalid - Gauntlett)
- **Cumberbach **looked at 3500 studies into the effects of diff types of media and found no conclusive evidence that violence shown affects peoples behaviour
What is a ‘drip drip effect’ of desensitization?
Prolonged exposure to media violence may desensitize young people to violence.
Means that violence is seen as a normal problem solving device leading to weaker moral codes and anti social behaviour
What is evidence for the drip drip effect of desensitisation?
Violent age ratings have decreased
Fast and furious has been downgraded to a 12A from 15 for ‘infrequent strong language, moderate violence and sex references’
What led to increased censorship in the film industry in 1985?
Newson’s report led to the passing of the Video Recordings (Labelling) Act 1985.
Who critiques the hypodermic syringe model and the drip drip effect of desensitisation?
Fesbach and Sanger
Young
What is ‘catharsis’ in the context of media violence?
The idea that watching screen violence provides a safe outlet for aggressive tendencies.
Found by Fesbach and Sanger
What does Young argue about the depiction of violence?
Sensitisation to crime and the effects of violence may make people responsible, more aware and less inclined to commit violent acts
What is Bandura’s bobo doll experiment?
Exposed children to adults behaving aggressively towards bobo dolls and observing their behaviour
Also consisted of a control group that was exposed to a non aggressive adult playing with a bobo doll
What were the findings of Bandura’s Bobo Dolls experiment?
Children exposed to aggressive behavior were more likely to behave aggressively themselves.
What did Bandura et al’s experiment demonstrate?
Violent media content could lead to imitation or copycat violence.
Who further supported copy cat violence and imitation?
McCabe and Martin
Media violence has a dis-inhibition effect: convinces children that in some social situations, ‘normal’ rules that govern conflict and difference can be replaced by violence
What is a limitation of Bandura’s study?
It has very low ecological validity due to its artificial nature.
The aggressive behavior shown was not reflective of real-life situations making it hard to generalise to wider social life
What ethical issues are associated with Bandura’s Bobo Dolls experiment?
Exposing children to aggressive behavior and frustrating them may have long-term effects on their well-being.
