Passive audience reception Flashcards
Does on-screen violence lead to real-life violence? - Sociologists who say it has a direct impact…
Gerbner (2002) sees a cause-effect relationship between screen violence and real-life violence.
Some feminist sociologists, e.g. Dworkin (1988) and Morgan (1980) have suggested that there is a strong relationship between the consumption of pornography and sexual crime.
Orbach (1991) and Wolf (1990) argue that there is a causal link between representation of (US) size zero models in magazines and eating disorders.
Norris (1996), claims that media coverage of political issues can influence voting behaviour.
Some Neo-Marxist commentators, particularly those belonging to the Frankfurt School, such as Marcuse (1964), believed that the media transmitted a mass culture which was directly injected into the hearts and minds of the population making them more vulnerable to ruling class propaganda.
Hypodermic syringe model…
The Hypodermic syringe model - The hypodermic syringe approach to media effects believes that a direct correlation exists between the violence and anti-social behaviour portrayed in films, on television, in computer games, in rap lyrics, etc. and violence and antisocial behaviour such as drug use and teenage gun/knife crime found in real life. The model suggests that children and teenagers are vulnerable to media content because they are still in the early stages of socialisation and therefore very impressionable.
Believers in this hypodermic syringe model (also known as the ‘magic bullet’ theory) point to a number of films which they claim have resulted in young people using extreme violence.
Manipulation…
The hypodermic syringe model sees the audience as a ‘homogeneous mass’ (all the same), as passive and believing what they see in the media without questioning the content.
It is thus possible for content creators to use their media productions to manipulate vulnerable audiences into thinking or acting in certain ways.
Link to Adorno and Horkheimer…
This theory of media effects is associated with neo-Marxists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer in the 1940s, who had managed to escape Nazi Germany and resettled in America.
They noted that there were similarities between the ‘propaganda industry’ in Nazi Germany’ and what they called the ‘Culture Industry’ in the United States.
The cultural industry…
Adorno and Horkheimer theorised that popular culture in the USA was like a factory producing standardised content which was used to manipulate a passive mass audience.
They argued that consumption of the ‘dumbed down’ content of popular culture made people passive and false psychological needs that could only be met and satisfied by the products of capitalism.
The ultimate function of the culture industry was thus to manipulate audiences into becoming good consumers and keeping capitalism going.
The war of the worlds…
We have spoken of this before, for those who can’t remember, war of the Worlds is a fictional story about Alien invaders coming from Mars and killing very large numbers of people in the process. The original radio adaptation was done in the style of a news report, and some of the listeners who tuned in after the show had begun (and so missed the introduction to it) actually believed they were hearing a news report, packed their cars and fled to the country.
To those who can remember last time I said this was massively over exaggerated and this is true Cantril did an analysis of the and of the 6 million views approximately 1.2 million were disturbed and frightened. This is still a large number.
Recent examples…
The campaigns behind both Trump and Brexit used sophisticated targeted advertising to nudge voters into voting for Trump and Brexit.
Showing the media can have a very direct and immediate effect on specific populations (even if such campaigns didn’t treat the audience as a ‘mass’ and so this is only partial support the Hypodermic Syringe Model).
Critiques of the hypodermic syringe model…
A number of critiques have developed the imitation-desensitisation model of media effects, e.g. some media sociologists claim that media violence can actually prevent real-life violence.
Fesbach and Sanger (1971) found that screen violence can actually provide a safe outlet for people’s aggressive tendencies. This is known as catharsis. They suggest that watching an exciting film releases aggressive energy into safe outlets as the viewers immerse themselves in the action.
Young (1981), argues that seeing the effects of violence and especially the pain and suffering that it causes to the victim and their families, may make us more aware of its consequences and so less inclined to commit violent acts. Sensitisation to certain crimes therefore may make people more aware and responsible so that they avoid getting involved in violence.
Methodological critique…
Gauntlett (2008) argues that people, especially children, do not behave as naturally under laboratory conditions as they would in their everyday environment, e.g. children’s media habits are generally influenced and controlled by parents, especially when they are very young.
The media effects model fails to be precise in how ‘violence’ should be defined. There are different types of media violence such as in cartoons, images of war and death on news bulletins and sporting violence. It is unclear whether these different types of violence have the same or different effects upon their audiences or whether different audiences react differently to different types and levels of violence.
The effects model has been criticised because it tends to be selective in its approach to media violence, i.e. it only really focuses on particular types of fictional violence.
The effects model also fails to put violence into context, e.g. it views all violence as wrong, however trivial, and fails to see that audiences interpret it according to narrative context. Research by Morrison suggests that the context in which screen violence occurs affects its impact on the audience.
Methodological critique continued…
Some sociologists believe that children are not as vulnerable as the hypodermic syringe model implies, e.g. research indicates that most children can distinguish between fictional/cartoon violence and real violence from a very early age, and generally know that it should not be imitated.
Sociologists are generally very critical of the hypodermic syringe model because it fails to recognise that audiences have very different social characteristics in terms of age, maturity, social class, education, family background, parental controls, etc. These characteristics will influence how people respond to and use media content.
Cumberbatch (2004) looked at over 3500 research studies into the effects of screen violence, encompassing film, television, video and more recently, computer and video games. He concluded that there is still no conclusive evidence that violence shown in the media influences or changes people’s behaviour.
Desensitisation…
Newson argued that sadistic images in films were too easily available and that films encouraged viewers to identify with violent perpetrators rather than victims.
He noted that children and teenagers are subjected to thousands of killings and acts of violence as they grow up through viewing television and films.
Drip drip effect of desensitisation…
Newson suggested that such prolonged exposure to media violence may have a drip-drip effect on young people over the course of their childhood and result in their becoming desensitised to violence.
Newson argues that they see violence as a normal problem-solving device and concluded that, because of this, the latest generation of young people subscribe to weaker moral codes and are more likely to behave in anti-social ways than previous generations.
Evidence for the drip drip effect…
Age ratings in films adapt to societal standards for instance films such that had age ratings for discrimination have increased the age ratings for instance Flash Gordon.
However, films like Karate Kid see its rating going from 15 to 12A.
The Fast And The Furious, the first film in the franchise of the same name, has also been downgraded to a 12A from a 15, for “infrequent strong language, moderate violence and sex references”.
The key difference here is violent age rating have decreased potentially showing age ratings for violence decreasing meaning a desensitisation has occurred.
Critiques…
Some media sociologists claim that media violence can actually prevent real-life violence.
Fesbach and Sanger (1971) found that screen violence can actually provide a safe outlet for people’s aggressive tendencies. This is known as catharsis. They suggest that watching an exciting film releases aggressive energy into safe outlets as the viewers immerse themselves in the action.
Young (1981), argues that seeing the effects of violence and especially the pain and suffering that it causes to the victim and their families, may make us more aware of its consequences and so less inclined to commit violent acts. Sensitisation to certain crimes therefore may make people more aware and responsible so that they avoid getting involved in violence.
Censorship…
Newson’s report led directly to increased censorship of the film industry with the passing of the Video Recordings (Labelling) Act 1985, which resulted in videos and DVDs being given British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) age certificates.
The BBFC also came under increasing pressure to censor films released to British cinemas by insisting on the film makers making cuts relating to bad language, scenes of drug use and violence.
Television was also affected by this climate of censorship.
All the television channels agreed on a nine o’clock watershed, i.e. not to show any programmes that used bad language or contained scenes of a sexual or violent nature before this time. Television channels often resorted to issuing warnings before films and even edited out violence themselves or beeped over bad language.
