Relationship between Media and Audience Flashcards
What does polysemic content mean?
- Media content is polysemic meaning different individuals interpret it differently meaning they can reject or forget messages
- This can be influenced by a multitude of factors
What is a passive audience?
- The audience are ‘Cultural Dopes’ who mindlessly consume and accept media messages
What is an active audience?
- Media audiences actively interpret or criticise messages and give them different meanings rather than simply ignoring them altogether
What does the Hypodermic Syringe model suggest?
- Passive audience
- We are a passive audience injected with messages that the media presents us with. We do not interpret, criticise or question anything
- Therefore, we are hugely influenced by what we see and read
- They suggest that there is a direct correlation between media violence and violence in the real world. They argue children are more effected by what they see as they are forming their values
What are examples of the Hypodermic Syringe Model?
- Jamie Bulger = Two children brutally murdered a boy, the media argued it was because they had recently watched Child’s Play 3 which supports this model as they were supposedly influenced by this violence
- Bandura’s Bobo Doll Study = Demonstrated that children imitate what they see adults doing on TV
What are the positive effects of violence in media?
- Cathartic = Fesbarch and Sangar argue that violence in media can have a cathartic effect because people can vent their frustration without the real life aggression
- Sensitisation = Ramos et al argues that seeing violence in media can make people more empathetic and sensitive when seeing real life violence
What are the negative effects of violence in media?
- Copycatting/Imitation = The audience will copy violence that they see as role models
- Desensitisation = People will become less sensitive to more severe violence due to the normality of seeing it on the media
- Disinhibition = McCabe and Martin found that children may believe that the normal rules of society do not apply in certain situations
Are the media scapegoated?
- The media is blamed for causing violence when it could be multiple other factors
What is an evaluation of the hypodermic syringe model?
- It is hard to establish whether media violence causes real life violence as there are multiple other factors that leads to individuals committing violent acts
- Cumberbatch found after looking at studies that there is no direct evidence to show media violence causes individuals to become more violent
What is the two step flow model?
- Active audience
- Katz and Lazarfeld suggests that the media messages are indirectly passed on through an opinion leader who are the middle person who interprets the messages and pass on this information which forms our opinion
- The audience is not directly affected by the messages so therefore we are not completely active
What is an evaluation of the two step flow model?
- It recognises people watch the media as a part of social network
- It understands the role of parents as the opinion leaders and forming our opinions
- Does not apply to people who are socially isolated yet are the most influenced by the media content
- It still goes through the hypodermic syringe model through the opinion leaders
What is the selective filter model?
- Active audience
- Klapper suggests that media messages pass through three filters before it can effect us
1. Selective Exposure = Audiences choose whether or not to consume media, if we do not consume, we cannot be affected
2. Selective Perception = May choose to reject the media we see, we do not instantly accept the media
3. Selective Retention = Audiences may not find messages memorable and therefore forget them. We remember media we agree with
What is an evaluation of the selective filter model?
- Marketing and advertising is able to get past these filters. There is techniques and skills to get past these
- Everybody attempts to produce memorable media meaning we do not forget it however we are in a media saturated society
What is the ‘Uses and Gratification’ model?
- Active audience
- McQuail and Lull suggest we use media to satisfy our desires and interests in different ways
1. Diversion = Divert from the real world problems
2. Personal Relationships = Able to share and maintain personal relationships
3. Personal Identity = Creates our identity through the things we watch
4. Surveillance = Able to watch what others like such as internet history and reposts
5. Background Wallpaper = Not paying attention as its on in the background
What is an evaluation of the use and gratification model?
- Different age groups use media differently
- Marxists believe it exaggerates our freedom to interpret media as the agenda has been set to benefit the ruling class ideology
- Post Modernists argue each individual has specific needs and must provide plurality of media choices
What is the cultural effects model?
- Active audience
- Neo-Marxist approach suggesting that audience are gradually influenced by the media over time through a drip drip effect. These messages gradually shape people’s ideas to match the dominant ideology
- It is a gradual exposure which tells us to align with their view
- The messages reflect the ideology of the owners, any opposing views are kept out of mainstream media
- They are able to criticise people who have been demonised or are lazy
What is an evaluation of the cultural effects model?
- It is hard to measure the effect
- It won’t have the same effect on different people
What is the postmodernist model?
- Media is an integral part of postmodern society as individuals use this to construct their identity and there is unpredictability about how they do this
- There is no dominant message but diverse ways of reading media content
- There is no deeper reality under media representations, it is meaningless to assume that media representations and audience are different as they are not
What is the methodological problems?
- It is hard to establish a cause and effect as it is hard to research the effect on the audience. It may ignore other factors and it is not similar to real life
- This can be seen in the Bandura study where is able to show the direct effect of violence
Essay Plan for Relationship between impact on Audience =
Introduction:
- Multiple opposing arguments of the affect of the mass media and how it influences the audience. Some argue that audience are passively consuming media messages however others disagree arguing that audiences are able to criticise or interpret media messages differently
Paragraph One: Hypodermic Syringe Model
- Passive audience injected with media messages and are highly influenced by what we see
- Direct correlation between media and violence
eg. James Bulger. Copycat/Imitation
- However, not everyone was influenced the same after watching this film
Paragraph Two: Two step flow model
- Katz and Lazarfeld suggests that the media messages are indirectly passed on through an opinion leader who who interprets the messages which forms our opinion
- The audience is not directly affected by the messages so therefore we are not completely active
- This explains why parents are opinion leaders to children and how they are affected more severely
Paragraph Three: Cultural Effects Model
- Neo-Marxist approach suggesting that audience are gradually influenced by the media over time through a drip drip effect which match the dominant ideology
- It is a gradual exposure which tells us to align with the messages reflect the ideology of the owners, any opposing views are kept out of mainstream media
- However, does not explain the different effect on different people
Paragraph Four: Post Modern Model
- Individuals use media to construct their identity and there is unpredictability about how they do this
- There is no dominant message but diverse ways of reading media content
- There is no deeper reality under media representations, it is meaningless to assume that media representations and audience are different as they are not
Conclusion
- Media is not mindlessly accepted by everyone, it does not explain how people interpret it differently however they do interpret it
