MEDIA THEORIES

MEDIA THEORIES

EFFECTS THEORY:- 
Effects theory is the thing that suggests that audience are influenced by the text/media. Mass media/mass communication make people powerless to resist messages the media carries,consumers are 'drugged', 'addicted' or 'hypnotised'. Media effects theory is how media can effect society and how society effects the media. Some negative implications of this theory are when people copy violent/muderous acts that they see on television and apply them to reality ie. when the teenage boy Warren Lamblanc ( aged 17)  murdered his bestfriend Stefan Pakeerah ( aged 14) in 2004.

The link below gives you more of an insight into the Stefan Pakeerah's murder:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/3934277.stm
An audience that tends to see an audience as passive sees that exposure to particular aspects of media content can inflence the behaviour of the reader/viewer.

WHAT ELSE IS WRONG WITH EFFECTS THEORIES ?

•  Criticisms of the media using the effects model is often politically motivated.
• There is not real grounding of research and theory for this model.
• The media can often be positive rather than harmful

(Hypodermic syringe, Inoculation)      
What the media does to audiences. The messages in the media text are injected into the audience by the superier syringe-like media. The audience is powerless to resist it, the media work like a drug and the audience are 'drugged'/'addicted'.                        
USES AND GRATIFICATIONS:-
What audiences do with the media, users of the media use media texts to satisfy certain needs, based on Masclow's hierarchy of needs.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Masclow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation".Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, all of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow use the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization needs to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through.

U&G PROBLEMS:-

• We may not have a choice about what we can watch
• It neglects any aspects of the effects theories.
• It neglects socio-economic factors.

RECEPTION THEORY:-

• Nation wide audience (Dallas, Seinfield) - Different social/economic groups watched the same TV programme, interviews reveal different readings of the same text:-                                                        Dominant(Hegemonic) reading:-Reader shares the encoded meanings of the text.                               Negotiated reading:- Reader shares some of the embedded ideologies but not all.                               Oppositional(Counter-hegemonic)reading:- The reader does not share the programme's code and rejects the preferred reading. 

• Members of the same subculture tend to decode text in the same way.                                              
• Different social/culture groups watched the same TV programmes
• Interviews reveal different readings of the same text.
• Often the opposite to effects theories because it sees media consumption as active and not passive.
• The theory suggests that media texts are polysemic.
• Research examines social, cultural, economic, gender and sexuality as influence on the reading of media texts.

                   ACTIVE vs PASSIVE

HISTORICAL STUFF/ KEY EVIDENCE FOR THE EFFECTS MODEL:-

• FRANKFURT SCHOOL:- Theorised in the 1920s and 30s, Maxist German intellectuals reacting against Nazi propaganda and US advertising - suggested the power of big corporations and the state to control how we think.

• Rise of TV in the 50s and 60s - fear of danger to children.

• Influence of behavioural scientists (think of pavlovs dogs) - Media may reinforce attitudes through repetition.

BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT(1963) (Controversial piece of research):- Bandura and Walters - children imitate adult behaviour  this theory was used to suggest this theory. It was concluded that that children will imitate violent media, however there have been problems found with this experiment, it was said that there were problems with the methodology and question of the experiment proving that the children imitate violent media. The effects theory backed up by Bobo doll experiment is still the forefront theory used by politicians, some parts of the media and some religious organisations in attributing violence to the consumption of media texts.

Below are more examples of violent factors:-

•  The film 'Childs Play 3' in the murder of James Bulger. (1993)
• The film 'A Clockwork Orange' in a number of rapes and violent attacks. (1971)
• The film 'Severence' in the murder of Simon Everitt. (2006)

• In each case there was a media and political outcry for the texts to be banned. 
• In some cases laws were changed, films banned and newspapers demanded the burning of films.
• In each case it was found that no case could be proven to demonstrate a link between the texts and the violent acts.

The Effects model contributes to Moral Panics whereby:

• The media produces violent 'copycat' behaviour or mindless shopping in response to advertisements.
• The media produce inactivity, make us into students who wont pass their exams and make no effort to get a job.

TWO STEP FLOW:-

The Two step flow theory suggests that we are much more likely to be affected by the media if we discuss it with others. The 'Opinion Leader' is the one who has viewed the piece of media and then shares their interpretation with other media consumers.