Cultural Effects Model

Which theory produced the Cultural Effects Model?

Marxist

What does the Cultural Effects Model suggest?

media is a powerful tool in transmitting capitalist ideas, norms and values

How does the Cultural Effects Model see the audience?

Passive - but effects of media are less immediate

• audiences are exposed to capitalistic values over a long period of time and eventually most people come to accept the preferred reading of events in he media

What does media content reflect according to the Cultural Effects Model?

strong ideological messages that reflect the values of those who own, control and produce the media, who expect audiences to agree with their views

• opposite views of owners and middle-class journalists’ generally kept out of the mainstream media; agenda setting & gatekeeping

What is the preferred reading described in the Cultural Effects Model?

those who produce the media promote a particular interpretation of events

• lacking direct experience = accept

• direct experience = reject

repetition of preferred reading - most people come to accept it

How did the Glasgow Media Group support the Cultural Effects Model?

GMG produced extensive evidence to show limited ability to ever reject media

• e.g. miner strikes in the 1980s - all viewers, event hose sympathetic with the miners’ cause, believed they were responsible for the trouble

How can the Cultural Effects Model be criticised?

assumes that all journalists and media owners have and use the dominant ideology when some do not