Audience Models of the Media

What does the Hypodermic Syringe Model believe?

media can have a direct and immediate effect on the audience

How does the Hypodermic Syringe Model see the audience?

‘homogeneous mass’ - passive and believing what they see in the media without questioning the content

What is an example for the Hypodermic Syringe Model?

1938 War of the Worlds

• fictional story about Alien invaders coming from Mars played on radio - people believed it

Which feminists respond to the Hypodermic Syringe Model?

Orbach and Wolfe

How do feminists, Orbach and Wolfe, respond to the Hypodermic Syringe Model?

highlighted increase of ‘beauty myth’ - representations of size zero as normal - increase in eating disorders and mental health problems amongst young women

How would the Hypodermic Syringe Model be criticised?

assumes audience is homogenous, gullible and easily manipulated

• ignores idea that people have autonomy and can reject media content

How would Pluralists criticise the Hypodermic Syringe Model?

audience are active and control media - therefore control how this content is perceived

Who created the Two-Step Flow Model?

Katz and Lazarsfeld

What does the Two-Step Flow Model suggest about the audience?

audience are active but influenced by influential opinion leaders rather than directly by media content

What are the two steps to the Two-Step Flow Model?

• opinion leaders are exposed to content and interpret it in a certain way

• opinion leaders then share their interpretation of media content with wider audiences, influencing them

What evidence in the US showed that the Two-Step Flow Model is accurate?

When questioned about the source of views and ideas about a presidential election - more likely to reference informal conversations with friends and associates

• however, on most issues friends and associates must have received those views and ideas from the media themselves

How could the Two-Step Flow Model be supported?

acknowledges how opinion leaders are not one simple group - in new media everyone who engages online could be seen as an opinion leaders

How could the Two-Step Flow Model be criticised?

considers audiences as passive to an extent - ignores free will of people to choose their opinion leaders and change their minds on their opinion leaders

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

What does the Use and Gratification Model suggest?

media performs a vital function in meeting the needs of the audience

What does the Use and Gratification Model say about the audience?

audiences select what media they consume depending on their interests and desires

Which sociologists suggested the five main functions that the media performs for individual audience members for the Use and Gratification Model?

Blumler and McQuail

According to Blumler and McQuail, what are the five main functuons that the media performs for individual audience members in the Use and Gratification Model?

• Diversion

• Personal relationship

• Personal identity

• Surveillance

• Background wallapaper

What approach is the Use and Gratification Model?

Pluralist - believe audience is active

• if a media outlet consistently spouted ideology that audience didn’t believe or agree with they would be unsuccessful

• no audience = no money = out of business

How can the Use and Gratification Model be criticised?

Media is consumed from a young age and a part of secondary socialisation - part in shaping and creating value in the first place

• audiences’ values mean that they select certain content from values given by the media

Who created the Selective Filter Model?

Klapper

How does the Selective Filter Model see the audience?

audiences have a degree of choice about how the media they consume effects them

What are the three filters that the media passes through before it affects the audience according to the Selective Filter Model?

• Selective Exposure

• Selective Perception

• Selective Retention

What is Selective Exposure according to the Selective Filter Model?

(first filter) audiences choose what to watch

What is Selective Perception according to the Selective Filter Model?

(second filter) audiences may reject some of the content

What is Selective Retention according to the Selective Filter Model?

(third filter) audiences are likely to remember content they agree with

How could the Selective Filter Model be criticised?

advertising and marketing are designed to get through these filters - media saturation can get past selective exposure

How could the Selective Filter Model be criticised by the Cultural Effects Model?

argues that repetition and encoding can mean people are influenced by messages they might consider themselves immune to

• media producers have techniques and skills to get through filters and influence audiences

What does the Reception Analysis Model say about the audience?

different audiences interpret the content of the media differently

• neither passive or hegemonic

What are the three ways audiences can interpret the media according to the Reception Analysis Model?

• Dominant/Hegemonic Reading

• Oppositional Reading

• Negotiated Reading

What is Dominant/Hegemonic Reading according to the Reception Analysis Model?

links to preferred reading model (Morley) - based on consensus - what most people go along with

• very likely to be shared by journalists and editors and is likely to underpin news values

What is Oppositional Reading according to the Reception Analysis Model?

minority may oppose the views expressed in media content

What is Negotiated Reading according to the Reception Analysis Model?

audience may reinterpret media content to fit in with their own personal opinions and values

According to the Reception Analysis Model, how are media messages polysemic?

individuals or groups can interpret media messages in a variety of different ways

How would Marxists and Radical Feminists criticise the Reception Analysis Model?

theory implies that is is easy to negotiate or reject media messages - ignores false consciousness or cumulative effect of media messages across a lifetime

Can the media encourage violence?

Yes

Why do Interactionalists, such as Cohen, believe that the media can encourage violence?

deviancy amplification as a process contributes to some criminality and encourages violence

What are the four conclusions on whether media encourages violence?

• Copycatting

• Catharsis

• Desensitisation

• Sensitisation

(‘Cause Cats Don’t Scare)

What does Copycatting propose about whether the media encourages violence?

if you watch violence - you will become violent (linked to the hypodermic syringe model)

• e.g. James Bulger - Killers watched child’s play

What does Catharsis propose about whether the media encourages violence?

people are less violent as they live out their violent tendencies through media rather than in real life

• media acts as a safety value

What does Desensitisation propose about whether the media encourages violence?

exposure to violence in the media normalises it

• leads to drip drip effect

What does Sensitisation propose about whether the media encourages violence?

exposure to violence in the media exposes people to its consequences - makes them less tolerant of it

How can the idea that media encourages violence be criticised?

• ‘media violence’ is far too broad

• does not always consider how people interpret what they consume

• impossible to avoid the Hawthorne effect

• Laboratory experiments only show short time periods

• usually involves small samples

• impossible to separate from other possible causes

• no control group without media exposure