Cultural effects model - the ‘drip drip effect’ (active)✅

The cultural effects model

• Like the hypodermic syringe and two step flow models, the neo-Marxist cultural effects model suggests that the media do have an effect on the audience. However, it does not regard media audiences as simply passive consumers of media texts, with the media having the direct effects of the hypodermic model, and to a lesser extent of the two-step flow models, with direct effects mediated by opinion leaders.

• Neo-Marxist cultural effects theory recognises that the media are owned and heavily influenced by the dominant and most powerful groups in society, and their interests strongly influenced the content of the media, as seen throughout this chapter. The content is mainly in keeping with the dominant ideology.

• Although cultural effects theory suggests the media will generally spread the dominant ideology in society, it accepts audiences interpret the media they consume, and may respond in different ways depending on their social characteristics, such as their social class, gender or ethnicity, and their own experiences.

• While the majority are likely to support and agree with the content and ‘slant’ of media messages such as in TV and newspaper reporting, others might be critical of or even reject that content. For example, women might well resist gender stereotyping, and black people (any many white people) reject racist stereotypes. White British people living in multicultural communities might reject or modify negative media representations of ethnic minorities or of recent immigrants, because they have positive, first hand experiences of minority ethnic group life or of newly arrived immigrants. Those without such experiences may well take for granted the media content, as they have no experiences of their own to judge media content by.

• Nonetheless, the cultural effects model suggests that the media gradually influence the audience over a period of time - a sort of slow, steady, drip-drip effect - a subtle, ever present process of brainwashing which gradually shapes people’s taken for granted common sense ideas and assumptions, and their everyday view of the world.

• For example, if we see minority ethnic groups nearly always portrayed in the context of trouble and crime, or women portrayed only as mothers, lovers and sex objects, over time this will come to form the stereotypes we hold of these groups, to the exclusion of other aspects of their lives. Through this process, media audiences come to accept that the dominant ideology is common sense, and the only sensible way of seeing the world, and what neo-Marxists refer to as cultural hegemony is established and maintained.

• There is a range of opinion, within the cultural effects model, of what exactly the balance is between the media’s power and influence over audiences, and the extent to which audiences can resist and reinterpret media content. This discussion ranges from the encoding/decoding and reception analysis, and related selective filtering approach, on one side, which gives the greatest emphasis to active audiences and their ability to make their own interpretations or readings of media texts, to the work of Philo and the GMG on the other, who give greater emphasis to the power and influence of the media in shaping audience responses.

Encoding/decoding and reception analysis

• The analysis of how audiences receive and interpret media texts, and therefore what effects they have on audiences, is known as reception analysis.

• Hall, from a neo-Marxist perspective, suggests media texts - the content of media messages such as television news and current affairs programmes - are ‘encoded’ by those who produce them, that is, they contain a particular intended meaning which they expect media audiences to believe.

• This meaning, or encoding, is what Hall called the dominant hegemonic viewpoint, which takes the dominant ideology for granted and accepts it as the normal, natural and only sensible way of viewing social events. This dominant hegemonic viewpoint is the one that is held by most media managers, editors and journalists, and reflects the interests, beliefs and values of media owners and advertisers, the pressures of market competition, and influences news values, the hierarchy of credibility, dominant media representations and so on.

• Hall suggests most audiences will receive and interpret - or ‘decode’ - media texts containing this dominant hegemonic viewpoint in the way they were intended or encoded, as the cultural hegemony of the dominant class means the dominant hegemonic viewpoint appears to audiences as the normal, natural and reasonable position. Other audiences, though, may decode or interpret the same media texts differently, relating to their social situations, such as their social class, gender, ethnicity and personal experiences.

• Hall’s approach was applied by Morley, in a study of how audiences responded to or decoded media texts in the Nationwide BBC1 news programme which ran from 1969 to 1983. He suggested people might read, or decode and interpret media texts in one of three ways:

1. Preferred or dominant reading. Audiences interpret or decode media texts in the same way they were encoded in the first place, and in the way media producers would prefer their audiences to believe. This might be, for example, a preferred view that most welfare benefit claimants are work shy ‘scroungers’.

2. Negotiated reading. Audiences generally accept the preferred or dominant reading, but amend it to some extent, like finding exceptions, to fit their own beliefs and experiences. For example, they might accept most benefit claimants are probably scroungers, but not all as they know of some really deserving cases.

3. Oppositional reading. Audiences reject the preferred or dominant reading. For example, they reject the media view of ‘scroungers’, which they see as creating a moral panic over one or two cases of benefit fraud to discourage people from claiming benefits, when most people in the communities they see around them are really deserving as they face unemployment or disability or other adverse circumstances.

• Morley suggests that the particular reading that audiences adopt will be influenced by their own knowledge and experiences, the social groups to which they belong, and their social characteristics such as their social class, gender or ethnic group.

Selective filtering - Interpretivist approach

• The way encoding/decoding and reception analysis might take place in practice is shown by the interpretivist selective filtering approach. People have experiences of their own, make choices, and interpret, or decode, and filter what they read, see or hear in the media. There are three filters that people apply in their approaches to and interpretations of the media:

1. Selective exposure. This filter means people must first choose what they wish to watch, read or listen to in the media, and they may choose only media messages that fit in with their existing views and interests. For example, they might simply refuse to watch a programme exposing alleged benefit fraudsters.

2. Selective perception. This filter means people will react differently to the same message, and may choose to accept or reject a media message depending on whether or not it fits in with their own views and interests. For example, people may simply ignore aspects of news reports that suggests welfare claimants are largely underserving fraudsters.

3. Selective retention. This filter means people will forget material that is not in line with their own views and interests, and will tend to remember only those media messages with which they generally agree.

• An example of the application of these filters might be the way people respond to a party political election broadcasts, depending on which political party they personally support. During the Iraq war of 2003, the Daily Mirror passionately opposed the war, yet half of its readers were in favour of it. The Daily Mail was a strong supporter of the war - but ¼ of its readers opposed it. This suggests people may form their own views beyond what the media tell them.

The Glasgow Media Group

• Philo of the GMG is very critical of the suggestion in the encoding/decoding and selective filtering approaches that audiences can make their own readings or interpretations of media texts, and that they are polysemic and can mean whatever audiences interpret them to mean. He accepts that audiences are active, and can in some cases be critical of media accounts. However he stresses that GMG research over many years shows that the media has a great deal of power in forming the way audiences view the world, and that most people accept the dominant media account unless they have access to alternative forms of information.

• The decoding and selective filtering approaches within the cultural effects model underestimate the serious extent of the media’s ability to mould public understanding of social issues. Philo concluded that the media did have an effect on how audiences think about the world, and that the great bulk of the audience relies on very traditional news sources to form their beliefs and understanding.

• While people can be critical of media messages, the work of the GMG shows the media play a key role in focusing public interest on particular subjects through agenda-setting, which also influences what we do not think about by removing issus from public discussion. It can be very difficult to criticise a dominant media account if their is little access to alternative sources of information, and, in most cases, the media’s role in agenda-setting means those alternative sources are simply not available to most people.

• The work of the GMG emphasises that we should not underestimate the power of the media, or overestimate the capacity of audiences to make alternative readings to the preferred or dominant reading of media texts, as, over a period of time, agenda setting and the continual drip-drip effect of the media encourage people to accept the preferred reading as the only reasonable one. In summary, the cultural effects model recognises:

1. The power of the dominant class to influence the content of the media, which transmits a dominant ideology which most journalists share

2. That the media, although they generally present a biased, ideological view of the world favouring the dominant class, don’t always have the same effect on media audiences, as audiences actively interpret media content

3. That the way audiences respond to media messages will be affected by a wide range of factors other than the media message itself, such as their social circumstances, personal experiences, education, social class and their values and beliefs

4. That the media, over a long period of time, are likely to be influential as a key shaper of people’s views and the way they think and behave, as they gradually persuade most people to accept that the dominant hegemonic media view represents a mainstream, common-sense view of the world

Limitations of the cultural effects model

1. Reception analysis and selective filtering exaggerate the active role of media audiences. While audiences can sometimes be active and critical, much of the work of the GMG has produced extensive evidence of the power and influence of the media in forming the social attitudes and beliefs of audiences, and limiting their ability to resist media messages.

2. It assumes media personnel like journalists work within the framework and assumptions of the dominant ideology. This fails to recognise that journalists have some independence in their work, and can sometimes be very critical of the dominant ideology and the existing arrangements in society.

3. It suggests the audience can, though selective filtering have some control over their response to media output, but long term socialisation by the media through repetitive messages may limit the ability of audiences to filter those messages, or enable them to do so only within the framework laid down by the media itself, giving an illusion of choice rather than a real choice. For example, an individual may mock or walk out of a televised political debate, but not actually ask themselves why there are only three political parties represented, or why those parties are only discussing certain topics and not others.