Topic 6

• Methodological problems of researching media effects

  Difficult to establish if media or other media factors are causing any effected

  Impossible to disentangle the effects of the media on audiences of things like violence and stereotypes from other influences

  Hard to establish which particular media caused any effects

  Practically impossible to establish life without media influence

  Everyone is exposed to some form of media
• What are media effect models

  Models which are concerned with the audiences engagement with the media and how influential the media is
• What is the hypodermic syringe model

  AKA magic bullet theory, a simple model which is old-fashioned and inadequate

  Media is injecting media texts into the veins of media audiences who are unthinking and passive, unable to resist messages injected into them

  Media messages fill audience with the dominant ideology who act immediately
• AO3 - Hypodermic syringe model

  People may react differently to media messages depending on their own views

  Audience is not passive as model suggests

  Ignores the influence of other agencies

  Little evidence the media has immediate effects on audience
• What is the Two Step Flow model

  Katz et al - Media has strong effects on audiences but they respond in different ways.

  Opinion leaders influence the response as they are respected members of social groups who form opinions from media messages and share this to their social group
• What is the first step in the TSF model

  Opinion leaders select, interpret and filter media texts before they reach the mass audiences to form their own opinion
• What is the second step in the TSF model

  Opinion leaders then selectively pass on these images which contain their own opinions to others in their social group
• AO3 - TSF model

  Probably more than two steps as interpretations get passed around in discussions

  Rests on basic assumption that influence of the media flows from media to audience

  Assumes audience is victims of media

  People are not always vulnerable to the influence from opinion leaders
• What is the cultural effects model

  Neo-marxist model which assumes media has effect on audience however they are not passive consumers.

  Theory recognises media is owned and heavily influenced by dominant ideology.

  Audiences interpret information in the media in differing ways depending on social characteristics
• What is reception analysis 


  The analysis of how audiences receive and interpret media texts anf therefore the effects on the audience
• What is Hall's contribution to the CE model

  Media texts are encoded by those who produce them to contain a particular intended meaning - Dominant hegemonic viewpoint

  Most audiences will decode media texts containing the dominant hegemonic viewpoint in the way intended or encoded though some may decode differently based on social situations
• Morley - CE model

  Applied Hall's approach to a study of how audiences decoded media texts to BBC1 news (70's). Suggested people may read, decode and interpret media texts in 3 different ways
• Morley - 3 ways that people decode media texts

  The preferred reading

  Negotiated reading

  Oppositional reading
• What is the preferred reading

  Decoding media how it was encoded
• What is the negotiated reading

  Generally accepting the preferred reading but amend to some extent to fit own perspective
• What is the oppositional reading

  To reject the preferred reading
• What influences the reading according to Morley

  Own knowledge

  Social groups

  Social characteristics
• What is the selective filtering approach

  An interpretivist view which shows how encoding and reception analysis takes place in practice
• Klapper - CE model

  Suggests people have experiences of their own, make choices and interpret what they see in the media. Three filters that people apply in their interpretations of the media
• The three filters according to Klapper

  Selective exposure

  Selective perception

  Selectve retention
• What is selective exposure

  The filter means people must first choose what they wish to watch in media - messages fit own interest
• What is selective perception

  People will react differently to the same message deoending on if it fits their own views
• What is selective retention

  People will forget material that is not in line with their interests
• Philo - Encoding

  Critical of the suggestion in selective filtering approaches that audiences make their own readings and that they are polysemic and mean whatever the audience wants them to mean.

  Accepts audiences are active and can be critical of media but GMG shows media has a lot of power in forming the audience's views on the world
• AO3 - CE model

  Reception analysis and selective filtering exaggerate the active role of media audiences

  Assumes media personnel work within framework and dominant ideology

  Suggests media have some control
• What is the uses and gratifications model

  Assumed media has weak effects and the audience is very active. Audiences are thinking, active and creative who use media in a variety of ways
• McQuail and Lull - U&G model

  Ways which the media may be used

  Diversion, personal relationships and identity, surveillance and background wallpaper
• Park et al - U&G model


  Used the model in a web survey of members of facebook groups. Found online groups satisfied multiple needs (all but background wallpaper)
• What are the effects of variety of uses of the media

  People make conscious choices and use them for array of needs which they decide on. The effects of the media are likely to be different in each case depending on what people are using the media for.
• AO3 - U&G model

  Overestimates the power of audiences to influence content and underestimates the power of media to shape choices

  Doesn't allow for group aspects of media audiences

  Ignores wider social factors affecting the way audiences respond
• Summary of hypodermic syringe model

  Effect on audience - Direct and immediate effect

  Audience - Passive
• Summary of TSF model

  Effect on audience - Indirect as role of opinion leaders who make interpretations and pass them onto others

  Audience - Not completely passive as influenced only through opinion leaders and discussion in social groups
• Summary of CE model

  Effect on audience - Varies as decode and filter differently but likely for long term acceptance of the dominant

  Audience - Not completely passive as they respond differently depending on own interpretations but these may be influenced by the media
• Summary of the U&G model

  Effect on audience - Effects vary from one individual to the next and therefore we cannot generalise

  Audience - Active and make conscious choices as they sleect media for own pleasures
• Effects of violence in media

  Catharsis

  Desensitisation

  Sensitisation

  Psychological disturbance

  Exaggeration of fear of violence

  Imitation
• What is catharsis

  An effect of violence in the media. Reduces violence as these tendencies are satisfied in fantasy
• What are the methodological problems of researching media violence

  Impossible to avoid Hawthorne effect

  Problems with how media violence is defined

  Lab experiments only measure short term effects

  Small samples used

  Difficult to separate effects from other causes

  No group has never been exposed to media violence before