MIGRAIN: Audience theory 1

Audience theory:notes

The hypodermic needle model
This is a crude theory from the 1920s that suggests the media injects information into the audience like a hypodermic needle and therefore can have a dangerous effect on us.



The two-step flow model
The two-step flow model was developed in the 1940s because the hypodermic needle theory was considered too simplistic, assuming the audience consumed media without thinking.

The two-step flow model instead suggests the audience are influenced by ‘opinion leaders’ in the media who mediate how the audience react to media texts. The theory suggests the media is not all-powerful and that social factors are important.


Blumler & Katz: Uses and Gratifications theory
Researchers Blumler and Katz reignited audience theory in 1974 by stating that media audiences are active and make conscious choices about the way they consume media.

They suggested there are four main uses or gratifications (pleasures) that audiences get from the media.

Diversion: escape from everyday problems and routine - entertainment.

Personal Relationships: using the media for emotional and other interaction (e.g. developing affection for characters in TV)

Personal Identity: finding ourselves reflected in texts or learning behaviour and values from the media. Reality TV or documentary (Educating Yorkshire) are good examples.

Surveillance: Information useful for living (e.g. Weather, traffic news, holiday bargains etc.)


Rokeach and DeFleur: Dependency theory
Rokeach and DeFleur took Uses and Gratifications one step further in 1976 in suggesting that people have become dependent on the media.


With Dependency theory, they suggest that people rely on the media for information determining their decisions. This means the media can create many different feelings such as fear, anxiety, and happiness.

1) This news article links to the hypodermic needle model because it forces whoever plays the violent game, to feel aggressive to their environment and it makes them aggressive without them even realising it.

2) The article can be criticised because if the students knowingly played a game that would be violent then they would become aggressive because they feel like if they play a violent game there "must" become aggressive whereas if they were just asked to play a range of games where there isn't a clear difference in what the games were about, it would be better. 

3)

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