Audience Effects Theories

 

Audience effect theory	Developed in and by	Passive or active	Description	Arguments for the theory	Arguments against the theory
Hypodermic needle method	A group of academics that worked in Frankfurt and Vince Packard (1950s)	Passive	Messages within media are injected into the peoples consciousness without any filter. Much like if you were to receive an injection; the substance in the needle is shot into your veins and enters your bloodstream immediately. This emerged from people witnessing German people believing and supporting nazi propaganda, and the rise of fascism in Europe	An argument that supports this theory is that we see it take place in real life. For example copycat crime, a crime inspired by another crime that has been publicised in the news media, fictionally, or artistically.	- The audience is passive and susceptible and are easily influenced by the message which might not be true every time. But the reactions of people differ. Some people can be passive whereas some people might not believe in media. - The theory has been proved to fail by many studies like “The People’s Choice” research for voting pattern and political behaviour during the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The study showed that the pattern was affected by media in minimum amount but was more affected by interpersonal communication. Studies show that media has selective influence on mass.
Moral Panic	Stanley Cohen. (early 1970s)	Passive	This theory is about the idea that the media creates moral panic ( a feeling of fear and hatred towards something that challenges existing norms ) by identifying threats to the values and interests of society and then over reacting to it. The people will see this over reaction as the norm, and so adopt the behaviour towards the moral panic (for example, grime and trap music and its association towards knife and gang crime). There are 5 stages of constructing a moral panic :  -  someone, something, or a group are defined as a        threat to social norms or community interests. the threat is then depicted in a simple and recognisable symbol / form by the media The portrayal of this symbol rouses public concern  There is a response from authorities and police makers The moral panic over the issue results in social changes within the community  This theory came about because Cohen wanted to explore the relationship between mass media and widespread panic after seeing the reaction to the mods and rockers youth movement.	A strength of this theory is that there is lots of real life evidence to back it up, for example creating a stigma against marijuana in the USA during the war against drugs. This eventually led to it being criminalised and people are now heavily punished for using it. This shows that it got to the final stage of constructing a moral panic and there fore has external validity that applies to the real world	Cohen’s formulation of moral panic theory assumes that the audience are passive, but audiences today are much more active and able to critically evaluate media content, which means moral panics are less likely. Thornton (1995) found that the media failed to generate a moral panic over rave culture, mainly because youth culture had become mainstream by that point, as had the taking of drugs such as ecstasy. This shows moral panic does not always occur which reduces the validity of this theory
Desensitisation theory/ cultivation theory	Gerbner and Gross (1970s)	passive	The theory is about the idea that if we are constantly exposed to war, violence, and crime, then we being to assume that most of the world is made up of war, violence, and crime (the Mean World Index). The media cultivates consumers to believe certain things/behave a certain way or desensitises the viewers to what they are exposed to (for example, violence.) This theory emerged from the fact that more and more people began to own TVs, and so the US government crime prevention project wanted to see how the exposure to lots of television  impacts the amount of crime in the US.	One strength of the theory is that there is real life evidence. Findings of nearly four decades of cultivation research on television message systems have unveiled a ‘distorted’ reality: exaggerated crime rates, overrepresentation of violence, gender-role stereotyping, nontraditional family composition, the ‘mean world syndrome,’ and so on (Morgan et al., 2009). This misshaped, yet repetitive represented ‘reality,’ gradually dominates the worldview of heavy viewers, who rely on television as their main source of beliefs and values.	Despite the ongoing popularity of cultivation theory among researchers and the research evidence supporting the theory, cultivation has been criticised for several reasons. For instance, some media scholars take issue with cultivation because it treats media consumers as fundamentally passive. By focusing on the patterns of media messages instead of individual responses to those messages, cultivation ignores actual behavior. In addition, the cultivation research by Gerbner and his colleagues is criticised for looking at television in aggregate without any concern about differences between various genres or shows. This singular focus came from cultivation's concern with the pattern of messages across television and not the individual messages of specific genres or shows.
Identity theory	David Gauntlett (2000s)	Active	The Identity theory suggests that people use media to help form their social identity, using the parts they think will support their development as an individual. This is very ingrained with modern day usage of media, as much of it is participatory and so people can engage with each other and feel part of a community. Gauntlett thinks the media do not create identities, but just reflect them instead. It was developed as a result of new information and data being uncovered in todays modern day social media atmosphere.	This theory has real world application ; For representation questions, Gauntlett’s theory is useful when exploring over simplified representations of groups of people or for discrediting the role of media when creating identities. Furthermore, the internet (and social media) can be used as a platform for building identities which reflects the creativity of individuals.	Although works well with social media, doesn’t really cover when media was first being produced, for example the in the early days of TV there was only one channel, but people still watched it regardless of their identity
Reception theory	Stuart hall (1970s)	Active	Every media product contains some sort of encoded message (everything included within the product has a meaning / message. Eg the colour/lighting used). The consumer interoperates this message in 3 different ways; preferred reading, negotiated reading, and oppositional reading. Our reading is dependant on many things, such as general socio-economic and cultural experiences. This theory was developed in the 1970s and came about from a cultural critic (stuart hall) investigating TV and media messages	Real life evidence, such as how people banded together fro blackout Tuesday in order to support black people and back communities and raise awareness for the black lives matter movement  Paints the audience as active, which is curate to real life.	Although everything has an intended message, not everyone will necessarily realise what that message is, therefore they don’t have a preferred reading, negotiated reading, or a oppositional reading because they don’t understand the message to begin with
Uses and gratifications	Bulmler and Kats (1950s)	Active	People consume media for particular gratifications, in order to; be entertained/diverted, gain information/education, interact socially, and identify personally with the product. This theory came about in the 1950s as there was a boom in living conditions and wealth, meaning more people had access to the TV and other media, so sociologists became more interested in what made a good life, and what people would gain from media products.	there is strength to this theory as it can be applied to the internet in the modern day, for example the use of social media clearly show where all the uses and gratifications come into play. For example entertainment : watch a youtube video about a game you enjoy. Gain information - watch free science lessons on youtube Interact socially - message friends on snapchatIdentify - keep up with favourite celebs on instagram	the theory doesn’t account for how the media can have an unconscious effect on our lives and how we view the world It is too kind to the media, as it means they don’t have to take responsibility for what they produce