The Effects of the Media

Audience Theory

Effects of the media

The creation of a ‘Mass society’–Modern societies destroy individuality by bringing people under the control of the owners of large conglomerates

Are modern societies mass societies?

Frankfurt school (Marxists)– Feared the power of the Mass Media they

blamed it for destroying free thinking and creativity.

– Marcuse (1968)• ‘One dimensional man’ - In other words we are all

the same, no one has individuality any more

– Agger (2003) • ‘Conformists and consumers’ – again stressing

that we have very little individuality

Early Theories

It was thought that the mass media had a direct and dramatic effect on behaviour

‘Hypodermic Syringe Model’• (Frankfurt School – Adorno, Horkheimer)

Widely held view Stresses the audience’s passivity and

powerlessness

Later Theories

Two step flow (Indirect effects)–Lazersfeld et al– Individuals are not directly influenced– Messages are filtered down through

significant individuals– These individuals are called opinion

leaders

Uses and gratifications model• Bulmer and Katz (1974)

– Stresses how audiences are not passive but in charge.

– No such thing as a single mass audience

– Audiences are highly differentiated eg class, race, sex religion, nationality.

Uses and gratifications

Researchers in the 1970’s argued that audiences use the media to satisfy certain basic psychological needs. These ‘uses and gratifications’ as they called them, include the need for information, a personal identity, social interaction and entertainment.

The media has its own particular uses and pleasures for its audience; it provide many things, including……..

Regularity and structure

Shared experiences/ a sense of Community

Audience identification

Educational uses

Escapism

People centred needs

Scheduling and Regularity

The pattern and structure provided by the media is considered one of the primary gratifications.

The media can integrate itself into the rhythms and routines of the home. This allows advertisers to reach a core audience at a regular time but also provides viewers with a means of organising their day and, in some cases, structuring their lives.

The regularised pattern of interruption and continuity rewards viewers who maintain an ongoing engagement with the text.

Sharing opinions as social interaction + virtual community

The fact that the media is discussed among friends means that it gives a diverse range of viewers something to share. As EastEnders advertising campaign puts it, ‘everybody’s talking about it’ To miss something in the media is to exclude yourself from a wider community and pass-up opportunities for interaction.

A virtual community arises, bound together by the discussion of last night’s show/ latest film and possible future plot developments.

As Mal Young (Head of BBC Drama Series) states:- ‘as real life communities and the traditional family group have deconstructed, so our reliance on virtual communities has become more important in our lives. The TV audience may be going through massive change as the viewer is confronted by choice, but TV remains the shared experience

People identify with the characters and

personalities in the media and get involved with the programmes

In order to maximise a the media’s potential, production companies try to reflect the age range and interests of the viewers. People like to identify with their own peer group - although as David Buckingham states ‘viewers do not always identify with the characters or personalities who are most ‘like them’. Identification (the notion that a character or personality shares your perspective), and the sense of involvement/inclusion it promotes, is one of the primary gratifications of the media.

There is an attempt to accommodate a diverse range of character and personality types, creating an appropriate gender mix, and a blend of social and ethnic backgrounds which aims to ensure and ‘gratify’ a wide potential audience by reflecting them on-screen.

Education: People learn from the media

Programme makers acknowledge that, while the media is not always ‘issues-based’, issues arise naturally as a consequence of the entertainment. As well as entertaining viewers these programmes have a secondary educational or informational function, offering a discussion of current topics that may concern them.

David Buckingham notes that the media directly ‘invites its viewers to make moral and ideological judgements. The kinds of judgements invited are more frequently moral than ideological – that is judgements that relate to the rights and wrongs of individual behaviour rather than broader social forces. Nevertheless, in criticising and discussing characters and issues, viewers may well be using television as a vehicle for working out their own ideological perspectives.’ As Mike Clarke states, ‘viewers explore ways of dealing with problems which may be useful to them in real-life situations.’

The media provides escapism

While it is true that most of the media aims to provide a sense of realism, it is also true that one of the chief gratifications of the media is the sense of removal to a very clearly defined ‘elsewhere’ for some part of each day – an escape during which you can put your own worries aside.

The media provides a voyeuristic insight into the high points and, particularly, low points of characters’ and personality’s lives, thus inducing potential feelings of superiority and relief (rather them than me).

Research suggests that viewers are not particularly interested in happy endings, or living out dreams vicariously. The fact that the fictional woes of characters outweigh your own is in itself a cause for audience pleasure.

The media offers ‘real life’ X 10

The media fulfils people centred needs (individual viewing pleasure)

It would be a mistake to ignore the fact that the media is intent on delivering entertainment - incorporating elements from a variety of genres - from melodrama to sitcom - to provide this entertainment. Moreover, it is populated by interesting and attractive people.

We are given events that are occurring ‘now’ and audiences respond well to the perceived ‘immediacy’ in the media.

As Mike Clarke explains ‘one significant source of pleasure is the continuity of characters and setting. It is possible for regular viewers to build up a much more nuanced understanding and a fund of archival knowledge which enables them to experience the programmes more fully and more enjoyably.’

Most Recent Theory Cultural effects theories:

• Philo (1990)– Compare media effects to a ‘dripping tap’– Constant exposure to certain limited points

of view may create a bias in the audience’s minds

– However we do interpret what we see according to our own cultural experience