Audience Theories
The potential for negative effects on
audiences has been a matter for general
concern since the earliest days of the
media.
Many hundreds of studies have been
conducted to examine the effects of the
media on audiences. Early research
concluded that the mass media were
powerful enough to have a direct influence
on audiences.
The Hypodermic
Needle/Syringe Model
Conceived by the Frankfurt
School it is also known as
the ‘direct effects’
approach.
The Frankfurt School were
Marxists who conducted
research into the effects of
Nazi propaganda.
Dating from the 1920s, this theory
was the first attempt to explain how
mass audiences might react to mass
media.
It is a crude model and suggests that
audiences passively receive the
information transmitted via a media
text, without any attempt on their
part to process or challenge the data.
Mass Media
= Isolated individuals constituting a mass
Media are seen as
STRONG/ACTIVE
Audience are seen as
WEAK/PASSIVE
Don't forget that this theory was
developed in an age when the mass
media were still fairly new - radio
and cinema were less than two
decades old.
Governments had just discovered the
power of advertising to communicate
a message, and produced propaganda
to try and sway populaces to their way
of thinking.
This was particularly
evident in Europe during
the First World War and
its aftermath.
An example of a
poster from
WW1 designed to
encourage men
to join the army.
1. What emotions does
the poster appeal to?
2. What methods are used
by this poster to
encourage recruitment?
3. How can we apply the
Hypodermic Needle Model
to analysing this poster?
Origin: A British recruitment poster which would have come out
before conscription was introduced in January 1916.
Motive: To encourage men in Britain to enlist in the New Armies.
Audience:
Men who are eligible to enlist and who are in the right age
group. This changed over time but ranged from 19-40 years.
This poster would not be aimed at skilled workers in occupations
required by the Government.
Content:
The symbol - John Bull represents the British people, note the
Union Jack waistcoat.
Personal appeal - Use of Question -'Who's Absent? Is it You?'
The finger pointing at the reader -'You'.
Soldiers waiting in the background for 'your' response.
Other features to note:
Brevity of language.
Simple message - easy to comprehend by a reader walking past.
The poster's message is obvious because many people would not
stop to read a poster.
This model also owes much to
the supposed power of the
mass media - in particular
film
to
inject
their
audiences with ideas and
meanings.
Such was the thinking behind
much of the Nazi propaganda
that was evident in Triumph
of the Will and similar films.
It is worth noting that
totalitarian
states
and
dictatorships are similar in
their desire to have complete
control
over
the
media,
usually in the belief that
strict regulation of the media
will help in controlling entire
populations.
Here is a still from
Triumph of the Will.
How can we apply the
Hypodermic Needle
Model to this?
CLUE: Look at the
angle of the shot.
Audience positioning.
CLUE: Is Hitler here
seen as weak or strong
to the audience?
Early conclusions about this
model were based on
methodological research.
For example the ‘Bobo Doll
Experiment’ which was
conducted by sociologist
Albert Bandura in 1963.
Bobo Doll Experiment
Albert Bandura believed that aggression
must explain three aspects:
1.How aggressive patterns of behaviour are
developed
2.What provokes people to behave
aggressively
3.What determines whether they are going
to continue to resort to an aggressive
behavior pattern on future occasions.
In this experiment, he had children
witness a model aggressively attacking
a plastic clown called the Bobo doll.
There children would watch a video
where a model would aggressively hit a
doll.
‘...the model pummels it on the head
with a mallet, hurls it down, sits on it
and
punches
it
on
the
nose
repeatedly, kick it across the room,
flings it in the air, and bombards it
with balls...’
After the video, the children were
placed in a room with attractive
toys, but they could not touch them.
The process of retention had
occurred. Therefore, the children
became angry and frustrated.
Then the children were led to
another room where there were
identical toys used in the Bobo video.
The motivation phase was in
occurrence. Bandura and many
other researchers founded that
88% of the children imitated the
aggressive behaviour.
Eight months later, 40% of the
same children reproduce the violent
behaviour observed in the Bobo doll
experiment. (Isom, 1998)
The Bobo Doll Experiment
What events in the news can we
relate this to?
What has shown that media may
have had direct effect on
audiences?
Warning over Jackass copycats
Police have warned people about copying stunts
from television programme Jackass after four
people were charged with staging a hoax
kidnapping.
Officers were called after members of the public
thought they were witnessing a real abduction in a
supermarket car park in Dalkeith, Midlothian.
Four men were later charged with breach of the
peace. They told officers they were re-enacting a
scene from Jackass. A police spokesman warned
others not to copy stunts which could alarm
others. The incident took place outside a Tesco
store on Sunday afternoon.
Shoppers saw a man with a black plastic bag
tied over his head stumble from a car in an
apparent attempt to escape. He was bundled
into the boot by two others before the car
sped away.
Summer holidays
Two 20-year-old men, a 24-year-old and a
26-year-old were later charged with breach
of the peace by police. A report will be sent
to the procurator fiscal. Lothian and
Borders Police warned people about the
dangers of attempting to repeat some of
the things they have seen on Jackass, the
controversial MTV and Channel 4 series.
A police spokesman said: "This Jackass
programme is very popular among teenagers
and being the summer holidays there will be
a lot of youth about with time on their
hands who could attempt to copy some of
the stunts on the programme.
"We would advise them to be very careful
not to do anything which causes fear and
alarm to other members of the public or
indeed might even end up with themselves
being injured."
Violent videos and violent children
Newson's report begins, "Two year old James Bulger was brutally and
sadistically murdered on 12 February 1993 by two 10 year old children".
Harrowing details of the murder set the scene for a different
explanation than that the children were simply 'evil freaks'. She argues
"...already the most cursory reading of news since then suggests that it
is not a 'one-off", concluding that what is now different is "the easy
availability to children of gross images of violence on video".
This section comprises one third of her report and seems to be based
entirely on accounts in the popular press. Of course readers of the
report might reasonably assume that a professor of Child Psychology
might be expected to know more about the cases described than the
average citizen.
The attribution of motives such as 'sadistically', 'the expectation and
satisfaction of deliberate and sustained violence'; the implied
familiarity in the use of 'Jamie' (instead of the preferred family name
'James') provide an illusory independent verification of press
speculation.
Press speculation on the influence of video violence has begun to bear
more than a passing resemblance to a medieval witch-hunt. Despite
police evidence that there appeared to be no link with video violence in
the James Bulger case, parallels with Child's Play 3 were fancifully
drawn.
Journal of Mental Health (1994) 3, 485-494
On November 25th 1993 The Sun newspaper
organised a public burning of the film. While
Newson does not cite Child's Play in the context of
the Bulger case, she later links it to a murder: "In
England an adolescent girl was tortured by her
'friends' over days, using direct quotations from a
horror video (Child's Play 3) as part of her
torment".
However, just as with the Bulger murder, police
evidence that videos were not implicated is ignored
by Newson as it was in the considerable press
speculation about the Capper case. The 'link' in the
murder of Suzanne Capper was not to a film but to
the lyrics of a heavy metal band whose music had
been recorded off a local radio station. This police
evidence seems to have been as much as a surprise
to the Home Affairs Committee (22nd June 1994)
as it was to Newson as the following exchange
reveals:
Professor Newson: "The Suzanne Capper case is another example of
a very explicit imitation of video and the use of a video and that
was Child's Play 3."
Sir Ivan Lawrence (chair): "We were told this morning that that
had been looked into and that the Earl Ferrers in the House of
Lords has denied - I have not got the evidence we heard this
morning - that there was a basis in the Capper case of Child's Play
3".
Professor Newson: "The soundtrack was actually played".
Sir Ivan Lawrence (chair): "Can I read from an analysis of this
from Mr Ferman of the British Board of Film Classification of
course. What was played to her was a rock version of the music
from the first Child's Play film recorded on Manchester Piccadilly
Pop Radio Station. That is all-music, not video?"
Professor Newson: "In that case it depends. That has been widely
misreported, I think in that case".
Sir Ivan Lawrence (chair): "Yes, it has".
Professor Newson: "That would depend then on whether that
particular girl had seen that film and whether she was able to
identify the film from the music".
Sir Ivan Lawrence (chair): "There were no videos in the houses that
this young lady was held in, apparently.’
1984 by George Orwell
How can we apply
the Hypodermic
Needle Theory to
this novel?
Clue: how are the
people of the
dystopia
controlled?
Josie and
the
Pussycats
Watch this very
exaggerated clip of
the media and its
effect on the
teenagers of this film!
What do you think are
the strengths of this
model?
What do you think are
the weaknesses of this
model?
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Problems with the theory
The assumptions that mass audience theory makes about the members of the
audience.
The audience has no role in the creation of meaning-there is textual determinism.
Elitism- in other words that it suggests a value judgement about these masses- that
they are easily led and not so perceptive and self- aware as the theorists who are
analysing them.
§
The media are often experienced by people alone.
§
Wherever they are in the world, the audience for a media text are all receiving
exactly the same thing. That is the text is understood in the same way by anyone
watching.
These assumptions lead to certain methodological conclusions-if the media has an
effect then it can be measured. These measurements can then be displayed
numerically. Thus a quantitative methodology is used.
A development of the direct effect approach is to argue that media effects are
mediated and that the texts themselves only provide the potential for certain types of
behaviour.
Clearly there are a wide variety of
supporters to this approach, from those
who believe in strengthening censorship
and regulations, to elements within the
media who create moral panics about the
forms of media output.
It is also worth remembering that some
areas of the media do seem to affect us
all; advertising is a good example of this,
and some aspects of news coverage.
Now let’s have a look at the
advertisements you found
for your homework.
How can we apply the
Hypodermic Needle Theory
to the advertisements?