Response and BehaviourBen White

The Hypodermic needle model

This theory states that the media control the public and convey their point in such a manner that it has a huge impact on the audiences actions against/for what the text is about and can could them to do something. This is done by ‘injecting’ the audience with specific messages in hopes to trigger a response from them. With the information that has been fired at them, there is a strong chance the audience will end up thinking what they have been told is fully true. In the 1940s and 50s, the mass media were perceived as having a powerful influence of public opinions and behaviours.

A good example of this being successful was the radio representation of the novel ‘War of the worlds’ was performed as though it were a proper radio broadcast. This cause people to believe that Earth was actually under attack.

Inoculation ModelThe inoculation theory is seen as a passive audience theory which means that audiences that are exposed to extreme media messages will soon become resistant to it and therefor will not take any future exposures as seriously, or desensitise, due to already knowing about the media and knowing what to expect. It can also be perceived as resistance to persuasion, which means that the audience will be stuck to their opinion and most likely not change. An example would be gamers. Gamers who play lots of violent games would probably react differently to any blood or gore they see in real life as opposed to if they had never played any games.

The two-step flow model

In 1944,Paul Lazarsfield, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet introduced the two-step flow model. They focused on the upcoming presidential election campaign and how the people made their decisions. They discovered that there are special ‘opinion leaders’ , which are people that the public look up to such as parents, celebrities or leaders. These people take information from various media texts and create their own opinion on the matter. They would then tell others in social contact with the opinion leader their own views and these individuals would most likely form an opinion based on the opinion leaders.

An example would be in the Scottish vote for independence. It has been estimated that roughly 50% of people would be influenced by opinion leaders, whilst others would make their own decisions that could not be influenced or changed and these decisions would have been made quite some time before the voting day.

Uses and Gratifications Theory

This theory focuses on what the audience would actually do with the media instead of the actual message itself. The audience aren’t viewed as passive, but they would take the media on-board and try to integrate it into their own lives. Basic models include:

• Identify – Being able to recognise and know what the media is.

• Educate – being able to understand the information that the individual has obtained.

• Entertain – Whether what the media portrays creates enjoyment and fun for the audience or not.

• Social interaction – The ability to create a conversation between a group about the media or spark a debate.

An example would be a game called Super Smash Bros 4. This would create social interaction between players as well as entertainment. It could educate the players as it tells them how to play as well as special moves or techniques they could use to win. Further education for the game can also be found online on sites such as YouTube, or even through social interaction.

Reception Theory

This theory recognises the audience as being an essential component to understand the medias larger or deeper meaning.

“It teaches that overarching purpose or meaning is a process of interaction and reaction between the reader and the text, and can change based on who is interpreting the words.”

A good example of this would be how different people would interpret gaming magazines. Gamers and teenagers would most likely see them as cool and awesome, but older people who don’t play games or haven’t seen video games before would read it and think that, for example, shooter games would be extremely violent, terrifying and disgusting.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-reception-theory.htm