THE HYPODERMIC NEEDLE APPROACH

What is it?

In brief, it means that the media can influence what the audience does. The message that the media wants is “injected” into the audience’s mind which would stimulate a response.

It is also referred to as The Magic Bullet perspective.

It implies that mass media has a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences.

Example

The causal relationship between violent media and your actions. For example, a person may have recently watched a film where the character does a certain action and then the audience presumes that the action is socially accepted and thus does the action or recognises the action as acceptable.

The most famous example of what would be considered the result of the magic bullet or hypodermic needle model was the 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds and the subsequent reaction of its mass American audience.

Links to Mainstream Audiences

The Hypodermic Approach is seen a lot in mainstream films. For example, in mainstream films there is a sense of airbrushed reality (Good-looking people, heroes etc.) This injects a message into the audiences mind of a hero only being good-looking and in some cases, blonde pretty women being dumb etc.