Influencing the Audience

If audience is a mass, it raises all kinds of questions about the power of the media to influence people - not just individuals, but whole sectors of society. There have been a number of theories over the years about how exactly the media work on the mass audeince. Two I will outline are called The Hypodermic Model and The Two Step Flow Model.

The Hypodermic Model

It grew out of what is referred to as The Frankfurt School, a group of German Marxists in the 1930s who witnessed first hand how Hitler used propaganda to influence a nation. According to the theory the media is like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience who as a powerless mass have little choice but to be influenced - in other words, you watch something violent, you may go and do something violent.

This theory has been particularly popular when people have been considering violence in films. There have been films such as The Exorcist and A Clockwork Orange which have been banned in the past, partly because of a belief that they might encourage people to copy crimes within them. On the other hand no-one has ever really claimed that everyone will be affected by these texts in the same way. Many people have therefore seen the theory as simplistic because it doesn't take any account of people's individuality and yet it is still very popular in society in areas such as politics. Every time a young person does something violent and makes the news, newspapers and MPs will try to link their crime to video violence.

Another interesting example of the theory in action is the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Before every one of his murders, he watched a clip from his favourite film in order to get himself excited. This is the kind of fact that might seem to prove the hypodermic syringe theory.

The Two Step Flow

The Hypodermic model proved too clumsy for media researchers seeking to more precisely explain the relationship between audience and text. As the mass media became an essential part of life in societies around the world and did not reduce populations to a mass of unthinking drones, a more sophisticated explanation was sought.

Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential campaign and published their results in a paper. Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the mind of is audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active asociates, over whom they have influence. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow.

This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts.

The Cultivation/Culmination Theory

According to this, while any one media text does not have too much effect, it shows that although one viewing may not have a big effect, viewing constantly over time has a greater effect on people’s behaviour, making them desensitised (distanced from ones emotions). Therefore the result being that violence in the media means children become less shocked by real life violence. On the other hand many may become more sensitised, this is where the viewers are shocked by the violence, therefore becoming more aware and emotional.

Gratification Theory

According to this theory, we all have different uses for the media and we make choices over what we want to watch. In other words, when we encounter a media text it is not just some kind of mindless entertainment - we are expecting to gain something from it: some kind of gratification. In this model the individual has the power and they select the media texts that best suit their needs and attempts to satisfy those needs. Researchers have found four kinds of gratifications individuals recieve:

1. Information: we want to find out about society and the world, we want to satisfy our curiosity. This would fit NEWS AND DOCUMENTARIES.
2. Personal Identity: we may watch television in order to look for models for our behaviour. So, for example, we may identify with characters that we see in SOAPS.
3. Intergration and Social Interaction: we use the media in order to find out more about the circumstances of other people and help us to empathise and sympathise with the lives of others.
4. Entertainment: sometimes we simply use the media for enjoyment, relaxtion or just to fill time.

Reception Theory

This theory is based on the idea that the audience create their own image of media texts, meaning that although a number of people watch the same programme, individuals interpret it in their own way. This can be influenced by the our individual upbringing, the mood we are in, the place where we are at the time or all kinds of other factors. David Morley classes the varied readings of people in three groups, which are:

Preferred Reading: what the media producers hope the audience will take from the text.

Oppositional Reading: audiences from outside the target audience may reject the preferred reading, receiving their own alternative message.

Negotiated Reading: audiences acknowledge the preffered reading but modify it to suit their own values and opinions.