The Effect of Media on Audiences:
What are the effects of the media on…
● People’s actual behaviour- aggressiveness, consumer behaviour, voting behaviour,
drinking, drug taking, eating disorders etc
● People’s opinions- on immigration, who to vote for, about different groups of people in
society e.g. women, LGBTQ, ethnicity, class, gender roles, disability etc.
Passive Audience= homogenous, vulnerable, easily influenced by the media
Active Audiences= Interact with the media, less influenced and have choice in the way they
use and interpret the media
The Hypodermic Syringe Model:
● Popular through the years with many people who fear the moral effects of the media
● The media is like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the
audience, who are a powerless mass who have little choice but to be influenced
● Watching something violent= wanting to do something violent
Desensitisation:
● Elizabeth Newson (1994) investigated the effects of violent games and films
● She concluded that sadistic images in films are too easily available and encouraged
the viewers to identify with the perpetrators rather than the victims
● Children are subjected to thousands of killings and acts of violence through TV and
film and this has a drip-drip effect on young people over the course of their
childhood- they become desensitised
●
Desensitisation= The acceptance of violent behaviour as a normal, problem solving device
Feminist Perspective:
● Orbach (1991) and Wolf (1990) have argued that media representations of femininity
may be producing a generation of females who suffer from eating disorders
● Dines (2011) have argued that men’s consumption of pornography may be harmful in
terms of encouraging negative attitudes towards women
Imitation or Copycat Violence:
● Bandura (1963) conducted a lab experiment in which three groups of children were
shown real, film and cartoon examples of a Bobo Doll being hit with a mallet.
● A fourth group were shown no violent activity
, ● The children were then put in a room of exciting toys and were deliberately frustrated
by not being able to play with them
● They were then led into another room with a Bobo Doll and observed through a one
way mirror
● The film, cartoon and real life groups all showed more aggression against the doll
than the fourth group
● Bandura concluded that media violence could lead to imitation or copycat violence
Censorship:
● Newson’s report in particular has had a great impact on society and has led to
greater censorship
● The British Board of Film Classification have come under increasing pressure to
insist on filmmakers making cuts to scenes of bad language, drug use and violence
● All TV channels have a 9 o'clock watershed and will warn viewers before sowing
programmes with bad language or scenes of a sexual or violent nature
● In 2006, an advert campaign for a film starring the American rapper 50 Cent was
criticised for glamorising gun crime
● In 2007, the government launched a review of the impact of media violence on
children, with the emphasis on the supposedly excessive violent and graphical sexual
images found on children’s TV, internet and in video games such as GTA
● In 2008, an OFCOM survey reported that ⅔ of their sample of children aged 12-15
claimed that violence in computer games had more impact on their behaviour than
violence in film or on TV
Research Evidence:
● Huesmann (2003)- followed 300 participants from age 8 until their 20s and found
that those who had watched violent shows at an early age were more likely to be
aggressive in their 20s
● Johnson et al (2002)- found a significant relationship between the amount of time
watching TV during their teenage years and aggressive behaviour and young adults
Methodological Problems with Studying Media Violence:
● Much of the research has been conducted in an artificial laboratory setting with small
samples
● What is defined as violence?
● There is a difference between cartoon, fictional and real-life violence, but can this be
measured accurately?
● Ethics of researching this area- putting people in situations to test their reactions to
violent imagery
● People may not react the same in a lab as they do in real life
● Almost impossible to avoid the Hawthorne effect
● Difficult to separate out the effects of the media from other factors such as
socialisation or peer group influences- people react in different ways to the same
violent images depending on the situation they are in
