4. Effects Theories
• Mass media/mass communications make
people powerless to resist messages the
media carries
• Consumers are ‘drugged’, ‘addicted’ or
‘hypnotised’
• Effects theories taken up with protection of
young, link between violence and the
media
5. Effects Theories
Historical stuff
• Frankfurt School: Marxist German
intellectuals reacting against Nazi
propaganda and US advertising –
suggested the power of big corporations
and the state to control how we think
• Rise of TV in the 50’s and 60’s – fear of
danger to children
6. Effects Theories
Historical Stuff
• Influence of behavioural scientists (think of
Pavlov’s dogs) – media may reinforce
attitudes through repetition
• Bobo doll experiment (1963) – Bandura
and Walters – children imitate adult
treatment of doll seen on film
7. Effects Theories
• Moral panics: Concern, hostility,
consensus, disproportionality, volatility
• Two step flow:
Media
Text
8. Effects Theories
• Moral panics: Concern, hostility,
consensus, disproportionality, volatility
• Two step flow:
Media
Text
Opinion
Leaders
9. Effects Theories
• Moral panics: Concern, hostility,
consensus, disproportionality, volatility
• Two step flow:
Media
Text
Opinion
Leaders
Media
Consumers
10. Effects Theories
• Moral panics: Concern, hostility,
consensus, disproportionality, volatility
• Two step flow:
Media
Text
Opinion
Leaders
Media
Consumers
1
11. Effects Theories
• Moral panics: Concern, hostility,
consensus, disproportionality, volatility
• Two step flow:
Media
Text
Opinion
Leaders
Media
Consumers
1 2
12. Effects Theories
What’s wrong with effects theories?
• The problems with violence are often
social/psychological not to do with the media
• The media can often be positive rather than
harmful
• Criticism of the media using the effects model is
often politically motivated
• There is not real grounding of research and
theory for this model.
13. U&G
• Users of the media use media texts to
satisfy certain needs
• Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs
14. U&G: Denis McQuail (1987)
•
•
•
•
Information: finding out about the world; seeking advice;
satisfying curiosity; education; gaining security though
knowledge
Personal Identity: reinforcement of personal values;
models of behaviour; identifying with valued other;
gaining insight into oneself
Integration and Social Interaction: gaining insight into
circumstances of others; identifying with others; basis for
conversation with others; substitute for real life
companionship; helping to carry out social roles;
enabling connection with family friends and society
Entertainment: escapism; diversion; relaxation; cultural
or aesthetic enjoyment; filling time; emotional release;
sexual arousal
15. U&G: James Lull (1990)
Structural
•
•
Environmental: background noise; companionship; entertainment
Regulative: keeping time; part of pattern of daily life
Relational
•
•
•
• Communication Facilitation: experience illustration; common ground;
conversation starter; anxiety reduction; agenda for talk; value
clarification
Affiliation/Avoidance: physical/verbal contact/neglect; family
solidarity; family relaxant/conflict reducer; relationship maintenance
Social Learning: decision making; behaviour modelling; problem
solving; value transmission; legitimization; information dissemination;
education
Competence/Dominance: role enactment; role reinforcement;
substitute role portrayal; intellectual validation; authority exercise;
gatekeeping; argument facilitation
16. U&G: Richard Kilborn (1992)
• Part of routine and entertaining reward for work
• Launchpad of social and personal interaction
• Fulfilling individual needs – a way of choosing to
be alone or of enduring enforced loneliness
• Identification or involvement with characters
• Escapist fantasy
• Focus of debate on topical issues
• Kind of critical game involving knowledge of
rules or conventions of the genre
17. U&G: Problems
• We may not have choice about what we
watch
• Neglects any aspects of effects theories
• Neglects socio-economic factors
18. Reception Theory
Often as opposite to Effects theories
Sees media consumption as active not
passive
Suggests media texts are polysemic
Research examines social, cultural,
economic, gender, sexuality as influence
on the reading of media texts
22. Nationwide Audience
David Morley 1980
Different social/economic groups watched
same TV programme
Interviews reveal different readings of
same text
23. Nationwide Audience
Dominant (Hegemonic) reading: reader
shares the encoded meanings of the text
Negotiated reading: reader shares some
of the embedded ideologies but not all
Oppositional (counter-hegemonic)
reading: where the reader does not share
the programme’s code and rejects the
preferred reading
24. Nationwide Audience
Members of the same subculture will tend
to decode texts in similar ways.
Individual readings of texts will be
framed by shared cultural formations
and practices.
26. Watching Dallas
Ien Ang 1985
Different social/cultural groups watched
same TV programme
Interviews reveal different readings of
same text
27. Watching Dallas
Importance is the pleasure derived from
‘Dallas’ as entertainment
Independent of ideas about mass culture
28. Watching Dallas
Readers saw characters as either realistic
or unrealistic
All saw characters as ‘genuine’
‘Emotional Realism’
May see the programme as lowbrow but
accept that it is entertaining.
30. Leibes and Katz on Dallas
(1984)
International cross cultural groups
watched Dallas
Retell the story
The retelling was shaped by cultural
background although there were similar
patterns amonst all groups
32. Watching Seinfeld
Lori Yanish 1995
Canadian and Dutch viewers’ reactions to
Seinfeld
Dutch viewers associated American
comedy with low class television
Media as cultural imperialism
35. Modes of Address
How a text is constructed to make us feel
that it is specifically aimed at us
The ways in which texts built to appeal to
particular audiences (Skins, any
children’s programme, The Sun)
