2. The hypodermic needle model is about audiences.
The idea is that messages are directly received and
accepted by the audience you are targeting at. The
theory suggests that people will do as they are told,
However it is now feared that it could no longer
exist as said by Katz and lazarfeld.
An example can come from what was the Nazi
propaganda and how something as little as a poster
with a soldier acting positively to the situation
persuaded people. It tried to show that the Jews
were ‘bad guys’ and put in place to recruit people
or support what was happening.
The main theorist behind this was Harold Lasswell.
This is considered to be passive consumption and
what media can do to people. The pictures show
what hypodermic needle is supposed to do and
make you think in a certain way.
3. Uses and Gratifications theory tries to explain why people
consume media products and what they will receive from it. It
discusses how users deliberately choose media that will satisfy
given needs. This is seen as active consumption and what
people do to the media. It is based on Communication to a
mass media target.
The main theorists behind this are Herta Herzog who founded
the earliest form, Jay Blumer and Denis McQuail studied the
election in the UK and looked at how peoples motives changed
by watching mass marketed television programmes, from this
they could tell how people were influenced by what they saw.
Since then the radio and TV have had a very big influence on
the media.
4. Denis McQuail, like all the other theorists
looked into why people use Media. He came up
with 4 categories. Information; Where you want
to find out news for self-education. Personal
Identity; To reinforce personal values and
models of behaviour being found in actions.
Integration and Social interaction; Having a
substitute for human companionship such as
social network sites like Facebook.
Entertainment; escaping problems and
relaxing.
5. This theory looks how the audience interprets the media that they
consume. Stuart Hall developed this theory and made it with 2
parts.
The first being that of Encoding and Decoding. Encoding is that f
where the product wants to get a message across but through a
subtle way. Anchoring is used in Newspapers to relate the images
and headlines with a goal of making you buy it. Decoding is
almost the opposite and where the media product lets the
consumer decode the message of what has been put inside.
The second part looks at how someone understands a product
and what their views are towards it.
6. Hall’s idea said that there were 3 ways in interpreting a
media text. Preferred, Negotiated and Oppositional.
Preferred is where the reader understands what has
happened or been reported and agrees with the general
view about it.
Negotiated is where the reader generally accepts what
they are reading however puts themselves in that position
and tries to understand that from their own experiences.
Oppositional is where the reader understands the reading
but does not agree with what has been put and has the
opposite view to it.
7. Passive audiences do not apply their own ideas when buying a
product, the hypodermic needle therefore assumes audiences
are passive. They are Passive because they tell the audience
what to think and how they should interpret the media given to
them. This is where the person does not pay attention to what
is being said but gets psychologically effected by the media.
For example seeing an advert where someone eats some crisps
makes you want to eat crisps.
Active audiences apply their own thoughts, ideas and
experiences to the media, Uses and Gratifications are therefore
active. This is the opposite to passive and where someone goes
out their way to pay attention to what has been written.
8. When looking at Television programmes such
as Family guy you can easily understand the
meanings on what influences and audience.
A Preferred reading on this would be that when
looking at the main character Peter Griffin. It
would insist that all American males are obese
and do stupid things.
9. A Negotiated view on it could be that they
accept the stupid things Peter does however
there may be a reason behind it.
A Oppositional view would be that they
completely disagree with the content and
consider the characters to be false and not to
be taken seriously. Also that it should not
represent many males in America.
10. When applying hypodermic Needle to a Television
programme such as Family Guy then it is clear to
see that it is telling you in a passive way what to
believe about the show and how to interpret the
way the characters behave. Using the 4 categories
distinguished by McQuail it is clear that watching
the show is found in the entertainment side and
that of escaping your own problems and be also be
seen as relaxing.
