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1. Theory: Hypodermic needle model
Theorists: Herta Herzog and Paul Lagerfeld
What is the theory?
This theory is a about mass media that has an effect that can have an immediate effect on
an audience. This theory suggests that us as viewers accept information given to us by the
media. For example, if you look at Instagram we as users see images of people’s lives. We
see images of users taking pictures of their life showing us how many holidays they go on
and how much money they have. Just looking at these pictures we accept that they are
wealthy and have a good quality of life. In reality this person isn’t rich and doesn’t always
go on holiday they are just pictures taken from a holiday they went on 6 months before the
upload and they are still posting pictures of it. Just like the majority they will go on holiday
once a year and will have the same quality of life as you the user. People post on Instagram
to show how good their life is and it’s not what it seems. Some users believe what they see
and they believe that, that person has a better quality of life when they don’t.
Does this theory see the audience as active or passive? Why do you think this?
The audience is passive because they are receiving the media and are instantly accepting it
not having any of their own ideas or experiences. A passive audience is an audience that
merely observes a media product rather than actively responding to it. The active audience
will receive the information and they will be actively involved. This is the active audience
theory. They will think actively about the text when they are watching it. They will question
the message in the text and ask themselves questions about what the message might be,
they may interpret media texts differently than passive audience members.
What are the criticisms of this theory?
The criticisms of this theory are the fact that people have their own opinions and they may
not believe what they see.
Apply the theory: A good example of this would be Mixmag. Mixmag realised news about
Ibiza in 2018 will be giving out free water bottles to club goers. Normally a bottle of water
in Ibiza cost €12. As you can see lots of the public where very happy about this statement
until it got released that it was just April fools. As it was released by such I reliable source,
lots of users believed the story. Here is an example I found on twitter.