LESSON 125315: FEELING THE BENEFIT

This lesson we're moving forward to explore the application of theories.

Learning the theory is good, essential even. However, you need to show the examiner that you understand the theory and this can only ever be achieved by applying the theoretical concept to an actual media product.

today we're going to take the theoretical model of Blumler and Katz of USES AND GRATIFICATIONS and apply them to the opening credits of a TV programme.

You need to keep in mind two issues - [1] you need to know the theory and [2] you need to remember the model of approaching media product analysis that we have learned in previous lessons :

• what is it?
•  who is it aimed at?
•  what expectations do they have?
•  does the product meet these? 
• how? 
• what is the impact of this?

In applying these to Benefits Street we will also encounter the development of the next vital theoretical model.

LESSON 125215: BEING NEEDED

This lesson is all about possibly one of the most useful theoretical models of media audience theory - Blumler and Katz USES AND GRATIFICATIONS

        The second major idea of the mass audience theory was that the mass were all watching the same text.  This suggests that a film will be the same for every person who watches it.

       A basis of Media Studies is that each of us has an individual way of seeing any media text, we experience the same text in very different ways- so different it could almost be another text.  The messages of film [and other media texts] are received by audiences who are not an anonymous mass but a collection of individuals with their own hopes, dreams, beliefs, desires, needs.

        This lead to research into WHY people watch specific films or types of media text

Uses and Gratifications Theory is an approach to understanding why people actively seek out specific media outlets and content for gratification purposes. The theory discusses how users proactively search for media that will not only meet a given need but enhance knowledge, social interactions and diversion

 It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs. The approach suggests that people use the media to fulfil specific gratifications.

In 1944 Herta Herzog began classified the reasons why people chose types of media. She interviewed radio soap opera fans and identified three types of gratifications based on why people listened to soap operas :  emotional, wishful thinking, learning

In 1970 Abraham Maslow suggested a Uses and Gratifications Theory as an extension of the Needs and Motivation Theory. The basis for his argument was that people actively looked to satisfy their needs based on a hierarchy. The pyramid hierarchy began on the bottom with Biological/Physical, Security/Safety, Social/Belonging, Ego/Self-Respect and Self-actualization at the top

LESSON 125115: ONE STEP BEYOND

The idea suggests that because we often watch the media independently, it has more chance of affecting us. [Certainly many parents think this is true and will make a point of sitting with their young children while they watch potentially disturbing programmes so that they can have some influence on the way the children take in the messages and explain confusing issues, but do adults need to be protected in the same ways?]  

Some critics of the idea of the mass audience have pointed out the many ways that individuals who watch programmes alone will then share their experience with others in conversations about what they have seen. One argument is that these kind of conversations have much more influence on potential behaviour than the programme.

THIS THE 2 STEP-FLOW THEORY

The 2-step flow

 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 voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign. Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over whom they have influence. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a 2-step flow. 

Think about this honestly- are your opinions about television, films, music etc ever influenced by other people? Who? How?

Going a stage further- do you think a friend's ideas about a media text could ever effect your behaviour in any way?

There is some suggestion that what happened in the James Bulger case is that Venables or Thompson talked about a film they had seen [Child’s Play] and influenced the other's behaviour

LESSON 125015: ARE YOU SENSITIVE

DESENSITISATION:

GENTILE:

n an experiment to determine the effects of violent video games causing physiological desensitization to real-life violence, participants played either a violent or non-violent video game for 20 minutes. After that, they watched a 10 minute video containing real-life violence while their heart rate and galvanic skin responses were being monitored. The participants who played violent video games previously to watching the video showed lower heart rate and galvanic skin response readings compared to those who had not played violent video games displaying a physiological desensitization to violence

Children are exposed to outlets of media more and more in their everyday lives.  The violent and inappropriate things that they see through these forms of media desensitize them and have a large negative impact on their everyday lives. Desensitization to violence is a subtle, almost incidental process which may occur as a result of repeated exposure to real-life violence, as well as exposure to media violence. Emotional desensitization is evident when there is numbing or blunting of emotional reactions to events which would typically elicit a strong response. Cognitive desensitization is evident when the belief that violence is uncommon and unlikely becomes the belief that violence is mundane and inevitable

The "hypodermic needle theory" implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences.

The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful influence on behavior change.

Several factors contributed to this "strong effects" theory of communication, including:

•- the fast rise and popularization of radio and television

•- the emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda

•- the Payne Fund studies of the 1930s, which focused on the impact of motion pictures on children

•- Hitler's monopolization of the mass media during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi party

LESSON 124915

coursework research session

LESSON 124815

coursework research session

LESSON 124715

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LESSON 124615

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