Explanations on the Influence of the Media

Explanations on the Influence of the Media

IGCSE Sociology

Lesson objectives

• Explain and assess the different explanations of the influence of the media

• Define the following:

  • Hypodermic syringe model

  • Audience selection

  • Cultural effects approach

  • The press

  • Uses and gratifications model

Effects of media

Influences of the media

• Hypodermic syringe model

• Audience selection

• Cultural effects

• Uses and gratifications​

hypodermic syringe model

Argues that the media have direct and immediate effects on audiences.

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It assumes that the audience is passive and soaks in media messages, and they are affected the same way.​

Note: this model is populate in the early years ot eh 20th century.

hypodermic syringe model (two aspects)

• Companies often believe that advertising would be successful leading to increase in sales

Note: this model is populate in the early years ot eh 20th century.

• Used for propaganda, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union

• In situations where people do not have access to alternative information, propaganda can be succesful.​

Open Ended

In your opinion, does the hypodermic syringe model still applicable to today's world?

Two-step flow model

A variation of the hypodermic syringe model where social interactions add to the influence of the media.

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• People discuss with others what they have seen, read or heard before deciding how to react. In this case, the opinions of some people - opinion leaders- are more important than others.​

Audience selection

Claims that the audience is actively reading media texts rather than passively consuming them. ​The audience may receive the message different from how the producers encoded the message.

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Selective attention and retention - people receive media content differently based on their interests.

Researched and interviewed groups of people about how they responded to television news and current affairs programs.

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He concluded that ​different socio-economic classes interpret the meaning of a television programme in different ways.

News and Current affairs are "news broadcasts"

David Morley

David morley's arguments:

• In a dominant (or hegemonic) reading, readers share the programme's code and fully accept the program's preferred reading.

• In a negotiated reading, readers partly share the programme's code and broadly accept the preferred reading but modify it in a way that reflects their position and interests.

• In an oppositional (or counter-hegemonic) reading, readers do not share the programme's code and reflect the preferred reading.​

Programme's code: meaning, system of values, attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions

In Summary:

Meanings are produced by audiences (which vary by class, age, ethnicity, gender and so on) but that audience has to work on the text, which has been put together in particular ways by produces.

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Media have the power and ability to influence audiences by pushing preferred readings, but this power is limited by the ability of the audience to produce alternative readings.​

Open Ended

In your opinion, can the media control its audience?

Cultural effects

Focuses on the slow, cumulative effects of the media.

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In contrast with the hypodermic syringe explanation, which sees the effects as immediate.​

If women are shown in a particular way by the media, then this representation will slowly but steadily shape how people think of women.

Feminists have also been concerned about the long-term effects on both boys and girls of prolonged exposure to sexist stereotypes.

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Example: boys in a boarding school​

Factors that influence audience rejection/beliefs

• The role of direct experience

• The use of logic

• Affiliations and sympathies

• The source of information​

Glasgow Media Group research suggests that audience do not simply absorb message and they can distinguish between fact and fiction.

Uses and gratifications

Focuses on how audiences use the media rather than they are affected by them.

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It believes that the audiences are in control, rather than being influenced by the media​ as people have needs that can be met by consuming media stories.

This explanation is closely related related to the pluralist approach.

​What effects do the media have?

How do audiences use the media?

McQuail suggested four headings for uses and gratifications.​

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• Entertainment

• Personal relationships

• Personal identity

• Information​

Problems with Uses and gratification explanations

• It does not look at media messages, which tend to assume are unambiguous, only at people's use of them.

• It does not consider that audiences may have been taught by the media to have the needs that the media then satisfy (learning to enjoy what is available), as would be suggested by Marxists.

• It does not look at the social context of the audience (such as different classes, ethnic groups and ages). Different sectors or the audience may have more or less agency in their ability to use the media in the way this model suggests.​