Audience Theory

The Effect Models
'The power lies with the message of the text'


The Hypodermic Model
The messages in the media texts are injected into the audience by the powerful syringe like media. The audience is powerless to resist therefore the media works like a drug and the audience is DRUGGED, ADDICTED, DOPED and DUPED.


Key evidence for the Effects Model
The Frankhurt School theorised in the 1920's and 30's that the mass media acted to restrict and control audiences to the benefit of corporate capitilsm and governments.


The Bobo Doll Experiment
This is a very controversial piece of research that apparently proved that children copy violent behaviour. This was conducted in 1961 by Albert Bandura who was American.
In the experiment:
Children watched a video game where an adult attacked a clown toy called a Bobo doll.
The children were taken into a room with attractive toys that they were not allowed to touch. 
The children were then led to another room with Bobo dolls.
88% of the children imitated the violent behaviour that they had earlier viewed. 8 months later 40% of the children reproduced the same violent behaviour.


The conclusion reached was that the children will imitate violent media content. There are many problems with the experiment. In my opinion children do copy what they see, they can not help it. This is reality, but on the other hand people learn in different ways.


The Effects Model (backed up by the Bobo doll) is still the dominant theory used by politicians, some parts of the media and some religious organisations in attributing violence to the consumption of media texts.


Key examples cited as causing or being contributory factors are:
The film Childs Play 3.. in the murder of James Bulger in 1993