Impacts of Media Products



Impacts of media products on their audiences.
  • What is meant by the media effects Debate? 
  • Can you provide details of media based moral panics?
Classification Issues.
  • Violent Content Films
  1. Heathers (15)
  2. Deadpool (15)
  3. OITNB (15)
  4. 13 Reasons Why (18)
  5. Hot Fuzz (15)
  • Dangerous Behaviour
  • Discrimination 
  • Drugs
  • Language 
  • Nudity
  • Sex
  • Sexual Violence
  • Sexual Threat
  • Threat and Horror
  • Violence
Media Effects Debate
  • For as long as there have been media products, there have been people concerned with the effect that they have on their audience. 
  • This debate is rarely focused on any potential positive effects and is often focused on a perceived negative effect on the audience's attitudes and behaviour - particularly children.
  • These discussions are based upon a passive audience theory that
Hypodermic Syringe Theory 
  • This theory was first discussed in the 1930's (Particularly with the rise of Hitler and the third reich) and built upon by Vance Packard in the 1950's. At it's heart it is a simple idea: mess media has the power to 'inject' a message straight into the audiences mind. 
  • TRUMP
Desensitisation 
  • In the 1970's, sociologists Gerbner and Gross proposed the idea of cultivation theory: Repeated viewing of violent imagery leads to a desensitisation towards it, leading the audience to normalise increasingly violent content. 
Moral Panics
  • In the early 1970's Stanley Cohen identified the process by which the press created moral panics - blaming media texts for negative behaviours in society by individuals or groups.
  • Key moral panics
  1. 1987 - Hungerford gun attack blamed on Rambo.
  2. 1992 - Murder of toddler James Bulger by pre-teens blamed on Child's Play 3.
  3. 1999 - Columbine School Shooting blamed for Doom/Wolfenstein 3D.
  4. 2018 - President Trump blames video games for the Parkland School Shooting.
Active Audience Theories
  • In recent years, media and sociology academics have pushed back against the passive audience model. Academics such as David Gauntlett point out that audiences are active in their consumption of media texts and choose how to consume them - they are in control.

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