Albert Bandura

Albert Bandura - Effects Debate

Albert Bandura came up with the idea that the media can implant ideas in the mind of the audience directly. The audience acquire attitudes, emotional responses and new styles of conduct through modelling. This debate suggests that media representation of transgressive behaviour, such as violence or physical aggression, can lead audience members to imitate those forms of behaviour.

Hyperdermic Needle Theory

The "Hyperdermic Needle Theory" says that mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on it's viewers and consumers. The mass media in the 1940s-50s had a massive impact on society's behaviour change. This was becasue:

• Radio and television was rapidly rising in popularity
• Advertising and propaganda made its way into peoples lives for the first time

This the0ry suggest that a large group of people could be 'injected' with a message designed to trigger a response, directly and uniformly. Mass media could also induce social concern over an issue, therefore creating a Moral Panic (a feeling of fear spread among a large number of people that some evil threatens the well-being of society.)

Stuart Hall Reception Theory

Stuart Hall created the Reception Theory that states that " media texts are encoded by the producer - they are loaded with values and messages that the producer wishes to convey to the audience. However the text is then decoded by the spectator. Different spectators will decode the text in different ways, because everyone is and sees things unique. This may perhaps not be the way the producer intended it to be read.


Stuart Hall identified three different decodings of the text:
Dominant (preferred)

• How the producer wants the audience to view the media text eg. watching a political news story and agreeing with it

Negotiated 

• A compromise between the preferred and oppositional readings, where the audience accepts parts of the producer's views, but has their own views on parts as well eg. watching a political news story and neither disagreeing or agreeing

Oppositional

• When the audience rejects the preferred reading and creates their own meaning for the text eg. total rejection of the political news story and active opposition.

A culmination of factors affect whether one takes the dominant, negotiable or oppositional reading such as: Life experience, Mood at the time of viewing, Age, Culture, Belief, Gender or Values.

Genre Steve Neale

Steve Neale states that genres all contain instances of repetition and difference, difference is essential to the to the economy of the genre if they hope to attract an audience. Each of these genres has a feature, also known as a convention, that is repeated in films that makes that genre unique and recognisable to the audience. However, film makers can add sub genres or a significant difference in the narrative to make it unique. He believes that films should conform to the required aspects of a genre, but a successful film wont stick the the classic regime.

Theory