Entry 3 – Understanding the effects of Media on Audiences 11/10/2011

I have learned the 3 main debates concerning the effects of Media on Audiences:

1)      The effects of exposure to explicit sexual or violent content

2)      The effects of advertising

3)      Censorship

These are the predicted results of Media on Audiences:

Direct: Audiences may demonstrate more aggressive behaviour themselves, or they may have more approving attitudes towards the use of violence to resolve conflicts.

Desensitization: The audience becomes so used to explicit material they no longer find it offensive or obscene. They reaction is lessened and this is the reason why movies have gone to greater extremes to provoke a reaction from an audience with films like the Human Centipede and Saw.

Mean World Syndrome: Watching large amounts of violence on TV may lead audiences to belive that the real world contains this amount of pain and violence.

The effects of media are more often assumed to be negative than positive. People who use these theories ignore outside elements such as cultural background, education and upbringing. They rely on the hypodermic Needle Model to argue their debate and ignore the uses and gratifications model. Despite the high number of theories, the relationship between violent media influencing our actions has never been proven completely, media can even have a cathartic effect on audiences.