Report

Hypodermic needle
The hypodermic needle model (also
known as the hypodermicsyringe model, transmission-belt model,
or magic bullet theory) is a model of
communications suggesting that an
intended message is directly received
and wholly accepted by the receiver.
The theory essentially suggests to us
that the mass media could influence a
very large group of people directly and
uniformly by shooting or injecting
them with appropriate messages
designed to trigger a desired response.
Both images used to express this theory (a bullet and a needle) suggest a
powerful and direct flow of information from the sender to the receiver.
The bullet theory graphically suggests that the message is a bullet, fired
from the "media gun" into the viewer's "head". With similarly emotive
imagery the hypodermic needle model suggests that media messages are
injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced
by the message. They express the view that the media is a dangerous
means of communicating an idea because the receiver or audience is
powerless to resist the impact of the message. There is no escape from
the effect of the message in these models. The population is seen as a
sitting duck. People are seen as passive and are seen as having a lot
media material "shot" at them. People end up thinking what they are told
because there is no other source of information.
The debate goes back and forth whether the media effects our mental
state and can inflict on our decisions. Its been scientifically proven that
playing video games can have many benefits such as hand eye coordination, focus and space awareness. But there is no significant proof
that it can cause mental trauma and cause incidents such as the
Columbine shooting or the supposed shooting due to the video game GTA.

Gratification Theory
Uses and gratifications theory is an approach to understanding why and
how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. UGT
is an audience-centred approach to understanding mass communication.

There are many uses to the gratification theory, but the main four uses
include
Identify being able to recognise the person or product in front of you,
role models that reflect similar values to yours, aspiration to be someone
else.
Educate being able to acquire information, knowledge and
understanding.
Entertain What you are consuming should give you enjoyment and also a
form of escapism, enabling us to escape our worries temporarily.
Social interaction The ability for media products to produce a topic of
conversation between other people, sparks debates.
Assumptions of the theory
Unlike other theories concerning media consumption, UGT gives the
consumer power to discern what media they consume, with the
assumption that the consumer has a clear intent and use. This contradicts
previous theories such as mass society theory, that states that people are
helpless victims of mass media produced by large companies;
and individual differences perspective, which states that intelligence and
self-esteem largely drive an individual's media choice.
Given these differing theories, UGT is unique in its assumptions

The audience is active and its media use is goal oriented

The initiative in linking need gratification to a specific medium

choice rests with the audience member

The media compete with other resources for need satisfaction

People have enough self-awareness of their media use, interests,

and motives to be able to provide researchers with an accurate picture
of that use.

Value judgments of media content can only be assessed by the

audience.

Reception Theory

Reception theory is a version of reader response literary theory that

emphasizes each particular reader's reception or interpretation in making

meaning from a literary text. Reception theory is generally referred to

as audience reception in the analysis of communications models. In
literary studies, reception theory originated from the work of Hans-Robert
Jauss in the late 1960s, and the most influential work was produced during
the 1970s and early 1980s in Germany and the US (Fortier 132), with
some notable work done in other Western European countries. A form of
reception theory has also been applied to the study of historiography, as
detailed in Reception history (below).
The cultural theorist Stuart Hall has been one of the main proponents of
reception theory, having developed it for media and communication
studies from the literary and history-oriented approaches mentioned
above. His approach, called the encoding/decoding model of
communication, is a form of textual analysis that focuses on the scope of
"negotiation" and "opposition" by the audience. This means that a "text"
be it a book, movie, or other creative work is not simply passively
accepted by the audience, but that the reader/viewer interprets the
meanings of the text based on her or his individual cultural background
and life experiences. In essence, the meaning of a text is not inherent
within the text itself, but is created within the relationship between the
text and the reader.
Hall also developed a theory of encoding and decoding, Hall's theory,
which focuses on the communication processes at play in texts that are in
televisual form.
Reception theory has since been extended to the spectators of
performative events, focusing predominantly on the theatre. Susan
Bennett is often credited with beginning this discourse. Reception theory
has also been applied to the history and analysis of landscapes, through
the work of the landscape historian John Dixon Hunt, as Hunt recognized
that the survival of gardens and landscapes is largely related to their
public reception.

Passive or Active Consumption

There is a big literature in cultural studies about whether we consume
cultural objects passively (accepting things without thinking) or actively
(critically assessing before accepting, or maintaining a critical distance
from the artefact). This is an interesting cognitive question. Perhaps some
of the most critical people must begin as dogmatists to learn (I accept I

am in this camp), and the most critical are the most learning-ambivalent.
How far do we resist objects as sources of information?
Is this a question of psychology, or cultural politics?
Furthermore; when we women of letters learn, how far do we be dogmatic;
do we doubt what we have read, even if we dont accept what is said?
Adults, and children are dogmatic if they consider their source reliable; my
idiot parents accept popular science.