COMM101

WEEK 3
Perspectives in Mass Communication: Traditional vs. Critical
Approaches
Thinking About Media Literacy
 Why do you think people have such strong
concerns about the impacts of the media?

 Can you think of some examples of these concerns

about the media impacting society?

 We’re always talking about the negatives of the

media. What about the positives? Can you think of
some positives of using the media?
TRADITIONAL APPROACHES TOWARDS
MASS COMM STUDIES

 Mass media can help society maintain an informed

democratic public
 But, it can also be used for propaganda
 Propaganda: Messages designed to change the
attitudes and behavior of huge numbers of people
 Walter Lippmann (1922), argued that the news media
are a primary source of the “pictures in our heads”
 They shape the external world that is “out of reach,
out of sight, out of mind”
 This is referred to as ‘agenda setting’
TRADITIONAL APPROACHES
 Magic bullet / hypodermic needle approach
 Hypo (under) – dermic (skin) : under the skin
 All messages delivered through the mass media
persuades all people powerfully and directly
 As if they had been hit by a bullet/injected by a needle
 Without the people having any control over the way
they reacted
 E.g. A well-made ad, emotionally grabbing movie, or a
vivid newspaper description is able to sway millions
towards the producer’s goals
TRADITIONAL APPROACHES
 What are the problems with the magic
bullet/hypodermic needle approach?
 Too simplistic
 Not everyone is an unthinking/uncritical consumer of
mass media
 Again, the word ‘mass’ has a negative connotation of
meaning anonymous, unthinking, mass of people
 In our time and context, we have an array of media
outlets and media products
 Not like the past when it was just one newspaper
company, or one television broadcaster, etc.
EFFECTS RESEARCH:
TRADITIONAL
 Focuses on looking at the effects of the media on
consumers, particularly kids: children, teens
 Effects research is still ongoing today
 Popular debates around violence in video games
 Sex in music videos, films  “what will all this do to our
youth?”
 There are some shared elements with hypodermic needle 
assumes the consumer will unthinkingly copy what they see
 Or, if they watch violent films, they will want to become
criminals, or beat their friends up
 Doesn’t take into account other factors like background,
parental supervision, personality/temperament of the child
USES AND GRATIFICATIONS MODEL

 Still traditional approach, but moving more towards

active audience
 People are not simply passive recipients of media
messages – they react and receive different
messages based on their personal backgrounds,
interests, interpersonal relationships, age, gender
 What is U&G?
 This model studies how people use media products
to meet their needs and interests
 Why do individuals use mass media?
USES AND GRATIFICATIONS MODEL

Key to this model is the belief that:

 It is just as important to know what people do with

media as it is to know what media do to people

 Consumers/Users of media are not just passive

receivers
 Remember how we mentioned that people use

media for enjoyment, social currency,

companionship
 TWO-STEP FLOW MODEL OF MEDIA
INFLUENCE: TRADITIONAL

 Media influence works in

two stages:
1. Media content is picked
up by people who use
the media frequently
2. These people act as
opinion leaders when
they discuss the content
with others
 The others are therefore
influenced, and become
opinion followers
QUESTION ABOUT TWO-STEP FLOW
MODEL

 How do social media such as Facebook, Twitter,

and Instagram fit within the two-step flow model?

 Who do you think are most likely to be opinion

leaders and why?

 What about Snapchat and TikTok?

 Are there any limitations in applying this model to

social media?
CRITICAL APPROACHES TO MASS
COMM
 Traditional approaches tend to focus on a change
 What do I mean by change?
 Change in behaviour after consuming media
 E.g. whether kids will become violent after
watching violent tv shows, or whether people will
learn more about politics after reading news
 This might not always be the case, but it’s the main
focus of mainstream approaches like hypodermic
needle/magic bullet, effects research, 2-step flow
CRITICAL APPROACHES TO MASS
COMM
 Critical approaches, on the other hand, look at
reinforcement of behaviour after consumption of
media
 For example, romance movies reinforce messages
about society and life for heterosexual individuals:
we need to find a partner, get married, have kids
 There are other ideas and beliefs which mass media
tend to reinforce
 Just look around you, and think about the last tv
show you watched
 What messages did it reinforce?
CRITICAL APPROACHES TO MASS
COMM
 The Frankfurt School and (1) critical theory
 Focuses on the corrosive influence of capitalism on
culture
 Social divides in society: income inequality
 Capitalism as a system in which the ruling class
controls the working class
 This inequality allows those with economic power to
control the lower classes who have no economic
power
 This permeates media organizations and society at
large
CRITICAL APPROACHES TO MASS
COMM
 (2) Political economy
 Relationship between economics and culture
 How the media system reflects the political
interests of society’s rich and powerful
 Researchers who utilise this theory talk about how
the media worry more about satisfying advertisers
and shareholders
 Rather than providing entertainment, info, or news
to people which trains them to engage with society
CRITICAL APPROACHES TO MASS
COMM
 (2) Political economy
 An example would also be commercially driven
journalism – one company owns many news companies
 Media conglomerates like Disney, Rupert Murdoch,
Google owns Facebook, IG, etc.
 How is this problematic? Real-world problem when
Brian Ross, from ABC News wanted to report on child
abuse in theme parks
 Disney owns ABC, and they axed the news story
 Also, think about privacy issues with Google and how
they own all our personal info, our browsing history, etc.
CRITICAL APPROACHES TO MASS
COMM
 (3) Cultivation Studies
 Looks at media portrayals and how these depictions
cultivate power relationships
 For example, stereotypes in the media allow those
with more power to extend their control over those
that are being stereotyped
 This can be seen with ethnicity
 Also another e.g., with romance films, what
messages does the media ‘cultivate’ which
reinforces and extends to you ideas of romance?
What do you think?

 Which one of these approaches did you ‘agree’

with?
 Or maybe you vehemently disagree with some of
the approaches?
 That’s fine! There are no rights or wrongs
 In fact, I encourage you to look at all the different
approaches
 Because each one has their own strength