Theories - 17/11/11

In today's lesson we learnt about several different theories that people have had about the media since it's birth. Knowing about these theories gives us a better understanding of media and how it works, and will help us when we create our own product. These theories are known as Hypodermic Needle Theory, Two Step Flow, Uses and Gratifications Theory, Reception Theory and finally the theory of Vladimir Propp.

Hypodermic Needle Theory 1920's: a crude theory depicted during the first two decades of mass media suggesting that the information from a text passes into the mass conscious of the audience without them realising. This basically means that people watch/read media and it's 'injected' into their minds, and that's it - that's what they believe. No processing, no opinions, like zombies. It suggests that as an audience we are easily manipulated by the creators of media and directly influenced by this. It assumes that audiences are passive and heterogeneous. Governments used this theory in order to distribute propaganda. Parents and other adults still quote this theory today as they think that video games influence youths, for example, the boy who shot his parents after playing Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Two Step Flow 1955: Theorists Lazarfeld and Katz later decided that the Hypodermic Needle Theory was wrong as it didn't take into account the individuality of the audience. They realised that people receive information, process it and then take what they want from it using their own opinions. They said that there are two types of audience - the 'opinions leaders' who influence their own opinions about mass media and the people who are influenced by the opinion leaders and have the media filtered in their minds. Hitler was an opinion leader who influenced an entire army.

Uses and Gratifications Theory 1974: Theorists Blulmer and Katz decided that the audience has certain needs that the media for-fills. These 'jobs' that the media takes on then gratify the audience. The audience needs to be: Informed
     Educated
     Entertained
     Able to identify with characters
     Able to socially interact with others/discuss with them
     Able to escape

Reception Theory 1980's-90's: This theory suggests that the media encodes their product and the audience subconsciously decodes it. People decode the product differently which leads to different interpretations. When a media product sticks to conventions, it's called 'preferred reading'.

Vladimir Propp - This theorist said that every story we ever come across will have a basic set of elements. Within this theory he said that there are different character categories which are as follows:

Villain - the bad guy
Donor - someone who gives the hero something
Helper - someone who helps the hero, e.g. sidekick
Princess - the prize of the story, usually a girl for the hero to love
Dispatcher - the one who gives the hero his mission
Hero - the good guy
False hero - the one who almost gets the Princess, sometimes the villain too

Theorists Strauss and Bathes used Propps theory for their own ideas.