Mass Media Audiences: Hypodermic Syringe Model

Mass Media Audiences: Hypodermic Syringe Model

1. Some sociologists argues the media influences behaviour.

   • Violence
   • Diets
   • Voting
   • Buying Products
   • The Model has 3 Stages
     • Media sends out messages through the TV etc.
     • The audience receives daily doses of the media.
     • This effects who the audience feels and thinks just like a drug does. We call this the Hypodermic Syringe model.

2. Other Impacts of the Media

   • Some sociologists focus on the power of advertising - pester power. The media use pester power to get children to persuade their parents to buy something.
   • Marxists such as Marcuse believe that the media transmits mass culture which is injected into the hearts of the population through ruling class propaganda.
   • Norris claims that the media can influence voting behaviour.

3. How are women presented in the media?

   • Male Gaze: Sexual violence/promiscuity
     • Secondary to Men: Ruin women job ambitions - glass ceiling
     • Beauty Ideal: Women start changing eating/fitness patterns

4. Applying Sociological Theory

   • Gerbener: Suggets that violence in the media leads to violent behaviour and ASB.
     • Feminism and the HSM
       • Feminists believe that there is a casual link between porn and sexual violence.
         • Morgan: Suggest that porn is theory and rape is practice.
         • Dworkin: Porn trivialises rape and encourages men to abuse and inflict pain on women - can effect marriage as men and women are less supportive of marriage.
   • Dworkin: Argues that the excessive consumption of pornography encourages sexual violence and negative attitudes to women.
   • Orbach: Has expressed concerns over the representation of women in the media as it may produce a generation of women with eating disorders.
     • Conclusion
       • Overall, the evidence claimed for the hypodermic syringe model is really quite weak.. Assuming that all audiences are passive puppets and react in the same way to the media has come under severe scrutiny by those who believe that the audience are in some way active and are able to interact with the media.

5. Hypodermic Syringe Model

   • The hypodermic syringe model is a very simple model.
   • It suggests that the media act like a hypodermic syringe, injecting media texts into the 'veins' of the media audiences.
   • Audiences are seen as unthinking, passive receivers of media texts, who are unable to resist the messages that are 'injected' into them.
     • Criticisms of the HSM
       • The model assumes that the entire audience is passive and ill react in the same way to media content. However, factors such as own experiences. Some people may laugh at violent scenes as they feel uncomfortable.
         • It assumes audiences are passive, gullible and easily manipulated.
       • HSM focuses the blame for all societies problems on the media using it as a scapegoat.
       • There is little evidence that media content has the immediate effects on the audience as the model suggests.
         • It assumes the media have enormous power and influence over riding all the socialisation.