Cultivation Theory - Sending out positive or negative messages to effect the thoughts of the audience on the real world, i.e. the news (crime) will cause worry within parents as it may make the world we live in today worst then it actually is. Television's long term effect, main assumption is the longer somebody watches television the more people believe social reality portrayed on television.
Hypodermic Needle Theory - Media injects ideas into a passive audience.
Moral Panic - An intense feeling expressed into the target audience as it has the possibility to effect the social disorder by an individual or a group of people. This is done to effect the mass media, sending out messages to destroy moral barricades causing major concern. An example of this can be the pregnancy rate of teenage girls. This brings up the question if the current society is a passive or active audience. A lot of concern was generated within the society because of teenage pregnancy and a lot of action was taken i.e. applying bans. Now you can tell me if this was a over reaction or was it the 'sensible' way of thinking?
Passive audience - Audience who are vulnerable to messages passed down through the media and are easily influenced. The opposite of this is an active audience. This is when the audience can think for them self and make their own decisions on thinking despite what is shown on the television. Wertham believed that comics would brain wash the child's mind and comics can easily expose them to violence. But why blame the television and not blame our selves?
Media text effect on children - It is a known fact that media text effect children as they do not know the difference between real life and fantasy. An aggressive cartoon can cause children to behave aggressively.
Two Step Flow Theory
- Leader
- Mass Audience
- Audience
Information is passed down from leader to audience through the mass audience.
