Audience effect theories

The media has been criticised since the rise of the mass media and the effect it has on the audience as it's seen as a form of a passive (never question) mass, as it brainwashes by the message that floods the media.

Audience effect theories and the hypodermic needle:
- the media are powerful and negative forces who control the masses

Bandura's study used the doll called Bobo:
- the study suggested that media are passive  (the experiment was done with children age 3-5)
- emotions are learnt (how much of what we watch is learnt through media)
- the study was to do with aggression
- the study showed that the children replicated the same actions shown to them with the adult beating the doll
- whilst other children were shown an adult playing calmly with no violence with the same doll as a result they did the same

What is moral panic and where did it come from;
- Stanley Cohen
- when members of a society culture become outraged, fearful and upset the challenges and menace posed.

Mean world syndrome - mean world syndrome is a term coined by George Gerbner to describe a 
phenomenon whereby violence-related content of mass media makes viewers believe that the world is more dangerous than it actually is. Mean world syndrome is one of the main conclusions of cultivation theory.

Cultivation theory - cultivation theory examines the long-term effects of television. "The primary proposition of cultivation theory states that the more time people spend 'living' in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality aligns with reality portrayed on television."