Audience Notes

Hypodermic Needle Theory

One of the first theory's put together

Injections your brain with information, we there believe what we have seen so we act in strange ways and do strange things because we believe it

The Media is always right so we believe what they say 

However now we are more knowledgeable if the media so this theory is out dated 

* The hypodermic needle theory implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences. The mass media in 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful influence  on behaviour

* Several factors contributed to this storm effects through of communication, including:

* The fast rise and popularisation of radio and television

* The emergence of the persuasion, industries, such as advertising 

* They theory suggest that  the mad media could influence a very large group of people directly and uniformly by 'shooting' or 'injecting' them with appropriate messages designed to trigger a desired response 

* This theory suggests a powerful and direct flow of information form the sender to the receiver

* The hypodermic needle model suggests that media messages are injected straight into a passive audience hi h is immediately influenced by the message

* It expresses the view that the media is a dangerous means of communicating an idea because the receiver or audience is powerless to resist the impact of the message

* People are seen as passive and are seen as having a lot media material "shot" as them. People end up thinking what they are told because there is no other source of information

* The theory assumes what we see or hear we believe and consume. The theory assumes we are brainwashed into believing the media messages 

A famous case

* In the 1930s a radio broadcast of 'war of the worlds' was performed like a real news broadcast to heighten the effect of the story, people listening thought is was real and assumed Mars had come to invade the world. (As played in the short video)

* This demonstrates a passive auricle and how an audience believes what they hear in the news and how this can quickly lead to misinterpretation 

Cons of the theory

* very out of date

* Not everyone watches the news/ consumes media in the same way 

* Audiences are not simply passive more up to date theories have proved this

* Technology has changed how we consume media and the sources where it originates from

* We are more aware of society and how institutions operate

* We are now so used to consuming media texts host we understand conversions and know when to reject the messages if we deem then insignificant