The Frankfurt School
The school developed concerns about the power of the modern mass media (propaganda) in the early to mid 1920’s.
The founders of this school of thought were left-wing (neo-Marxist) and clearly under threat in the conduct of pre-war Nazi Germany, they moved to America and refined their model in an area of expanding media output in post-war America.
The Effects
The hypodermic needle model stressed the effects of the mass media on their audiences; the model owes much to the supposed power of the media (in particular film) to inject audiences with ideas/meanings, such was the thinking behind much of the Nazi propaganda that was evident in ‘Triumph of the will’ and similar films.
Totalitarian states and dictators are similar in their desire to have total control of the media because they think that having control of the media will help them control entire populations.
People worry that T.V can corrupt vulnerable members of the audience by watching –
-graphically sexual
-too violent
-or in other ways offensive
The best known of these groups in the UK was the national viewers and listeners association (Mary Whitehouse) which argued that T.V was a direct cause of deviant behaviour, especially in the young.
A resent model of audience suggests that there is a highly active making of media for a range of purposes designed to satisfy needs-
-information
-entertainment
-identification
The psychological basis for this model is the hierarchy of needs identified by Maslow.
The main areas that are identified in this uses and gratification model are –
- The need for information our graphical and social world (news and drama)
- The need for identity by using characters and personalities to define our sense of self and social behaviour (film and celebs)
- The need for social interaction though experiencing the relationships and interaction of others (soaps and reality T.V)
- The need for diversion by using the media for purposes of play and entertainment (game shows and quizzes)
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