In today's lesson we discussed the hypodermic needle theory and the Uses and gratifications theory. Before we reviewed these theories I researched them both and found out that, firstly the hypodermic needle theory is often referred to as The magic bullet and is a theory of communication that suggests that an audience is helpless to the effects and messages of television. This theory says that an audience will absorb all of the intended information and will unknowingly believe anything they see. This was one of the first theories used as an attempt to explain how audiences act to media.
In our discussion we said that the mass media are so powerful they can target and 'inject' their messages to their audience. A few of the people with great responsibility and power in this country include: The Prime Minister, Parliament, The Queen, Police, Teachers, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Record labels, ect. Also artists such as, Justin Bieber, One Direction, Cher Lloyd, Muse, Tulisa, Rihanna, ect. are powerful and have got target audiences hooked on their music and has great influence on them. The quote from the film Spiderman "With great power comes responsibility" is a great example of this, as it shows that they are injecting their message into the audience.
I found out that the Uses and gratifications theory is a theory that argues that we turn to media to fulfill pre-existing needs. For example: some people love hearing about other peoples’ lives so they watch gossip media. It's the audience's choice of how they use the media, and what media they choose to use is driven by their need for gratification.
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