Adorno and Horkheimer Audience Theory (1940's)

Media has an effect on a mass audience. Theorized that popular culture in the USA was like a factory producing standardized content which is used to manipulate a mass audience. The 'dumbed down' content of popular culture made people passive and false psychological needs, only met and satisfied by products of capitalism. Manipulating audiences into keeping capitalism going and being 'good consumers'. Like a 'hypodermic syringe' being pushed into somebody. 

Packard's Theory (1957) - 

In 1957, Vance Packard wrote an influential book called The Hidden Persuaders. The book suggested that advertisers were able to manipulate audiences into buying things that they do not want to buy or need to buy.

Different Media Products - 

Gaming - 

Grand Theft Auto 5 - 

For many years, people have labelled the GTA series as negative. This is because the game consists of a lot of violence, and illegal activities such as robbery and shooting. The audience of the game have critiqued this as they believe that it makes people who play the game violent, as they become desensitised to the violence in the virtual world. 

Film - 

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - 

This film was criticized for being too violent and having a bad effect on an audience as it was considered 'too realistic'. There are a few articles online that are explaining to parents how they should not let5 their children watch this, as it is much too disturbing for them. This is argued that it is also desensitizing to an audience as they may become numb to the terror of the murder, and gain interest.

Internet - 

Social Media such as Instagram and Twitter - 

Social media platforms have been criticized for years for being mind-numbing and a bad influence on any audience, but especially younger audiences, who are more likely to be led by celebrities. This means that people are influenced by celebrity ideas, and people who are promoting unhealthy ideals online which leads to mental illness and issues such as anxiety and depression.

Bandura's Experiment (1963) - 

Bandura used influence on video to show 66 kids divided into three groups how to treat the 'Bobo' inflatable doll. One of them was a violent act where they would hit the doll and be rewarded for it, the other would not be aggressive, and would be disciplined for violent behavior, and the other group saw someone hit the doll but not get rewarded or disciplined. The results returned that the children who watched the violence as rewarding, were much more violent towards the doll, whereas the other two groups were far less violent to the doll, as they were taught differently, and that the violence was wrong and should be punished.

Cultivation Theory - 

This theory is where the acts that are shown on TV are influenced into people and starts to be reflected into their actions and personality. It is stated that Tv starts to give people a warped, fictional perception of what social reality is really like, and these watchers start to believe in this alternate TV reality, as opposed to real life.

Desensitisation - this is where something becomes normal to a person. For example, someone who is desensitised to violence would not find it disturbing but perceive it as a normal everyday action.

Mean World Syndrome (1976 - Gross and Gerbner) - a phenomenon whereby people see violence in TV and Film and start to depict and believe the world as more dangerous than it actually is. People are more likely to believe there is more crime and hazard than there really is in the world.

Media Products that people are desensitised to in 2022 - 

- GTA 5, has an 18-age rating but has a mass audience of children anyways.

- The Equalizer, 15 rated even though it contains incredibly violent.

- Saving Private Ryan is not 18 rated due to 'educational purposes'

Supporter of the article - 

Craig A. Anderson and others concluded that “the evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior.”

Ferguson (2012) refutes the idea of the article - 

He says that there is no evidence that violence in video games promotes violence among children.  As the research that has concluded these results have not controlled variables that should be controlled such as mental health.