Audience Theories- The Effects Model

As a group we have decided to research audience theories that relate to our film genre of British Drama. James is researching Todorov's theory whilst Chris is researching the reception theory by Stuart Hall. I am researching the Effects Model which links to the Uses and Gratifications Model .

The idea of the Effects Model is that any media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience and that the effect upon the audience is negative. The theory suggests that the audience is passive and so is powerless to prevent the films influence whereas the message of the film contained within the text is powerful.

Another name for the effect model is the Hypodermic Syringe Theory because the messages within the media text are injected into the audience by the media as a doctor would a drug. Because the audience are powerless to prevent it they accept the message as a patient would accept a drug.

This theory has a couple of studies to be used as evidence such as Frankhurt School theorising that the media was used to restrict the audience to what the government and corporations wanted them to see promoting a political or financial agenda in the 1920's and 30's. This can be linked to more modern times such as with the film American Sniper, released in January 2015, which misrepresented the events leading to the Iraq war making it appear as if 911 was Iraq's fault and so was the reason for the invasion, which would suit the governments agenda of covering an illegal war when in reality it has nothing to do with the events portrayed in the film. this would be important to note for our film as we don't want the audience to take one message from the film which could narrow their mid, instead I would want them to have differing opinions on what the message was to generate conversation, which would spread publicity through word of mouth.

Secondly, the Bobo doll experiment was conducted in 1961 to see the effects that viewing violence would have on a child. In the experiment children watched a video in which a Bobo clown doll was violently attacked by an adult. The kids were then taken to a room with toys that they were not allowed to touch then to a room with a Bobo Doll. 88% of the kids then proceeded to act violently towards the doll and 8 months later the kids were taken back where 40% of them repeated their violent behaviour. From this study we can take that if a younger audience is exposed to scenes of violence committed by an adult or someone of older age they are likely to mirror this violence in some form. British films and violence come naturally with one another as it is a convention of British Film. This means we have to consider the age range of our audience to be around 18-25 years of age to avoid young children being influenced by the themes of our film although it is likely that are actual audience will be lower than our intended audience as younger teenagers and children do find ways to watch texts that are not intended for their eyes.
However further research has suggested that it is unclear whether a violent text will influence a person to do violent things as many people watch violent texts however few people will exhibit violent reactions, leading to the Uses and Gratifications Model.

In the Uses and Gratifications Model the audience is active so they use the text instead of being used by it for their own gratification/pleasure. The power lies within the audience and not the producers meaning that the audience will use the text and interpret it how they see fit instead of reading what the producers want them to see and so the audience will reject or use the text depending on their interpretation of it. The audience will use texts to satisfy their needs which will range from:

• Diversion
• Escapism
• Information
• Comparison of Lifestyle

The most likely interpretation of a British drama would be a comparison of lifestyle as the conventions lean towards the film being dark and violent something which most people don't experience in their day to day lives. This theory completely contradicts the Effects Model as it suggests that the audience is not more likely to commit violence after consuming a violent media text but instead are less likely to. It states that the audience use the film to release their violence and so don't commit violent acts after watching the film.