THEORISTS

Albert Bandura is a media theorist on audience. He claims the idea that the media can implant ideas in the mind of the audience directly. He also suggests the idea that audiences obtain attitudes, emotional responses and new styles of conduct through modelling. He also declares that media representations of transgressive behaviour, such as violence or physical aggression, can lead audience members to replicate those forms of behaviour. Bandura looks at the way that media texts have a direct influence on its audience. For example, he argues that violence is dominant in the media and therefore, exposure in this violence in various forms enables us to perceive violence as an acceptable way to deal with situation. Bandura calls this 'modelling' behaviour.

Moral panics - "the process of arousing social concern over an issue – usually the work of moral entrepreneurs and the mass media"

Hypodermic Needle theory - The idea that the media is injecting ideas into the ideas just like a hypodermic needle injects a person with liquid.

Media effects:     Natural born killers - Natural born killers is a movie about two lovers who become serial killers. The storyline goes on to show how they become 'tabloid-TV darlings' because they are young and attractive despite murdering 52 people. The film inspired "copy-cat killers", people who took the ideas and completed them in real life. One of the most famous copy-cat killers were two teens from Oklahoma, Ben Darras and Sarah Edmonson. They murdered one shop owner then shot and paralyzed another. Consequently, there were lawsuits made against not only the teens but also the filmmakers as they had given the inspiration for the crime.     Marilyn Manson - On the 20th of April 1999 there was a massacre at the Columbine High School in America. The shooters were considered to have been influenced by 'violent entertainers' such as Marilyn Manson. This had a huge effect of his career, the entertainer saying that it almost ruined his career and that he had to seek legal action against those who claimed he had influenced the criminals.

Stuart Hall is a media theorist on audience. He suggests the reception theory - the idea that communication is a process involving encoding by producers and decoding by audiences. He states the idea that there are three hypothetical positions from which messages and meanings may be decoded:

- The dominant-hegemonic position: the encoder's intended meaning is fully understood and accepted. (you agree and believe what its telling you)

- The negotiated position: The legitimacy of the encoder's message is acknowledged in general terms, although the message is adapted of negotiated to better fit the decoder's own individual experiences or context. (You won’t do what the ad says but you agree with it)

- The oppositional position: The encoder's message is understood, but the decoder disagrees with it, reading it in a contrary or oppositional way.

*encoder = producer *decoder = audience

George Gerbner is a media theorist on audience George Gerbner stated the cultivation theory - The idea that exposure to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way in which people perceive the world around them.     He also states that media messages aren't directly injected into the passive media audience but are built up by a series of repetition and enforcing of the message.

Steve Neale's theory is that genres are examples of repetition and difference. He states that in order for a film to be a certain genre it must comply with that genres stereotypes and rules in order to classified in that genre. That is repetition and when he says differences he means that a film must push the rules and stereotypes to be individual.

Roland Barthes is a media theorist about language. He is one of the leading theorists of semiotics, the study of signs. He claims that every sign have also have connotations, further meanings, that is implied.