Structure (institutions) is more important and have more power over individual agents = structure over agency

Lasswell –

Media has a direct and powerful influence

1920-30 – Hypodermic needle theory. In 1927 wrote Propaganda Technique in the World War which highlighted the brew of ‘subtle poison, which industrious men injected into the veins of a staggering people until the smashing powers . . . knocked them into submission’

Linear model of communication –

Who – Larlsa Brown

Says What – How British spies exposed and disrupted Russia’s cyber war on the Olympics ‘A Russian pilot to sabotage the Olympic games.

Channel – Article in the Daily Mail, Page 3

To Whom – British Public. main target audience of middle aged women

With What Effect – Captures attention easily, possibly false or more extreme/ exaggerated news

Editorial – What the newspaper/ Editor truly thinks

1949 – Shannon + Weaver

Transmission model of Communication, which included other elements, such as NOISE, ERROR, ENCODING and FEEDBACK. In other words, there is the suggestion that the process of sending and receiving a message is clear-cut, predicable or reliable and is dependent on a range of other factors that need to be taken into consideration. Theres more than just utterances between two people as communication is not that simple and may read it in a different way. Decoding and interpreting is different in different individuals. (criticise Laswells model)

1948 Paul Larzafeld – 2 step flow of communication

More likely to be influenced by others rather than institutions or media, meaning that the audience is active.

He recognised that a simple, linear model may not be sufficiently complex to understanding the relationship between message sent and message received.

. As such, in 1948 he developed the Two Step Flow model of communication, which took account of the way in which mediated messages are not directly injected into the audience, but while also subject to noise, error, feedback etc, they are also filtered through opinion leaders, those who interpret media messages first and then relay them back to a bigger audience.

1960s Uses + Gratification – McQuail, Blumler and Katz

In essence, they put forward research to show that individual audience members are more active than had previously been thought and were actually key to the processes of selection, interpretation and feedback. In essence, individuals sought particular pleasures, uses and gratifications from individual media texts, which can be categorised as:

1. information / education
2. empathy and identity
3. social interaction
4. entertainment
5. escapism

Or categorised as: diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance.

Uses and Gratifications is also linked into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as the audience is active. Argues that people actively looked to satisfy their needs based on a hierarchy of social and psychological desires.

1970s Gerbner

Cultivation theory suggests that exposure to media, over time, subtly “cultivates” viewers’ perceptions of reality. Gerbner and Gross assert: “Television is a medium of the socialization of most people into standardized roles and behaviours. Its function is in a word, enculturation”. Behaviour can be changed over time via exposure.

Cultivates predispositions and purposes.

Skinner VS Chomsky

Behaviourist VS Nativist

Skinner = conditioning

1980s Stuart Hall Theory of Preferred Reading

Stuart Hall = Black Academic = ‘The world is looking very white’

 A critical theory that looked to analyse mass media communication and popular culture as a way of both uncovering the invidious work of the State and Big Business, as well as looking for ways of subverting that process. Hall was working at a time of great societal upheaval and unrest in the UK

Hall suggested that power, control and therefore, behaviour management cannot be exerted directly, wilfully and without resistance. Towards this aim he proposed the encoding/decoding model of communication, or the theory of preferred reading, where individuals are not only active in the process of interpretation and the construction of meaning, but they are also able to dismiss and reject dominant messages. Although it could be argued that we all take up different readings of different media, Hall proposed three distinct positions that could be occupied by individual viewers, determined, more or less on their subject identities.

1. A dominant position accepts the dominant message
2. A negotiated position both accepts and rejects the dominant reading
3. An oppositional position rejects the dominant reading

This view presents people as producers and consumers of culture at the same time. It means they are active in the making (or rejecting) of meaning through mass communication

2000s Clay Shirky End of Audience

In many ways, Shirky is not too removed from the work of Hall, prioritising the power of individual agency in the relationship between audiences and institutions, for example, recognising how the audience can be both producers and consumers of media text. This can be realised in the realm of new (interactive) communication media, where individual communications can be made in what appears to be beyond State or commercial control and interest.

Shirky stated that, ‘the more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are for any individual to disagree with.’ In other words, Shirky makes claim for the emancipation gained from new media technologies, liberating individual consumers from the behavioural management techniques of the State that were positioned as problematic by Hall, Althusser, Chomsky and others. 

No mass audience only an individual mass audience

Links into intersectionality, an intersection of different subject positions – we are all fragmented and different, just a combination of thoughts, ideas and influences.

2019 edition – Zuboff – Surveillance Capitalism

Today’s means of behavioural modification are aimed unabashedly at “us.” Everyone is swept up in this new market dragnet, including teh pscyhodramas ofordinary, unsuspecting fourteen-year-olds approaching the weekend with anxiety. Every avenue of connectivity serves to bolster private power’s need to seize behaviour for profit. Where is the hammer of democracy now, when the threat comes from your phone, your digital assistant, your Facebook login? Who will stand for freedom now, when Facebook threatens to retreat into the shadows if we dare to be the friction that disrupts economies of action that have been carefully, elaborately, and expensively constructed to exploit our natural empathy, elude our awareness, and circumvent our prospects for self-determination? If we fail to take notice, how long before we are numb to this incursion and to all the incursions? How long until we notice nothing at all? How long before we forget who we were before they owned us . . . (p. 326)

Zuboff

Curran and Seaton – power and media industries theory. Their theory follows the idea that the free press doesnt really exist as Media industries follow the normal capitalist pattern of increasing the concentration of ownership, with one ultimate conglomerate owning multiple subsections and creating less and less diversity. This leads to a narrowing of the range of opinions represented in the media and there is a pursuit of profit at the expense of quality or creativity.

The media needs a form of regulation or they can post whatever they want and it won’t matter if it’s real or not so we have a filter what media goes through also known as “flack” so the government could stop negative information against them to never be published for the public as well as watchdogs who are mainly anonymous people who keep an eye out for the public to ensure there is no corrupt people or media. FREE PRESS should be free from interference and be impartial/transparent.

who= Andrew Pierce wrote in the Daily Mail on Monday 19th October 2020

Says what= Mocking left wing politics

Shannon and Weaver in 1949- developed and criticized the model of communication

 Paul Lazarfeld recognised that a simple, linear model may not be sufficiently complex to understanding the relationship between message sent > message received. he developed the Two Step Flow model of communication,  messages are not directly injected into the audience, but while also subject to noise, error, feedback etc, they are also filtered through opinion leaders, those who interpret media messages first and then relay them back to a bigger audience.

Cultivation Theory George Gerbner,Looking primarily at the relationship between violence on television and violence in society. They developed what is known as CULTIVATION THEORY, noting the distinct characteristics of television in relation to other media forms, they suggest that ‘television cultivates from infancy the very predispositions and preferences that used to be acquired from other primary sources‘  In other words, television shapes the way individuals within society think and relate to each other. 

The Theory of Preferred Reading- Stuart Hall,  developing a critical theory that looked to analyse mass media communication and popular culture as a way of both uncovering the invidious work of the State and Big Business, as well as looking for ways of subverting that process. Hall suggested that power, control and therefore, behaviour management cannot be exerted directly, willfully and without resistance. Towards this aim he proposed the encoding/decoding model of communication, or the theory of preferred reading, where individuals are not only active in the process of interpretation and the construction of meaning, but they are also able to dismiss and reject dominant messages.

Sender: Max Aitchison

Says What: The labour leader Corbyn Crony who thinks it’s a good idea to remove UK Road Signs

Channel: Daily Mail

Shannon and Weaver in 1949, what they did was develop and criticise the Lasswell’s Model. The model that is presented isn’t necessarily accurate.

Two Step Flow of Communication (active consumption)

At the same time Paul Lazarfeld recognised that a simple, linear model may not be sufficiently complex to understanding the relationship between message sent > message received. As such, in 1948 he developed the Two Step Flow model of communication, which took account of the way in which mediated messages are not directly injected into the audience, but while also subject to noise, error, feedback etc, they are also filtered through opinion leaders, those who interpret media messages first and then relay them back to a bigger audience.

Audience are ACTIVE NOT PASSIVE

Uses and Gratifications (active selection)

The distinction is this approach is rather than categorising the audience as passive consumers of messages, either directly from source, or from opinion leaders, this theory recognises the decision making process of the audience themselves.

n essence, they put forward research to show that individual audience members are more active than had previously been thought and were actually key to the processes of selection, interpretation and feedback. In essence, individuals sought particular pleasures, uses and gratifications from individual media texts, which can be categorised as:

1. information / education
2. empathy and identity 
3. social interaction  
4. entertainment 
5. escapism

My newspaper story is about getting rid of UK road signs fits into the social needs section because this is able to give you a better understanding of what is happening in the world and around you.

Cultivation Theory – effects over time . . .

George Gerbner, Larry Gross and others worked on a large-scale, positivist, in-depth, longitudinal study into the effects of television, which started in 1975. Looking primarily at the relationship between violence on television and violence in society. They developed what is known as CULTIVATION THEORY, noting the distinct characteristics of television in relation to other media forms, they suggest that ‘television cultivates from infancy the very predispositions and preferences that used to be acquired from other primary sources‘ (Gerbner et al 1986). In other words, television shapes the way individuals within society think and relate to each other.

The Theory of Preferred Reading

At around the same time Stuart Hall, working at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), at the University of Birmingham, was also developing a critical theory that looked to analyse mass media communication and popular culture as a way of both uncovering the invidious work of the State and Big Business, as well as looking for ways of subverting that process. 

1. A dominant position accepts the dominant message 
2. A negotiated position both accepts and rejects the dominant reading
3. An oppositional position rejects the dominant reading

Clay Shirky: The End of Audience

To bring this summary of different audience approaches towards a conclusion, would be to look at Clay Shirky‘s notion of the end of audience. Because what could happen if, instead of the choice of three subject positions as offered by the theory of preferred reading, there were limitless, individual subject positions available to all of us, at any time

“The more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are to disagree with”

B.F. Skinner – Operant conditioning

“The fiction of free will?”

Schedule of reinforcement

Harold Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the world war (1927)

‘injected into the veins’ ‘a subtle poison’

propaganda is overtly political and manipulative. Persuasion is subsequently revealed as invidious

Shoshana Zuboff – Emerging behavioural control technology (mobile phones).

Uncovering Cambridge Analytica – Alexander Nix

Will Hazell (Who) wrote that “People want schools and nurseries open in second lockdown” (Message). This was written in the i newspaper (Medium). This message is read by the readers of the i (Receiver). The effect of the message would be that people understand that children need schools and nurseries open. (Effect)

Shannon and Weaver in 1949 (Transmission model of Communication)

Paul Lazerfeld – Two step flow of communication. Social media influencers. messages are not directly injected into the audience. those who interpret media messages first and then relay them back to a bigger audience. The role of key individuals in society, teachers, doctors, trade union leaders, your boss at work, parents, friends and family all of whom are capable of exerting an influence on the process of communication, making it subject to bias, interpretation, rejection, amplification, support and change.

Audiences are active, who should they listen to, who should they believe.

Uses and Gratifications – Education, Entertainment, Social interaction, identity, escapism. Personal needs and social needs. what does media do to people? what do people do with media?

Maslows hierarchy of needs. Self actualization, Esteem, Love/belonging, Safety, Psychological.

George Gerbner – Cultivation Theory examines the long-term effects of television. Changing behaviour overtime.

Chomsky and Althusser tell us that companies do the exact same thing.

Theory of preferred reading – Stuart Hall. Talks about how you don’t have to believe everything you are told. A dominant position accepts the dominant message. A negotiated position both accepts and rejects the dominant reading. An oppositional position rejects the dominant reading

Clay Shirky – There isn’t such a thing as audience, there are only individuals.

B.F Skinner – Operant Conditioning (Behavioural Science)

The notion of free will is fiction. “The fiction of free will”

Actions are shaped by controlling the environment

Schedule of reinforcement

Propaganda vs Persuasion

Harold Lasswell – Propaganda technique in the world war (1927) – The brew of ‘subtle poison which industrious men injected into the veins of a staggering people until the smashing powers….knocked them into submission’

Shoshana Zuboff

The age of surviving capitalism

• ” a major segment of the emerging behaviour control technology is concerned with conditioning, through which various forms of persuasion are used to stimulate certain types of behaviours while supressing others”

Individuality & Personal freedom v Behaviour modification

• “Technology has begun to develop new methods of behaviour control capable of altering not just an individual’s action but his very personality and manner of thinking”

Cambridge Analytica – Alexander Nix

WHO, SAYS WHAT, THROUGH WHAT CHANNEL, TO WHOM, TO WHAT EFFECT

Who – Will Hazell

Says What – People want schools and nurseries to be open during second lockdown, says poll

Channel – The i

To Whom – centralists (due to political and general viewpoint of The i)

With what effect- To inform the readers about others viewpoint

Shannon and Weaver – 1949

Developed Laswell’s model to Transmission model of Communication. This included elements such as noise, error, encoding and feedback.

Paul Lazarfeld – 1950(ish)

He developed the Two Step flow model of communication. The role of key individuals in society all of whom are capable of exerting an influence on the process of communication. This makes it subject to bias, interpretation, rejection, amplification, support and change.

Audiences are active not passive. Audience consumption is based on consideration of what others think.

Uses and Gratifications – 1960’s

1. information / education
2. empathy and identity
3. social interaction
4. entertainment
5. escapism

 Rather than categorising the audience as passive consumers of messages, either directly from source or from opinion leaders.

& Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1954)

It argues that people actively looked to satisfy their needs based on a hierarchy of social and psychological desires

1. Physiological – Breathing, food, water, sex.
2. Safety – Security of body, employment, morality.
3. Love/belonging – Friendship, family, sexual intimacy.
4. Esteem – Self-esteem, confidence, achievement.
5. Self-actualization – morality, creativity, spontaneity.

George Gerbner – 1970’s

Cultivation theory – “television cultivates from infancy the very predispositions and preferences that used to be acquired from other primary sources” – (television shapes the way individuals within society think and relate to each other)

Stuart Hall – 1980’s

The theory of preferred reading.

1. A dominant position accepts the dominant message
2. A negotiated position both accepts and rejects the dominant reading
3. An oppositional position rejects the dominant reading

Clay Shirky – 2000’s

Instead of the choice of three subject positions as offered by the theory of preferred reading, there were limitless, individual subject positions available to all of us, at any time, in any place, from any perspective?

Says there are no audiences, but individuals – not the same but target each one for their needs.

A position which allowed us to produce our commentary and communication on the outside world, while still maintaining the ability to comment, feedback, accept or deny

B.F SKINNER – behavioral science/ operant conditioning

‘the ficton of free will’

schedule of reinforcement

Harold Lasswell in first world war – Propaganda technique in World War 1927 – shuttle poison which can be injected into the veins – hypodermic model suggests the direct injection of media to the passive audience. Distinguish between propaganda and persuasion.

Zuboff – the age of surveillance capitalism – emerging behavior control technology which is used to stimulate certain Behavior.

new technology which is able to create new methods of behaviorism, change personality , change actions. not essentially free individuals much more vulnerable and more easy to change than we think.

Cambridge Analytica – Alexander nix

• B.F Skinner – behavioral science, operant conditioning
• he says the notion of free will is fiction
• control of environment
• how messages are passed on & shaped behavior
• schedule of reinforcement
• fiction of free will, reduces us to animals

• Harold Lasswell – wrote ‘propaganda technique in the world war’, hypodermic model theory = direct injection = passive audience
• said powerful people could brew up a ‘subtle poison which industrious men injects into the veins…’
• propaganda in overly political & manipulate whereas persuasion often appears invisible

• Shoshana Zuboff – wrote ‘the age of surveillance capitalism’
• says there is an ’emerging behavior control technology’
• ‘forms of persuasion are used to stimulate certain type of behaviors while suppressing others…’
• ‘..technology has begun to develop new methods of behavior control.’
• ‘The power [of] this technology gives one man to impose his views and values on another.’

Cambridge Analytica – Alexanda Nix = chief executive

1920/30 – Lasswell, hypodermic

WHO, SAYS WHAT, THROUGH WHAT CHANNEL, TO WHOM, TO WHAT EFFECT

This theory suggest we are ‘spoon-fed’by the media.

Lasswell’s model applied to a newspaper story:

Who – Bim Afolami, a journalist

Says what – Says that the left’s hypocrisy on radical equality is causing profound damage

Through what channel – The Mail on Sunday, pg 44

To whom – people who read the paper, possibly the older generation & people who are interested in politics

What effect – Makes left wing party & supports look bad

1940’s – Shannon & Weaver (1949),  Paul Lazarfeld – 2 step flow

Said there is stuff missing from Lasswells model. It was adated by Shannonn & Weaver to the Transmission model of Communication. This included other elements such as noice, error encoding & feedback.

Paul Lazarfeld – 2 step flow

Step 1 – from media to opinion leader

Step 2 – from opinion leaders communicate to the masses

 This theory suggests that the audience are active, not passive.

1960’s – Uses & gratifications (Katz, Gurevitch, Hass)

This idea of active audience, we choose information based on what we want – information / education, empathy and identity, social interaction, entertainment & escapism.

Related to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1954).

Applied to newspaper story – Knowledge about the world, safety and self-actualization

1970’s – Cultivation Theory – Gerbner (Chomsky vs Skinner)

Looked at the relationship between violence on television and violence in society. Suggests that we an use the media to change peoples behavior & what the think/believe in over time.

“Television cultivates from infancy the very predispositions and preferences that used to be acquired from other primary sources.” (Gerbner et al 1986).

Althusser –  raised the idea that the State asserted power and control through a number of key agencies and structures, he called this idological state apperatice.

1980’s – Stuart Hall, preffered reading

The idea that we can take an opposite stance, we don’t have to believe these things. He says there are 3 ways to read a text: a dominant position, a negotiated position or an oppositional position.

2000’s – Clay Shirley, end of audience

There is no such thing as audience, there is only individuals. WE are not one, we are many, the idea of intersectionality. A mass of individuals not just a mass.

“The more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are for any individual to disagree with.” Shirky – TED Talk 2013

2019 – Zuboff, surveillance capitalism

Subservience Capitalism – we are no longer a mass, but individuals.

adjusting voting behaviour in a digital age

b.f. skinner – operant conditioning:

• behavioural science
• “free will is fiction”
• schedule of reinforcement: if the pigeon knows it is going to get rewarded it will repeat the process to get that satisfaction

harold lasswell

• involved in world war 1
• propaganda technique in the world war: the way in which governments etc could brew up a “subtle poison” which could be injected into the veins of staggered people until the smashing powers … knocked them into submission
• hypodermic needle model
• propaganda vs persuasion: propaganda overtly political and manipulative vs persuasion (subtle manipulation)

Zuboff

• The age of surveillance capitalism
• emerging behaviour control technology: phones used to stimulate certain types of behaviour
• new technology -> new methods of behaviour control
• changing not only actions but changing people’s personalities and ways of thinking

cambridge analytica

• alexander nix – boss of CA

audience theory

• hypodermic needle – 1920 – 1930: passive audience, conditioning & propaganda. less people read and write

lasswell’s model: the daily mail article

WHO:

Sarah Harris and

SAYS WHAT:

“The number of white male, secondary school teachers has fallen by almost 20 percent in a decade, sparking fears over a lack of role models for working class boys”

CHANNEL:

The daily mail newspaper

TO WHOM:

right-wing aligned or centre-right aligned audience

WITH WHAT EFFECT:

reinforces the idea that the increase in diversity of teachers is bad because “white boys don’t have any role models”. (Conveniently leaving out that minorities never had role models in the first place). This creates racist ramifications as it ultimately creates the idea that “minorities are invading teaching spaces”

KATZ, GUREVITCH & HAAS

Personal needs: understanding self (reinforcing ideology)

Social needs: “knowledge” about the world

self confidence, stability, self esteem: if ideas are reinforced that align with the reader’s interests, they may agree giving a sense of stability

• shannon weaver: 1949: noise, error, encoding and feedback. Noise: being unable to understand the message conveyed due to some kind of distraction such as noise or another factor

• paul lazarfeld 1948: two step flow: information is shown to group 1 (influencers) (step 1). where one or two people are given the information. Then those people tell a lot of people (step 2)
• As Martin Moore suggests, ‘people’s political views are not, as contemporaries thought, much changed by what they read or heard in the media. Voters were far more influenced by their friends, their families and their colleagues’ (2019:124).
• active audience – the heart of the idea of the liberal press

• katz, gurevitch and haas: uses and gratifications 1973
• choose information based on what you want
• maslow’s hierarchy of needs

gerbner 1975: cultivation theory

• behaviours can be changed
• More pertinently, Gerbner and Gross assert that ‘television’s major cultural function is to stabilize social patterns and to cultivate resistance to change‘ (1978: 115). In other words, they assert the power of television to modify behaviour in support of the dominant structures of society.

Noam chomsky

• propaganda model

althusser

• theory of interpolation

stuart hall: theory of preferred reading (1980s)

• you don’t have to believe what people are telling you 9the media is telling you)
• 3 different ways of reading: dominant oppositional and negotiated
• encoding is different from the decoded message

clay shirky 2000: the end of audience

• no audience only individuals
• intersectionality
• In many ways, Shirky is not too removed from the work of Hall, prioritising the power of individual agency in the relationship between audiences and institutions, for example, recognising how the audience can be both producers and consumers of media text. This can be realised in the realm of new (interactive) communication media, where individual communications can be made in what appears to be beyond State or commercial control and interest.
• , ‘the more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are for any individual to disagree with.’

the idea of “surveillance capitalism”

B.F. Skinner – Operant Conditioning,

“The fiction of free will” – Skinner suggests we don’t actually have free will and we are conditioned to think or feel a certain way, the environment is controlled. We are conditioned to do different things, it’s provocative and manipulative. We are open to manipulation, people will play to other people’s weaknesses in order to manipulate

Schedule of reinforcement – If someone/something knows it will get something good and positive in return they will continue this process (e.g a pigeon will peck a dish to get food as they know they will get a reward from this)

Harold Lasswell – Propaganda Technique in the World War (1927) Highlighted the brew of ‘subtle poison, which industrious men injected into the veins of a staggering people until the smashing powers…knocked them into submission’

Hypodermic model – Suggests the direct injection of media messages into a passive audience

Propaganda – it is overtly political and manipulative

Zuboff highlights ‘A major segment of the emerging behaviour control technology is concerned with conditioning, through which various forms of persuasion are used to stimulate certain types of behaviours while suppressing others’

Individuality & personal freedom v behaviour modification:

“Technology has begun to develop new methods of behaviour control capable of altering not just an individual’s actions but his very personality and manner of thinking”

“The behavioural technology being developed in the US today touches upon the most basic sources of individuality and the very core of personal freedom”

“The power this technology gives one man to impose his views and values on another”

Cambridge Analytica – British political consulting firm that was involved in influencing hundreds of elections globally and that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal

Hypodermic model (passive consumption) – Model of communication suggesting that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.

“Lasswell, as a behavioural scientist researching areas connected with political communication and propaganda, believed each government had ‘manipulated the mass media in order to justify its actions’ in World War 1”
Early theoretical work on the relationship (or effects) of media consumption are often traced back to Harold Lasswell who developed the theoretical tool of ‘content analysis’ and in 1927 wrote Propaganda Technique in the World War which highlighted the brew of ‘subtle poison, which industrious men injected into the veins of a staggering people 

My article ‘William fears for UK mental health amid virus curbs’:
Who:
What: People need to work together to tackle mental health during coronavirus and lockdown, mental health in the UK could be at risk
Whom: The community, everyone who may be affected by mental health
With what effect: People want to make sure mental health is ‘okay’ and get people to think about what it could be like

Shannon and Weaver (1949) – Transmission model of Communication, which included other elements, such as NOISE, ERROR, ENCODING and FEEDBACK. There is a suggestion that the process of sending and receiving a message is clear-cut, predictable or reliable of other factors that need to be taken into consideration

 Paul Lazarfeld – Two step flow of communication (active consumption) linear model may not be sufficiently complex to understanding the relationship between message sent > message received. He developed the Two Step Flow model of communication, took account of the way in which mediated messages aren’t directly injects into the audience, but subject to noise, error, feedback etc. Filtered through opinion leaders, those who interpret media message first then relay them back to a bigger audience

Martin Moore suggests ‘people’s political views are not, as contemporaries thought, much changed by what they read/heard in the media. Voters were far more influenced by their friends, their families and their colleagues’ (2019:124)

Audiences are active not passive and can be influenced by any factor, we like to know what’s going on so sometimes this means we can be influenced more easily. People could be subject to bias, interpretation, rejection, amplification, support and change.

Use and Gratifications (active selection) – The audience is a passive consumer of messages, either directly from source/opinion leaders, recognises the decision making process of audience. Individual audience members are more active than had previously been though and were actually key to the processes of selection, interpretation, feedback. People look for enjoyment/pleasure in specific uses of grat, including: information/education, empathy and identity, social interaction, entertainment, escapism

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1954) – People actively looked to satisfy their needs based on hierarchy of social/psychological desires

Cultivation theory (George Gerbner)- People’s behaviour can be shaped and changed over time if being told the same thing enough times over and over until people start to believe this. The power of television to modify behaviour in support of the dominant structures of society

Theory of preferred reading (Stuart Hall) – There are 3 ways to read a text through: a dominant position, negotiated position and oppositional position. People presented as producers and consumers of culture at the same time. Active in the making/rejecting of meaning through mass communication

Clay Shirky – Suggests there isn’t such a thing as audience and there are only individuals
“The more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are for any individual to disagree with”, Shirky makes claim for the emancipation gained from new media technologies, liberating individual consumers from the behavioural management techniques of the State that were positioned as problematic by Hall, Althusser, Chomsky and others