...The hypodermic needle theory regards the audience as passive and the power of media messages strong and that media influences people to behave in a certain way. The effects debate is the argument that the media has the potential to influence an audience, to affect them in negative ways, and that there is a need to protect people from material which might cause harm of one kind or another. The messages in the media are injected into the audience like a drug, but they don’t notice the effects that it has on them. The effects of messages in the media tend to be associated with bad behavior, and negative actions, especially regarding sex and violence. An example of this is the Sandy Hook Shooting, where the boy’s ruthless actions were blamed on the influence of the game Call of Duty by the New York Times, which he supposedly spent a lot of time playing alone in his basement. The hypodermic needle theory is also known as the hypodermic-syringe model of communications, and is referred to as the magic bullet theory. It implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences. The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s was perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change, yet according to Katz and Lazarfeld (1955), the model is rooted in 1930s behaviorism and is concerned by many to be obsolete today. The hypodermic needle model suggests that media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. The study known...
Words: 792 - Pages: 4
...that surrounds them, which makes them easy targets in terms of manipulation and victimization by the medias constant influence. By the time of adulthood, individuals are already under the influence of the mass media. Society appears to have a subconscious fixation with the mass media, resulting in individuals becoming desensitized to violence and to be detrimental affected. Psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists all obtain different beliefs to provide reasons to why violence continues to be a predominant factor in today's culture. The media promotes violence, and can be blamed for awarding violent behavior like in the cases of Columbine and Virginia Tec, who both received tons of exposure. Violence is a primary component of several individuals’ lives, especially in the youth culture, as many turn to the media for a sense of direction, resulting in them resembling the images they view, shaping their behaviors. Desensitization is a psychological development that has frequently been implicated in explaining viewers' unemotional reactions to the medias constant portrayal of violence (cite). Societies continuous exposure to the medias violence results in desensitization, which causes undermine feelings of concern, compassion, or empathy that individuals may end up having toward victims of actual violent acts (cite).The average child between the ages of eight to eighteen spends approximately forty-four point five hours weekly watching television, resulting in them transforming...
Words: 2228 - Pages: 9
...Hate: Who Are We? Summary Lee Harvey, the director of the documentary film Culture of Hate: Who Are We? (2002), addresses the topic of racism. She reveals the hidden world of white power youths in Lakeside and discusses the causes and effects of white power movement in the community of Lakeside. In the beginning of the film, Harvey shows the viewers the murder incident of a Mexican migrant worker whose body was found in a drainage ditch in Lakeside, CA. In the drainage ditch, the walls were surfaced with swastikas and other racist symbols. The three boys who were arrested for the Mexican murder incident argued that they were drunk. Nevertheless, the police officers believed that it was a hate crime, involving discrimination. Harvey mentions that the town used to be more or less safe, populated with white middle class Americans. Nevertheless, due to the economic and social changes, more hate crimes began occurring. And also, ethnic minorities became “scapegoats” due to economic recession. According to the expert testimonies of teachers, school administrators, and halfway house directors, these misguided white kids defined racism as a way to express of their emotional needs, to get out of their anger, to find the meaning of life, to get a sense of belonging, and to get protection. For this reason, they envied blacks for having Black History Month, Black Power, and other black cultural celebrations, blamed and attacked Mexicans for losing their jobs, and drew swastikas, flames...
Words: 585 - Pages: 3
...Janet Vargas SOC 303 12/5/17 Extra Credit Assignment 2 The film that I watched is Gone Girl which is about a woman in a troubled marriage who goes missing. Gone Girl captures the misconception of marriage, the capacity of manipulative and destructive behavior, and the criminal education that can be obtained from crime and all while playing on the effect media has of what is fact or fake. Deviance is a behavior, trait, belief, or another characteristic that violates a norm and causes a (negative) reaction. How the media portrays deviant behavior in the film is that with the main character of Amy with the occurrence of the media focusing on an attractive white female victim or a white female perpetrator. In the film, there is a major issue with media coverage criminal investigations as it ignores the victims based on their situation of being the blame due to the public pressure encouraged by news media placed on police...
Words: 656 - Pages: 3
...biame when something terrible happens in the world, just because a person go on crazy madness doesn’t mean we need to go pointing fingers at violent videos games and violent horror movies. We need to start pointing fingers at these people doctors and family because they knew something was a little wrong with them. Economists Gordon Dahl and Stephano Della Vigna decided to put a hypothesis to the test in a 2003 study. They analyzed big release movies over the course of a decade. They found that for every million people who saw a savage film on that day, violent crimes decreased by 1.5 to 2 percent. That means movies like “Hostel,” “The Purge,” and “It’ managed to potentially foil 1,000 violent crimes over the weekend. not as some people think, inspired people to commit them. The purge is a movie that should want you to go crazy and go around and hurt people, but it doesn’t, it actually scares people and make them not want to go out and do violences. When some people do watch violent horror movies yes they do get a little...
Words: 2281 - Pages: 10
...Violence in America Zuhaylee Marroquin Bronx Community College English 11 Fall 2015 Professor Mukherjee For centuries now, racism was one of the main reason of violence in America. According to the documentary “Violence in America”, violent acts repeats itself constantly. This is known as the “cycle of violence” which means to repeat any dangerous acts due to retribution or revenge. White Americans looks at colored people as less than humans because whites do not accept blacks as intellectually equal. Does racism impact the violence in America? Racism is the key issue that has taken over America impacting violence in many ways. Going back in history, white Americans had formed deep violent traditions of taking over land and cutting off noses and ears as punishment. Christopher Columbus had led other white Americans to take over the land of the Indians. In the documentary “Violence in America” stated by the year of 1542, about 250,000 Indians were exterminated. Over the years whites had continued the violent act of killing and taking over the Indian tribes. By 1890 the Indian population numbered down from 2 million to 300,000. Soon after this America became the first country to have gun power. Gun power was also known to the white Americans as the alliance of freedom because it was use to defend themselves, so that no one else is able to take control. Over time the media had begun to play an important role. The media was obsessed with white criminals and portrayed...
Words: 879 - Pages: 4
...A challenge that I faced working on this project was creating the actual poster. Even though Ashley and I had the information ready to go on a PowerPoint, we were absolutely lost in transitioning it into a poster board. We finally figured it out; I have to say that the poster looks really nice and professional. We presented The Jeanne Clery Act poster board at the Violence Prevention Conference on October 30th. The conference was a good experience, I was really surprised when watching The Hunting Ground Film, it was a real eye opener about what occurs on campuses and how the school tries to cover up for well-known...
Words: 460 - Pages: 2
...Media representation of women Media have been reflectors of dominant values and work as an active agency aiming at reinforcing and strengthening dominant value structure. There is no doubt that mass media like TV, film, radio newspapers and magazines mould opinion, thinking, attitudes and behaviour. TV and films are more powerful as their reach and impact is greater than that of other media. All of these media have greater reach among men than women, but what catches the attention of the feminists and other concerned people is the unrealistic, negative portrayal of women in these media. Mass media do give coverage to women and their issues but damage done by media to women is more than the help offered to them. The role of media in the development of women and enhancement of their status in the society is very depressing. All mass media are being blamed for this. Mass media have been powerful agents of social influence but they have not been effective in portraying women in meaningful, respectable and positive manner. In 1978, a major UNESCO study on the portrayal and participation of women in the media found that the portrayal of women in the mass media globally was consistently poor. The study also confirmed that there was severe under-representation of women in the upper cadres of all media organizations, and that the average media woman earns less than her male counter-parts. Studies carried out in South Asia in 1986 confirm that women are portrayed either as docile...
Words: 677 - Pages: 3
...Bad Behavior cannot be Blamed on Video Games Fred Smith University of Tennessee Abstract For years, concerned citizens, policy makers and parents have thought that violence in the media and now violent video games are one of the main contributing factors to aggressive and violent behavior in some of our society’s teenagers. Past studies have indicated a link between these video games and aggressive behavior. Yet, as video games sales sore to new heights, violent crime committed by our youth is decreasing. Empirical evidence along with some recent studies shows that there is not a link between the two. It is more likely that aggressive teenagers are drawn to violent video games than violent video games are causing teenagers to be aggressive. Bad Behavior cannot be Blamed on Video Games How times have changed. Imagine coming home from work on a Friday evening after a very long week to the sounds of boys wrestling in your living room. They are screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs, all at the same time. You hear things like “hit him”, “watch out”, “get over here”, “jump on him” and “get him”. You quickly make your way to the living room to see five nearly motionless teenagers wearing headsets and microphones. Two of them are sitting on the couch with their laptops on the coffee table. One is in the far corner in a rocking chair using a TV tray. The last two are set up of the card table...
Words: 2523 - Pages: 11
...ethical issues pertaining to the videogame industry. Some companies in the industry have recognized that certain monetization methods of their videogames can create large amounts of profit at the expense of the consumer. Videogames have often been labeled as overly violent and blamed to be the cause of murders or other violent actions. Videogame addiction is also becoming a real problem in many households and societies. Governments around the world have taken different approaches to the problems in the videogame industry and there have also been many studies on these problems. Videogames have often been criticized for having high amounts of violence. In 1992 when the videogame series known as Mortal Kombat was released, it had a system known as “Fatalities”. Fatalities were a finishing move performed on the opponent that would brutally dismemberment and execute them. The level of gore and violence in the game resulted in the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) which was established to make the videogame industry assign age and content ratings for videogames (Kohler, 2009). Even after the creation of the ESRB there were other violent videogames produced that would later be blamed for massacres. The perpetrators of the infamous Columbine High School massacre played many hour of a shooter videogame called Doom. In the aftermath of the tragedy the families of the victims attempted to sue the companies responsible for creating the videogame (Ward, 2001). As...
Words: 1338 - Pages: 6
...were a household item, and necessary for daily life. The armed farmer was the principal soldier in the revolution to establish an independent country. The framers of the Constitution understood that these gun-wielding countrymen were essential to the revolution, and wanted to insure the people would never be defenseless. In recent decades, with the waning practical application of guns in an industrialized nation, the Second Amendment has come under much fire. Living in a technologically advanced country, United States citizens no longer have a need for guns in their everyday lives and, therefore, many Americans have grown up in gun-less homes. The recent rash of violence across the country has shown that the ideals of modern American society have gone awry. Many are quick to blame guns as the reason for this violence. Actually, the problem is not the possession of guns; Americans have had them for over 200 years. Instead, the demise of the morals of society and the lack of restraint of the American public has caused the recent violent trend. Guns are merely a tool. In the hands of immoral and undisciplined people, they are put to evil purposes. The problem lies in the fact that the amendment was created to deal with the muzzle-loaders of the time, and now guns have evolved into killing machines, not just hunting rifles. These new guns however, are no...
Words: 899 - Pages: 4
...Who should be responsible for Television Violence? Composition II Who should be responsible for Television Violence? Can we afford to continue ignoring the connection between television violence and the increase in mass murders? The answer is no. We have to take a stance now and fight for stricter regulations by the government and the Federal Communications Committee (FCC). Television has been associated with influencing controversial acts since the beginning of its creation. One of the most recent acts that television is being blamed for is the violence associated Columbine High School murders in 1999 [ (Updated: TV and Film Violence Reaches a New High, 2011) ]. Many adults enjoy the entertainment of bad cop versus good cop, as well as the violent acts that are performed by both parties to get to the bottom of the case. However, are shows like CSI, Blue Bloods and Law and Order responsible for the violent acts done in society? Is there a connection between these shows and children who commit horrendous acts of violence? According to Leonard Eron, Senior Research Scientist at University of Michigan, “Television alone is responsible for 10% of youth violence” [ (Media Violence: Facts & Statistics) ]. There needs to be stricter laws to help eliminate many hours of television violence on air. This is a community effort in which action must be taken now. The government should have stricter policies in place for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate....
Words: 1609 - Pages: 7
...Comparing 2 Characters From Animal Farm To Their Historical Figures Napoleon ---> Stalin In the film Animal Farm Joseph Stalin was portrayed through the character Napoleon, a pig. Stalin was the dictator of the USSR for 25 years. Just like Napoleon he was very superstitious of others overpowering him. He was known to be a very cruel leader and anyone who refused to cooperate with him was executed. Millions of people were executed as a result. In Animal Farm Old Major wanted to make some changes to how the Farm worked. He believed that animals were right and that humans were evil and cruel beings. However before he could make any drastic changes he unfortunately died due to falling from a high platform. So when he died Napoleon emerged as the new leader. He was, just like Stalin, a dictator. He decided that meetings will not be continued and that the pigs will make all the decisions. Like Stalin, he did not let his people take part in voting. Snowball, whose historical figure is Trotsky, gets banished for his ideas just like Trotsky did. Napoleon got rid of Snowball after an argument on whether a windmill should be built or not. When George Orwell linked Napoleon to Stalin’s violence through training puppies to be his soldiers, this further increases the impact it has on the victim than if Napoleon had chosen any other animal. Napoleon also blamed Snowball when there was no food, saying that he stole it all. Napoleon was using every chance he could to persuade the people...
Words: 577 - Pages: 3
...The Troubled Infancy of the Weimar Republic Key Vocabulary: Weimer Republic: The name of the German government lasting from the end of WWI (1919) to Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor (1933). Spartacists: A left-wing revolutionary group that later became the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) Nationalist: One who puts their country above all else The Reichstag: The German congress President Hindenberg: Leader of Weimar Republic Surprisingly, given its vast industrial and military power when the war began, Germany emerged from World War I a battered and, in many respects, a bewildered country. In the final months of 1918, Germans had witnessed the reversal of their army’s spring offensive, the resignation of the chancellor and abdication of the Kaiser, and the signing of a hastily arranged armistice, all in the midst of massive civil unrest. Establishment of the Weimar Republic. Germany had also changed internally. When the Kaiser and chancellor left, members of different political parties vied for power, and the country limped along for several months without a firm government in power. Then, in elections in January 1919, 76 percent of Germans voted for the three parties that favored democracy: the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Catholic Center (plus its allies in the Catholic Bavarian People’s Party), and the smaller German Democratic Party (DDP). In February, the elected officials met in the city of Weimar to draw up a constitution and establish a coalition...
Words: 3011 - Pages: 13
...through pathos. In the film, “The Hunting Ground,” the narrator states that one of the victims “was lectured and blamed,” for being raped on campus grounds. This illustrates how this incident was totally unjustified, because they made her feel like she was to blame. Incidents like this makes people frustrated, because the victim’s voice is...
Words: 946 - Pages: 4
