Media & Audience. - for livia.

Over the years, media producers, advertisers, governments, pressure groups, anthropologists and sociologists have been absorbed in how the media can affect the behaviour and attitudes of their viewers through ways such as television, magazines and radio. The term ‘audience behaviour’ determines the acceptance or rejection of the messages that the media puts forward. It also implies the change of attitudes from voting patterns to how people react to violence.

There are many methods of the media effecting attitudes of their audience. An example of one is the hypodermic needle theory which suggests that the media are capable of mass manipulation. The theory suggests that we as an audience have been drugged by the media to believe the messages that they send to us and we as an audience are vulnerable to it. Examples that these theories are right for example are television soaps. Audiences who follow soaps believe that the characters are real and some actors who played villains have been ill-treated in the streets.

Propaganda is another method that is used in a careful method to manipulate audiences’ attitudes and beliefs. Many political parties, media industries and religious movements have all developed propaganda experts, including Adolf Hitler in the 1930’s.

Children are extremely vulnerable and not just to television but to adult behaviour. Children often learn to respond to certain ways but the way that the adults around them do. There is a belief that audiences can be badly influenced by music, films and games.