Audience appeal - Two Step Flow theory

Learning objective:

To compare the hypodermic needle model with two step flow theory and identify the influence of opinion leaders within the media

Key words: Opinion leaders, hegemony, passive, active audiences

Recap:
Hypodermic Needle Theory – the idea that the media can ‘inject’ ideas and messages straight into the passive audience. This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages. Used in advertising and propoganda, led to moral panics about effect of violent video and computer games.

It is largely flawed in today’s age because it suggests that audiences passively receive the information transmitted via a media text, without little or no attempt to challenge the method of communication or data. This highlights how audiences change.

So why study it?  Because you must have an historical understanding of how the media has changed and sadly some countries, not democracies, still believe that this approach works best for them on state controlled media (Zimbabwe, Burma, China).  

Examine propagandafilms of Nazi Germany and morale boosting movies by the Brits for example. 

Robert Mugabe has been the leader of Zimbabwe for the three decades of its independence.

In a nutshell, the Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that information is absorbed into the human brain without thought.  We are therefore vulnerable from consuming media texts and easily manipulated by producers.  We accept dominant ideologies without questioning them.

Two Step Flow theory 
The idea that ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population.

Background

Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign and published their results in a paper called The People's Choice. 

Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over whom they have influence. 
The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow. 
This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts. This is sometimes referred to as the limited effects paradigm.

Fox News:

The theory has helped with our understanding of how the media influences our decisions as well as refining our ability to predict the effects of the media’s messages on audience behaviour.

The Two-Step flow theory destroys the idea that audiences absorb the content of a media text directly, but suggest that a social class or demographic get their interpretation of the media through a representative of that class, known as an opinion leader. 

Modern day opinion leaders can be bloggers and also independent media companies that are not state controlled.  

This is true with the news in today’s media –  you have journalists and commentators responding to news stories that emerge from hegemonic sources, each source will either challenge or interpret the dominant ideology differently.  This is most prevalent in the British press and their political stance, as this can impact on news stories. 

Which can bring you on to mediation and how the text tries to involve an audience through Mode of Address, persuasive, emotive language.

Don’t forget dominant ideology

Marxists are likely to find evidence in the modes of address of almost every text that confirms evidence of a class divided society in which workers are exploited by capitalists.

Feminists are likely to find evidence in the modes of address of almost every media text that there are assumptions about gender.

Task 1:

Two-step flow model

1) Summarise the two-step flow model. 

2) In your opinion, is the two-step flow theory still relevant today?

3) How does this YouTube blogger fit into the two-step flow model?

4) How dos this Telegraph article on influential tweeters fit the two-step flow model?

5) Conclude; how are audience' views about issues impacted (or not) by opinion leaders.

Audience appeal Reception theory

Audience appeal

Reception theory

You will consider Mediation and how the text tries to involve an audience through

Mode of Address, persuasive, emotive language.

You will identify reading of audiences through this theory.

• Key words: Encoding. Decoding. Stuart Hall.

Audience appeal Cadbury's Dairy Milk/Sainsburys

Learning Outcomes: 

• How audiences are attracted to a text.
• What impacts the way in which different audiences respond to texts
• How texts construct and position audiences.
• How theories can help to understand audience responses, where appropriate.

Key words: Polysemic, signifiers, content, UGC, complicity, relationships, identity, surveillance.

Task 1: Watch the clip and read the piece about the Cadbury's gorilla ad below.

Cadbury's Dairy Milk Ad (2007)

'Gorilla'

A quirky film which features an actor in a gorilla suit playing a famous Phil Collins’ drum solo, “In the Air Tonight”. Launched on the 31st August 2007 during the ‘Big Brother 8’ final, it ran with a sponsorship of the Rugby World Cup, and then until the end of the year. 

It was aimed to be seen by 84% of the UK’s adult population an average of 10 times.
The format of ‘Gorilla’ makes it stand out, it is 3 times as longer than a standard ad.
It uses unexpected content; the product is not seen until the final pack shot, in the last seconds. 
Far from hard-selling, the ad is a 90’ interpretation of a pure feeling: Joy. 

This unusual campaign appealed to a wide audience for a variety of reasons. 
The campaign showed an understanding of one of current advertising’s major evolutions: 
The increasing importance of content.

ENTERTAIN TO CATCH ATTENTION.
Media advertising is intrusive, but this advert catches its target audience's attention by offering an entertaining content instead of a hard-selling one. 
The use of a global cultural reference in Phil Collins’ song, delivered in a quirky way with the unexpected gorilla character, increased the potential of the ad. 

INVOLVE TO CREATE COMPLICITY 
Had ‘Gorilla’ only been entertaining, people may have watched it just once. 
However, it generated quite a buzz and user generated content*. 
The ad provides more than entertainment, the key to it's success is creating involvement and consumers now have more tools to avoid advertising they consider to be intrusive. 

Therefore, knowledge of audience attitudes, behaviours and interests, becomes more essential than ever, and user generated content is providing a new type of success measurement. 
The current (r)evolution happening in media advertising is leading the industry to turn to more entertaining and consumer involving content, but also to adopting more sharply targeted media plans.

CHOOSE YOUR WEAPONS 
If the ad content is essential, a smart media plan is fundamental to achieve advertising goals. In today’s context, there are two main strategies: finding events broadcast on television that will appeal the right audience (positioning issue), or avoiding mass media and using much sharper targeted channels. 
For ‘Gorilla’, there is an interesting use of sponsorship with the Rugby World Cup strategy, which attracted on the whole 26.3m viewers. After a massive prime-time launch on Big Brother 8’s final, the ad aired on the rugby matches, and was tailored for each game - a changing message on the gorilla’s drums. This strategy has been so efficient in involving viewers that the character became a sort of mascot for the game, and most important of all, it got people expecting the ad. This shows that success lies today on the combination of an effective media plan and an involving content.

*User-generated content (UGC) is published information that an unpaid contributor has provided to a web site. The information might be a photo, video, blog or discussion forum post, poll response or comment made through a social media web site.

A DIALOG TO DRIVES SALES
Taking the campaign from the start, here are some recommendations to improve its efficiency on sales. The 3 suggested levels of improvement are organized by priority according to the existing campaign.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING 
Expressing the pleasure of eating chocolate the ad could suit any chocolate brand, and worse any brand positioned on a benefit of joy. To improve the ad/product relationship, whilst keeping the entertaining and non-hard-selling aspects, the subtle branding can be reinforced by adding milk symbols (the product’s insight!) to the ad: the gorilla could have spilled fresh milk on his chest (leave mysterious the way it happened), there could be some milk on the floor, or the brand’s two glasses somewhere in the room… There are many ways to improve the ad’s branding, but the milk idea seems to be one of the simplest.

ARE ENDANGERED SPECIES DANGEROUS? 
The gorilla is central feature of the advert and of the generated buzz: The same film with a human would not have worked as well. But the use of a disappearing species raises a few questions, about the issue of ethics. 
Cadburys have chosen what many believe to be an unethical approach by having an endangered species serve the snacking market. Fortunately for the brand, consumers appreciated the entertaining message of ‘Gorilla’.

Task 2: 
Summarize the reasons why was the ad so successful.
200 words. Use the key words and apply theory when required.

Sainsbury's Christmas Ad 2014

This emotive advert has provoked strong debate over whether it should have been made. With its cinematic feel and its underlying commercialism, Sainsbury's advert is natural fare for a range of Media Units, across several exam boards. It is one of the most striking adverts ever made, where the competitors: Marks & Spencers, John Lewis, Debenhams, etc. seem tamely anodyne in comparison.

Task 3:

How does the Sainsbury's Christmas ad 2014 appeal to audiences?
Compare to the Cadbury's gorilla ad. Do some research and identify UGC if you can. 

Audience positioning and Moral Panic.

L/O: To identify and research moral panic as set out by Cohen

A moral panic is an intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.

Marshall McLuhan gave the term academic treatment in his book Understanding Media written in 1964.

According to Stanley Cohen, author of a sociological study about youth culture and media called Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), a moral panic occurs when "condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests".

Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are known by researchers as moral entrepreneurs, while people who supposedly threaten the social order have been described as "folk devils".

Moral panics are in essence controversies that involve arguments and social tension and in which disagreement is difficult because the matter at its center is taboo.

The media have long operated as agents of moral indignation, even when they are not consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety or panic.

Moral panic examples:

60's

They often occur during times when society has been unable to adapt to significant change and when such change leads to a fear of a loss of control within the normal social structure. This was evident during the 1960s when society experienced such modernising trends as the so called 'sexual revolution'. When events, such as those found in the 1960's, occur there is a concern that moral standards are in decline and entire generations can sometimes be accused of undermining society's moral structure.

James Bulger.

The concern of 'video nasties' reappeared in the 1990's following the murder of the toddler James Bulger by two juveniles. The case was related to the violent film 'Child's Play 3', which the offenders had previously watched. The case and the implications made against the film resulted in further regulations being enacted in 1994.

Despite the fact that such killings remain extremely rare, the story, largely due to its portrayal by the media, led to the view that all children were now at risk from one another, and that access to certain films could produce child murderers. The dangers posed by moral panics are continuously exaggerated and distorted by the media with the result that public concern is heightened. They often present reasons and scapegoats for the occurrence of certain events in order to divert attention from more real and greater problems found within society.

E.coli

The E.coli outbreak in Scotland, which occurred at the end of 1996, created debates regarding food safety laws and led to changes concerning the cleanliness of animals when they are slaughtered and the general hygiene standards in butcher's shops and supermarkets. Whilst E.coli is extremely dangerous the media's reporting of the incident led the public to believe that there was yet another national crisis concerning our food, and that such vulnerable groups as the elderly and the young were in extreme danger. 

However, despite the fact that twenty people died and many were seriously ill, the outbreak of E.coli was exaggerated extensively by the press, and many of the public failed to realise that many of the planned changes concerning food hygiene were already in place in most food shops. 

Whilst changes in the storing and displaying of cooked and raw meats was clearly necessary, the media's orchestration of the panic led the public to believe the issue to be a far greater problem than it actually was.

Dunblane
Perhaps the most publicised moral panic in the past few years has been the concern over the British gun control laws. Following the Dunblane massacre in Scotland in which a number of schoolchildren and their teacher were shot dead by a lone gunman, a campaign was initiated calling into question the current restrictions on the purchasing of weapons. The incident created a national panic and concern for the safety of our children in schools, and the issue of stricter gun laws resulted in extensive amendments to the laws making the United Kingdom one of the strictest countries regarding public access to hand guns.

Clearly, the majority of people who possess hand guns or who partake in shooting activities are normal, responsible people who have simply fallen victim to the demands of the media and the general public in making the country a safer place and preventing such a tragedy as Dunblane from ever occurring again.

AIDS
many innocent people fall victim of certain moral panics once they are orchestrated by the media. This point was evident in the aftermath of the AIDS issue which was raised in the 1980's. 

Through the media we were led to believe that the virus posed a very real threat to the future of mankind and although it was, to a great extent, a possibility that the virus would affect our whole way of life, it must be noted that the initial scare as reported by the media was based on assumptions and insubstantial evidence. 

The press also publicised the fact that the virus was prominent amongst the gay community. Whilst it remains true that homosexual men are at considerable risk from the virus the media's portrayal of the issue provoked mass public resentment of homosexuals and a general belief that they were responsible for the disease due to their 'unorthodox' lifestyle.

TASK1:
Do some research on the above moral panics. One paragraph on how each has been portrayed in the media. Post to your blogs.

TASK2:
Carry out some research on Leah Betts who died after taking ecstasy in 1995.
How has media coverage and celebrity input changed public perception of the drug?

Writing an essay all about ravers or Britpop is insufficient - you must write an essay about how they have been represented.

TASK3: Homework

MEDIA PRODUCT

You must create your own Moral Panic via the production of  newspaper pages.

Your research and analysis will have shown you exactly how the media encourages the audience how to fear an element of society that is deemed to be on the 'fringes' - something which is outside of the norm. 
Your deconstruction will have shown how manipulative and persuasive the media can be in trying to shape the ideologies of an audience in order to be scared of that element.

You will also have investigated why Moral Panics are created and be able to give context to the representations you have seen.

All this analysis and research will probably give you a 'toolkit' of how to create a Moral Panic - sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit, the papers have the power to be master manipulators.

This project has the potential to be a lot of fun, but there are a couple of decisions to make and pit-falls to avoid...

• Are you going to take something that is already on the fringes of society and create a moral panic out of people's ignorance and limited perceptions?
• Are you going to choose something innocuous and unthreatening about society and demonise it?
• Avoid cliched and lazy ideas - somethings are overdone already; asylum seekers, video games and drugs might have already reached saturation point in the real media
• Don't confuse fear of things like natural disasters with Moral Panics
• Make sure that it's actually possible to get the photos you need - don't choose to discuss a terrorist attack unless you can get a photo of one!

Remember that the look and tone of this product should look and feel exactly like a real newspaper. Be very careful with how you write it and the decisions you make in regards to photos.

Year 12 written tasks success criteria:

Knowledge of the concept of audience/representation/narrative

Awareness of relevant theories

Uses examples to draw on relevant issues

Use of media terminology/key words

Quality of written communication

Audience and Nationality.

You will consider how text producers think about nationality before targeting their audience.

The Representation of 'Britishness'

When considering the concept of representation in Media Studies whether it be places, people or events, you need to be able to identify the following:

• The role of selection, construction and anchorage in creating representations
• How the media uses those representations
• The points of view, messages and values underlying those representations

Representation is a process for constructing identity and can lead to a collective identity. 

The concept of a collective identity refers to a set of individuals' sense of belonging to the group or collective. 
For the individual, the identity derived from the collective shapes a part of his or her personal identity.

It is possible, at times, that this sense of belonging to a particular group will be so strong that it will trump other aspects of the person's personal identity. 

To put it another way, Collective Identity is the idea that through participating in social activities, individuals can gain a sense of belonging and in essence an "identity" that transcends the individual.


One can derive great satisfaction and sometimes great risks from participating. 
Within a typical collective, agreement is often valued over debate.

Quotes to consider if Representation is your concept:
“Identity is complicated- everybody thinks they’ve got one”- David Gauntlett
“ A focus on Identity requires us to pay closer attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences for social groups” -David Buckingham

______________________________________________________________________

Task 1: In your orange books create a spider gram of all things British. 

Here is a list of some of the things you may have thought about:

British people live in the past and are proud of Britain's history

They don't care what others think about them

Are patriotic

Don't speak foreign languages

Aren't sure about geography, even their own. (What does Great mean in Great Britain?)

Are polite and reluctant to complain, in restaurants for example

Fascinated by scandal and gossip

Have mixed feelings about fellow Europeans

Weather, tea and national sport are important

It is often suggested that Britishness is ultimately about shared values of tolerance, respect and fair play, a belief in freedom and democracy.

Britain has a population with a diverse heritage.

However, the concept of Britishness is much more complicated than the stereotypes you may have identified. 

As A level students, you will need to show that you can recognise and analyse representations 

• demonstrate an understanding of the concept of representation and its importance in analysing and understanding media texts.

• develop a response beyond a description of simple representations

• be aware of the more complex issues underpinning a discussion of representation 
for example the issues surrounding stereotypes, construction, mediation and ideology.

The media texts you have been researching should be discussed with consideration given to the various audiences involved.

Task 2: Discuss the way individuals receive and interpret the texts below, how does their individual circumstances (gender, class, age, ethnicity) affected their reading? 

Consider Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model, the relationship between text and audience. 

The text is encoded by the producer, and decoded by the reader, and there may be major differences between two different readings of the same code. 

e.g. gender affects the reading as boys may laugh at violence in a film but girls find it upsetting.

• Preferred/dominant • Negotiated • Oppositional 

For example; gender can impact on the reading: Boys often laugh at violence in a film but girls may find it disturbing.

Related: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17218635

Representation of age in media.

• Learning Objective: How text producers consider age when targeting their audience.

• Key words/terminology: Stereotype, conform, challenge, ideology of protection, hegemonic values. Helpless, aggressive, lazy, binge, dominant, glamorous, brave, hero, villain.

Recap: 
Name the visual codes and technical codes that were covered in the last lesson.

Visual codes can give us clues about how media text producers intend to represent people.

Task 1:
Note down on the handout (1) how you can recognise the age groups of the people in these pictures. Consider the visual codes and the settings. Be sure to put your name on the top.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Peer review; swap sheets with your neighbour and check answers.

Task 2:
Use the checklist provided to describe how different age groups are usually represented in the media. Try to give an example of a media text where you have seen the age group in question.

 Age groups:

• Children
• Teenagers
• 20’s-30’s 
• Middle Aged
• Elderly 

• You have just identified stereotypical representations as provided by the media.

Definition of stereotype:

A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

• Peer review; swap sheets with your neighbour and check answers.

___________________________________________________

Task 3: Watch this clip from the crime drama Criminal Justice and consider how age has been represented. Make notes in books whilst watching.

 

Task 4: In pairs and using the handouts provided list how the different age groups are represented and state if they conform or challenge the stereotype.

_________________________________________________________

If you get “age” as an issue in the exam, you should be thinking about the following things when watching the clip:

•     Can I identify what approximate age the characters are?

•   Are people from different age groups shown as having different interests, personalities, attitudes, behaviours? If so, how?

•    Is their age represented as being important in their life?

• Are people from particular age groups portrayed as being better, more powerful, than others?

•  Are people from particular age groups portrayed as being abnormal /weaker/ more pathetic than others? 

• How do other characters in the clip treat the characters from different age groups?

• What message to audiences does the clip portray about age?

Task 5: Apply the above points to the following clip Criminal Justice (handout):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ9vYZhno0w&list=PLAC15C50BB775177D&index=29

Some of your answers will relate to dominant British ideology.

In Marxist philosophy, the term dominant ideology denotes the attitudes and beliefs, values and morals shared by the majority of the people in a given society; as a mechanism of social control, the dominant ideology frames how the majority of the population think about the nature of and their places in society; of being in and of a social class.

Media texts often show representations of young people out of control.
This allows the state to have more control of them (e.g. media reports about delinquent youths led to the introduction of ASBOs).

This is something called the ‘ideology of protection’ – the idea that young people need constant surveillance and monitoring. This happens because youth is the time when young people learn about and often challenge the current social roles and values, and allows the state to make sure they conform to hegemonic values.

Plenary: Cloze activity which includes key words from the session.

Task 6: Homework: 

• Watch this clip of the feature film Harry Brown

Using the handout provided, answer the following questions about the clip.

• How is British youth represented in this clip?
• Is the young man shown to have behaved in an unacceptable way according to British ideology?
• From who's perspective do we see British youth?
• How does this conform to dominant British ideology?
• How does this compare to other representations of British youth you have seen.
• Could you say that  ‘Harry Brown’ is a middle class fantasy in which anti-social youths are hunted down and killed by an elderly man.
• How do you think different audiences respond to the text?

Year 12 written tasks success criteria:
Knowledge of the concept of audience/representation/narrative
Awareness of relevant theories/debates/views
Uses examples to draw on relevant issues
Use of media terminology/key words
Quality of written communication

Related links:
British values
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/3618632/Ten-core-values-of-the-British-identity.html