The effects model

The consumption of media text has an effect or influence upon the audience.

Its normally considered that this effect is negative.

Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence.

The power lies with the message of the text (can be forced to agree with something).

The model can be called the Hypodermic Model:

Here the messages in media text are injected into the audience by the powerful media.

The audience is powerless to resist.

Therefore, the media works like a “drug, addicted, doped or duped”.

• Key evidence for the effects model:The Frankfurt School theorized in the 1920’s and 30’s that the mass media acted to resist and control audiences to the benefit of corporate capitalism and governments.
•  The Bobo Doll experiment, was a very controversial piece of research that apparently proved that children copy violent behaviour (1961, Albert Bandura).