Hypodermic syringe model[1]

Hypodermic Hypodermic Syringe ModelSyringe Model

The Hypodermic The Hypodermic Syringe ModelSyringe Model

• This model suggests that the audience audience passivelypassively accepts the message ‘injected’ into them by the mass media.

• This model believes that there is a DIRECT correlation between the violent behaviour shown on TV, computer games etc and anti-social and criminal behaviour in real life.

Jamie Bulger- Can violent films be blamed?

Jamie Bulger, a two- year old toddler who was abducted and murdered by two 10 year old boys

The boys had apparently watched ‘Child’s Play 3’ before they murdered the toddler.

As Bulger’s death was very similar to a death in the film, newspapers such as ‘The Sun’ began to fuel the debate as to whether such violence in the media should be accepted.

Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, aged 10. Found guilty of the murder, and were sentenced to imprisonment in a young offenders institution.

• Calls for more censorship reflect the logic underlying this model.

• Psychologists (Bandura, Ross and (Bandura, Ross and Ross)Ross) have carried out laboratory experiments that are claimed to prove a cause and effect relationship between media images and behaviour.

Thirty years before Albert BanduraAlbert Bandura conducted research into how we

‘learn’ to behave

Imitation or Copycat Imitation or Copycat ViolenceViolence

He made a film of a young woman beating up a Bobo

doll. 

A Bobo doll is an inflatable, egg-shape balloon creature with a weight in the bottom that makes it bob back up

when you knock him down. 

The young woman punched the clown, kicked it, sat on it, hit with a little hammer and

so on.

She shouted various aggressive phrases

Bandura showed his film to groups of small children.

They then were let out to play!

In the play room there was a bobo doll and various toys;

including toy hammers.

Bandura watched as the kids beat the

daylights out of the bobo doll. 

They punched it and shouted kicked it, sat on it and hit it with the little hammers.

In other words, they imitated

the young lady in the film.

The children changed their behaviour in response to

what they had seen on the TV!

Bandura also showed the children a film of the young woman beating up a live clown. 

When the children went into the other room, what should they find there but -- the live clown!  They proceeded to punch him, kick him and hit

him with little hammers.

Therefore Bandura concluded that violent media content could lead to imitationimitation or copycat violence.copycat violence.

Supporting Supporting Research…Research…

• McCabe & Martin (2005)McCabe & Martin (2005) argued that imitation was a likely outcome of media violence because, often media portrays such violence as being ‘heroic’.

• Such acts are then carried out by young people as they believe it is acceptable- this is known as the ‘disinhibition effect’‘disinhibition effect’

Task: 15 MinsTask: 15 Mins

- Everyone will be given a newspaper article about the Virginia shootings and the Mass Media coverage of the events.

- Read through your newspaper article highlighting any key points which relate to audience effects.

Violence and the Mass Media

“Do you think that the Do you think that the American press should American press should have released the video have released the video footage?”footage?”

Hypodermic Hypodermic Syringe Model- Syringe Model-

RecapRecap

Recap:Recap:1. Briefly explain what is meant by the

‘hypodermic syringe model‘hypodermic syringe model’2. Give 2 contemporary examples of

mass media violencemedia violence to illustrate this model

3. How does McCabe & Martin’sMcCabe & Martin’s research support this model?

4. How can Bandura’s Bandura’s research support this model?

DesensitizationDesensitization• Elizabeth NewsonElizabeth Newson, as a result of the

James Bulger case has since been investigating the effects of violent TV on young people.

• She suggested that such exposure of violent killings etc create a drip-drip effect amongst young people.

This results is such This results is such violence becoming violence becoming desensitized- they desensitized- they begin to see such begin to see such behaviour as ‘normal’ behaviour as ‘normal’ and they are socialised and they are socialised into accepting deviant into accepting deviant behaviour.behaviour.

CensorshipCensorship• Newson’s research/findings have had

a major influence over censorship

• Video Recordings (Labelling) Act 1985, which resulted in all videos and DVD’s being given British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) age certificates.

Other Developments include:Other Developments include:

• The introduction of a 9 o’clock watershed

• In 2006 an advertising campaign for a film starring 50 Cent was criticised for glamorising gun crime

• In 2007 the government launched a review on the impact of violent TV on young chilren

• In 2008 an OfcomOfcom survey suggested that 2/3rds of their sample of young people between the ages of 12-15 yrs claimed that violent computer games had effected their behaviour.

Feminism & The Feminism & The Hypodermic Syringe Hypodermic Syringe

ModelModel• Morgan (1980)Morgan (1980) along with

other Feminists have suggested that there is a causal link between pornography and real life sexual violence

Q. WHY DO YOU THINK THIS Q. WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS?IS?

Dworkin (1990)Dworkin (1990) suggests that pornography trivialises rape and makes men

‘increasingly callous to increasingly callous to cruelty, to infliction of cruelty, to infliction of pain to violence pain to violence against persons, to against persons, to abuse of women’abuse of women’

Other research suggests that exposure to pornography makes both men and women less satisfied with their partners.

• Other research suggests the opposite- and that pornography actually has a positive role to play in relation to behaviour in real life.

• Denmark (2007)Denmark (2007) concluded that pornography actually led to improved sex-lives, sexual knowledge and attitudes towards the opposite gender.

Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree

““The Mass Media The Mass Media does have a does have a

DIRECT influence DIRECT influence over our over our

behaviour”behaviour”

TaskTask: On your piece of paper write your name. As we go round the class come and stick your name somewhere on the board, explain why you have positioned yourself there.

Critique of The Hypodermic Syringe Model

Catharsis-

Sensitisation-

Methodology-

Children as sophisticated media users

Audiences are not homogenous

Scapegoating the Media-