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Media Simply Reflects and Reinforces Existing Social Values Essay

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Media Simply Reflects and Reinforces Existing Social Values There is a notion held by many people that the media has the power to affect our beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviours either directly or indirectly. Many sociologists believe that the media could be extremely powerful and influential because of their technology, economics, and because of the sheer scale of operations. There has been a tremendous amount of research done into the possible short and long term effects of the media on society but very little has been proved either way. Early research often stressed the construction of the audience and made assumptions about the impact on the public. This includes the hypodermic effect …show more content…

This theory has since been discredited for being too simplistic and narrow in its approach. It does not take into account for other variables such as the fact that the tests were done on small groups in unnatural surroundings, and the personality of those tested. This approach would appear to make no allowance for the fact that as human beings we are active in how we try to make sense of the world. A contrasting model of behaviourism is the audience selection approach. This approach sees the media as having an active audience rather than the passive one portrayed by the behaviourist view. This theory proposes that the audience choose what they want to read/hear/see, based on their own attitudes, values and beliefs. For example television programmes could be used as an escape from loneliness or as a central leisure interest. Basically this approach implies that the messages have meaning to the individual or group. David Morelys 1980 study was seen by some sociologists as an important step forward in studying media effects as it took account for meaning rather than suggesting that we are merely receptors for what we see/read/hear. Morley interviewed 29 different groups of people including apprentice electricians, sociology students and management trainees and asked then for their views on a well known television programme at the

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