Pages 144-161
Chapter 6 begins by bringing up the widely understood fact that media texts have a considerable impact on audiences, but what’s less understood is what exactly that effect is, and how it happens. One theory that attempts to answer this is the ‘hypodermic model’, which essentially argues that the consumption of media is no different than the consumption of a drug, in the regard that both have a direct impact on the consumer. The hypodermic model was originally used as an explanation for the rise of fascism and right-wing politics in Europe in the first half of the 20th century, and it argued that popular culture and mass media were to blame. This resulted in a moral panic surrounding media texts, that continues even today in the form of blaming mass shooting and other tragedies on media texts like violent movies and video games, as opposed to addressing the real underlying issues like gun violence. The chapter then goes on to describe the censorship efforts that have resulted from this moral panic. It brings up how the ‘effects model’ is used by wealthier people to characterize certain groups of people like children or the working class as “vulnerable” and in need of protection, possibly as an excuse to impose censorship on any media text that goes against their strict conservative values. One such example it uses is the campaign by British media institutions to get the film Crash banned in the country for its promotion of “obscene” material. The chapter then goes on to describe the various problems with the hypodermic and effect models, by citing various examples of violent media texts not making people violent, mainly because audiences’ understanding of violence in media texts is far more sophisticated than they get credit for. The chapter then introduces a more dynamic model known as the ‘uses and gratifications model’ which argues that instead of audiences being “used” by the media they consume (which is comparable to what the hypodermic model argues), they instead “use” the media for various purposes like personal identification, information gathering, socialization, or entertainment. While not without its flaws, the uses and gratifications model allows us to look at how audiences consume media in a much more dynamic and realistic way, especially when compared to the previous models. Finally, the chapter offers an explanation of what entertainment is, and how it does more than just “entertain”, by providing audiences with a form of escapism that contrasts our real world problems (for example scarcity) with the utopian opposites (for example abundance). Pages 161-171 The chapter then describes how each of the elements of utopia are present in the show ER, those being energy, abundance, intensity, transparency, and community, and how the constant fulfillment of those elements may have contributed to the show’s massive success and viewership. Berger’s table then illustrates how various genres of entertainment can be used by audiences to fulfill the previously mentioned utopian desires, which brings us back to the Frankfurt school of thought. This argues that living in a capitalistic society has caused feelings of exploitation among the working class, and that entertainment serves as a sort of “antidote” to those feelings by portraying the utopian elements that the working class desires. Because of this, it can be argued that entertainment is what makes life worth living in a capitalistic society, and in turn that capitalism defines what entertainment is. Due to the undeniable link between entertainment and society through capitalism, this opens up the discussion of how factors like race and class affect entertainment, as well as the differences in entertainment consumed by various races and classes. Several issues with the uses and gratifications theory are then mentioned, which have to do with the general idea that it assumes people can be completely autonomous from the media they consume, which is largely unrealistic. Pages 173-179 This section describes the ethnographic approach, which rose to prominence as media theorists began to view audiences as people, as opposed to the statistics they were viewed as up to that point. The ethnographic approach argues that the researcher should partake in “participant observation” and join the audience they are studying to better understand how they interpret media texts. The social context that goes into how groups interpret media texts is explored, for example by highlighting the intense fandom of “Trekkies”, which is essentially a subculture for fans of Star Trek. The interpretation of media text is also greatly affected by elements like social class, occupation, subculture, and time period, which is what the ethnographic approach tries to take into consideration. While the ethnographic approach is generally better at understanding the cultural context surrounding how audiences interpret media texts than, say, the uses and gratifications method, it does have its flaws. For example, it is usually difficult for the researcher to remain objective, and the method also occupies this weird space between the mass audiences theories like uses and gratifications, and the more detail oriented, specific models. Another method was introduced to help bridge this gap, and it was called the model of audience-media text interaction, which argued that an audience is both activated and deactivated by media texts.
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