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.
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.
BackgroundThe idea that ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population.
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.
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:
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.
5) Conclude; how are audience' views about issues impacted (or not) by opinion leaders.
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