Audience theories 'The Effects Model' & 'Uses and Gratifications'

In today's lessons we learned about two theories about audiences and how they relate to media. As for the effects model it is the thought that people have to be involved in the media more as if it is like a drug to them. Many people who take drugs feel they need to be dosed with their drug and is similar with people who are involved with media they need to be dosed with their usage of the media and want to know what is happening around the world with different people. This has a strong effect on people as many people cannot seem to go a day with out consuming some kind of media. As for the Uses and Gratifications theory this goes against the effects model as they believe it is the audience choice to go and be involved in the media and they made that choice themselves to be a part of this. Also for this theory when television became more accessible in the 1970's Bandura appeared to prove this theory by taking children between the age of 3-5 and put them in a room with a Bobo doll and they however reacted to violence towards the doll which is portraying the opposite of the effects model as they have seen violence from the television they appeared to react in the same way. Below is the link to the Bandura Bobo Doll experiment.

In this video we watched in class was Chase & Status - Time ft. Delilah I have applied it to two theories such as The Effects Model ( or hypodermic model) Croteau Hoynes (1997) and Uses and Gratifications Blumler and Katz (1974). The narrative of this video is about a wife who is suffering from severe domestic violence and doesnt do anything about it, it then becomes so severe that the child has to call the police upon her father as her mum is injured badly. People would choose to watch this video as a choice of social interaction as it has quite and emotive affect on people they will be intrigued to see what the video is about. On the other hand people may watch this video to gain information used in the uses There are many different type of views of this video and today I have learned specifically about these two, as for the effects model many audiences may feel that they can take in the real message behind the story if they are in the same situation. This video also seems to portray men as being very dominant and violent but also appears to portray women as being very vulnerable and weak.

As a class we looked at a Chase & Status- Time ft. Delilah which I applied both theories too, the narrative of this music video is about a girl who lives in a domestic violent household and has to witness her father continuously beating her mother and has a drastic and emotional effect on her daughter. She then takes control and involves the police which later leads her father to being placed in jail. 

In terms of 'The Effects Model' theory this video is connoting the dominance that men have and that women are powerless; the video portrays a typical stereotype of women being extremely vulnerable and not having control over men. This typical stereotype of women has been conveyed through many music videos. The women is also represented as being weak as she begins to cry after her husband is beating her but does not do anything about, this links back to the 'effects model' as this idea is enforced and 'injected' into the media consumer. However the video also denotes that women can take control as towards the end of the music video we see that you have a helpline which you can call enable to put a stop to the torment and recover from the abuse. This represents women as being in control and that they do not always have to be dominated by men and that there are people who can help. This video could help those who are going through the same thing to go and take control showing a positive outcome.

As for the 'Uses and Gratifications' model it can also be applied to the video as this theory plays on there personal identity and moral values this connotes that when the audience watch the video and see domestic violence being taken place they are going to want to do something about it and take action. If the audience are able to relate to the video they can take drastic help. In the video we see the daughter uses the 'refuge helpline' which can encourage others to take action and do so. This portrays the daughter to be seen as a role model to the consumers of the music video and those suffereing domestic violence. It also denotes that domestic violence not only affects those going through it but the loved ones of those around.

We then applied a chosen music video of our choice so I chose to do 'Britney Spears'- Toxic as this connotes Britney reinforcing Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze', for the 'Uses & Gratifications' model we can see that if young women watch this video they feel that if they act the way in which Britney is in the video they can feel sexy and look as glamorous as she does.



As for the effects model, we can see how it is mainly women dominated, this is reinforcing the feminist views on how women have control over men subverting the traditional stereotype of men over powering women. In this video we can see how Britney play on the stereotype of being a clumsy girl as she appears to spill her drink over one of the customers, however we see how the women in the video appear to be standing over the men denoting that they have dominance over men. At the end of the video we see how she poisons a male due to her seducing him, this connotes that men are vulnerable to women and when it comes to a sexual manner men can be easily fooled by women as seen in this video.