The Hypodermic Needle Theory

Hypodermic Needle Theory

Developed in the 1930's

Also known as the Magic Bullet Theory

Its a model of community

It suggests that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver. 

It can be considered obsolete today.

The Reception Theory

The different opinions people get from seeing media outlets (Eg with the same news broadcast, some people will agree with the reporter, some people would completely disagree and some people would accept what is being said but would have other opinions still.

Media text encoded by the producer

The text is then decoded by the audience in different ways

A text can be received in 3 different ways;
- Dominant or preferred reading
- Negotiated reading
- Opposite reading

Passive and Active Audience

Passive and active audience is very similar to the Reception theory where its how different typed of audiences receive and react to different types of media.

A passive media consumer is the same as a dominant or preferred reading, when after watching the news or listening to the radio, they just take in the information and accept it without question

The active audience is similar to the negotiated and opposite reading when they might argue against the media information that's been told to them

Bowling for Columbine

The point that Michael Moore is making when he goes to the bank to get the gun is how easy it is in America to get your hands on a firearm. For something as simple as a bank to simply give anyone a gun for making a new account only tells you that it can only be easier to acquire a fire arm anywhere else.

For my negotiated reading I have chosen the clip where Michael Moore goes into the bank to sign up for the account that allows you to also get a complimentary gun of your choice.  I think its silly that the bank just hands out guns to anyone who starts a new account but I know that it is also very emphasized by Michael Moore. In the documentary he is seen to be handed a gun by a member of staff making it look like it is very easy to get a firearms when in reality, before recording he had simply asked the employee if he could simply hold the gun. There is actually a 6 month waiting process you have to go through until you receive the gun but Michael Moore blatantly lied to prove a point that was invalid, so the documentary can be taken in different ways depending on how you look at it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cglnvXzitOQ

For my oppositional reading i will use the clip below where Michael Moore is comparing guns to nuclear weapons. While some people might agree with his statements, i think that he often greatly over exaggerates a subject to make a point. I agree with his general premise for the documentary, that america has become too desensitized to violence and need to cut down on the amount of guns that are freely carried by the public, but this clip is a good example of the line between making a good point, and being over dramatic and possibly ruining his argument in the process, just for the sake of a documentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF1Da6MCUC4

Mean World Syndrome

Newspapers Comparisons

There are lots of drastic differences between different newspapers, ranging from the layout, the formality and the style of language used. This can all range depending on the target audience the newspaper is aiming at. For this i am going to be comparing "The Sun" and "The Times" newspapers and how they are both different to fit the audience that they were published for.













The image above is an article taken from an issue of The Times about Hilary Clinton and the FBI hunt against her emails. This type of newspaper is called a Broadsheet. The target audience is fairly older aged people as there is not too many colorful pictures, just lots and lots of information.






The newspaper on the left is whats called a Tabloid, an obvious difference from the Broadsheet above is that there is a lot more pictures dominating the page than text. This is intended for a younger target audience, mostly young adults as these people are mostly won over by large pictures and advertising rather than boring text all over the page. Where the other magazine relies more on small text and informative headlines, the paper on the left has very little text and the headline is very big and bland. There is only a small article as the rest of the page is taken by large pictures and colorful little advertisements at the bottom of the page.




This graph shows the readership from a mix of different newspapers including The Times and The Sun. As you can see by the top blue line, The Sun has the most popular readership for the longest amount of time from October 2006 all the way to 2011 and even then it only starts to decrease a little bit. One possible reason that The Sun is more popular is because of the large text and slight overuse of pictures.



From a distance The Times page doesn't stand out, it has almost no color and is just filled with small text, where as The Sun newspaper has lots of colorful pictures that would immediately catch peoples eye no matter what age and will straight away make them want to know more about the article from reading the very large headline. The layout of both newspapers plays a big role in telling us the target audience for each of them. The Times would be intended for older people as it filled with lots of information and isn't too eye catching but The Sun is very clearly intended for a much younger audience as lots of simple large text and colorful pictures would attract that age range. The publishers of both newspapers will take this into account when making each newspaper as they would make a specific picture and certain title headline that they know would attract whatever age range they want.

The Sun Magazine Example

This is my example for a Sun newspaper cover, it appeals to the same younger target audience as it is very simple and therefore eye catching. It uses only one picture of a popular celebrity that a lot of young people would recognize and want to buy the newspaper, is also doesn't contain a lot of text so that it keeps the simplicity of letting the picture do all the talking. It has some small headlines as well as the title hinting to what is inside the magazine but is still very simple with little bits of color so that its eye catching but not too distracting

The Times Magazine Example

My example of a Times newspaper is slightly more extreme compared to The Sun magazine. It has a lot of images and text and is much more complicated than the previous magazine cover, instead of a polar celebrity is now features two well known political leaders which an older audience would respond more too than younger people. It also has some other article headlines that have strange headlines in order to entice people to read more of the magazine.

Before creating a newspaper it is essential for the creators and publishers to carry out some research on there intended target audience before hand. They need to carry out different methods of research on different people in order to find out what is popular with certain ages so they can slowly put together some specific content for a specific target audience. One way of carrying out research is going out and getting the public to answer questionnaires. This would would contain a lot of questions asking things such as when they read the paper, what they look for in the paper and other questions that would help the editor get all the information he needs so that he knows what his intended audience wants to see.