Audience: Target, Influence and Effect

Media texts can heavily influence the views and the perceptions that are recreated by the public. This is generally perceived on a mass scale of audience. There are many theories that have been created over many years of investigations, here are some of those:

Hypodermic Needle Theory (Effect)
This theory was discovered my German Marxists in 1930, who personally witness the power of Hitler's propaganda, and how he managed to manipulate public opinion on a mass scale.
The medies is said to be like a syringe/needle, which injects ideas and beliefs into mass audiences which they are powerless to control. An example of this is if you see a person commit murder through media, you may also go out and commit violence after watching the text.

Examples of this are that of 'A Clockwork Orange' (1971), which sees mindless, unprovoked violence committed by youths. This in the past had been banned from viewing, due to the fact that it was beleived it would encourage people of a similar age to recreate what they have seen on the screen. A more recent example of this is the 'Human Centipede 2', the sequel to the infamous 'Human Centipede'. This was also banned for its explicit horror and dark sexual scenes.

This theory can somewhat be flawed, as it cannot be determined that an act of violence is specifically triggered after watching a violent film. Thousands of people have all seen films such as 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', and not all went out and reinacted the scenes in which they had viewed.

Cultivation Theory
Due to the fact that it couldnt be guaranteed that individual media texts directly effect the audience, a more refined version was created.

It was suggested that although not one piece of media text can have such an extreme effect, but that of a culmination  of years and years of viewing the same violent genre can in fact cause the viewer to react in a violent manner. This effect is called desensitisation.

Sensitisation
This theory suggests that after prolonged amounts of time viewing a specific type of genre (in the case that of a violent nature), it allows the audience to be sensitised to the effects of violence. This suggests that some violence seen by the audience can be so shocking after a build up of years that they a more aware of the reprucsions that it can create.

Identification
This suggests that an audience can identify themselves with a character in a media text which can lead them to recreate acts similar to those seen on screen. This is proven through the idea of drug cartels and mafias, and is also used by the police through the use of pornography when interrofating sex offenders, in an attempt to make them reveal their precise emotions.