Effects Theories

Effects Theory refers to what the media does to audiences. Mass media and mass communications make people powerless to resist messages the media carries. The customers are basically 'drugged' by the media, where they become addicted.

Background:

• In Frankfurt school, Marxist German intellectuals reacting against Nazi propaganda and US advertising proposed that the power of the state and large corporations is used to control how individuals think.
• The influence of behavioural scientists show that media could reinforce attitudes through repetition. For example the Bobo doll experiment in 1963, showed that children will imitate how adults act. Children where shown either a video of an adult being aggressive to a Bobo doll or an adult just playing calmly. The children who were shown the aggressive video, where then aggressive towards a Bobo doll when in a play room.

Issues with the effects theory:

• The issues linked with violence are usually social or psychological, and have nothing to do with the media.
• The media can be classed as positive more than harmful.
• Criticisms of the media using the effects model is often politically motivated. 
• There is not actual research and evidence to prove these theories.