The Hypodermic Needle Model- Audience Theory

This theory was first developed in the 1920's and early 1930's. It looks at how the mass media influences its audiences and in turn how the audiences immediately react. This theory is a linear communication theory as it suggests that messages presented by the media are 'injected' straight into the receiver’s brain without any chance to challenge what is being stated; making everyone a passive audience and no different from anyone else.

This theory was introduced around the time that governments had discovered how powerful and influential advertising was, to transfer messages and information to a large group of people through use of propaganda- persuading their audiences to their way of thinking, particularly during World War 1 & 2.

There is no doubt that still to this day, the media has a powerful effect on the audience; influencing the way they think and react. Due to continual increases in technical convergence within society, it makes it much easier for the media creators to influence and inform a mass audience on a much wider scale, if more people have access to technical products to access these media sources. It suggests that as an audience, our opinions and the way we think are manipulated by the media creators and we have no control over it. This theory was one of the first and most comprehensive examinations of how the media works; although it has its limitations. The cultivation/ culmination theory is a more refined version of the Hypodermic Needle Model.

This can be linked to our own media product (music video), as this theory suggests that our audience will watch the video and passively accept it for what it is. As features of ‘The Male Gaze’ are potentially going to be incorporated within our music video, ‘All Day and All Of The Night’- The Kinks; a young girl/women audience may watch the video and aspire to look like the girl in the video. Wearing extravagant and out-going clothing around the time this song was released (1964) was considered unacceptable within society. Audience’s may have been influenced by music videos around that time and have been encouraged to change their behaviours and image; to rebel against societies strict expectations.