Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Blog 4 - Media Violence leads to MWS? (Cultivation & Hegemonic Theory)


The last model of media persuasion that I looked into was the Cultivation theory and how it was theorised to have lead to the infamous Mean World Syndrome (Harris R. J., 1999). This was possibly the most interesting lecture in terms of this persuasion topic; it went into detail of how heavy exposure to media programming can leave a viewer scared of the real world (Harris R. J., 1999).

Studies have shown that high exposure to media violence leaves is directly linked to the level of anxiety they feel in real life. So the more violence they seen on the screen the higher the chance that violence will be thrust upon them outside (Shanahan J, Morgan M., 1999). There are debates going on between the differences of fear and Mean World Syndrome. What is certain is that the two derive from media exposure . What actually does the persuading is media violence, and this is what I intend to write about come writing my essay on the art of persuasion in the media.

This can also be complimented by the Hegemonic model (Artz L., Kamalipour Y.R., 2003), which is the theory that all we see in society is a direct and synthesised by the higher ups. Heavy exposure to news and documentaries can shape the way the public view the war and economic and political stability (Artz L., Kamalipour Y.R., 2003). This means that we subconsciously view the world in the way it has been conveyed to us, a tactic used by the government to keep the proletariat society in check and keep a firm grip, to avoid social chaos when things turn ugly.

References
Artz L., Kamalipour Y.R., 2003, The globalisation of corporate media hegemony, U.S: New York, State University of New York Press, Albany.

Harris R. J., 1999, A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication, U.S: Mahwah NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Shanahan J, Morgan M., 1999, Television and its Viewers: Cultivation Theory and Research, United Kingdom: Cambridge, The University of Cambridge.

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