The Effects Theory

• The Effects Theory was thought up by the Frankfurt School who were exiled to New York as their ideology was seemed left wing and they were accused of articulating criticism of a capitalist system. 
• Their argument for their ideology is the rise of the 'culture industry' resulted in increased standardization within the society.
•  under capitalism society controls almost everything and even culture is processed through the mass media as something which is bought and sold.
• The mass audience (it is seen as a passive 'thing', not a group of active consumers)is thus manipulated and indoctrinated by society (the hegemony of the ruling classes).
• the hypodermic needle model proposed to explain how this worked, which demonstrates the effect of the mass media on their audience.
• the supposed power of the mass media to inject the passive audience with ideologies.
• example: Nazi propaganda
• strict regulations in the media will help control the population.
• 'cultivation model'
• while a single text does not have effect, repeated exposure will make the audience less sensitive. critics call it becoming desensitized.
• two-step flow assumes a more active audience, who will discuss media texts with each other.
• if the text is discussed with someone we respect (an opinion leader) then we may well be passive enough to accept their received views of the texts

peer review

The music video that I am peer reviewing is an emotional video about a girl who is lost and is being represented by a ghost and is trying to find themselves. Using the area of a rural setting, black and white imaging and the use of 2 actresses’ and guitarist. The song is called Misguided Ghosts by Paramore. The genre of this type of music is pop/rock and the people who created the music video have shown the genre by the outfits. All the of the outfits are simple and casual, both actresses wearing little make up but still pretty enough for the male gaze to happen. The hair on the guitarist and actresses look styled but still very natural. They have lots of close ups of artist singing in a recording studio passionately, this is shown in black and white and only the top half of the artist is shown. This particular scene of the artist is shown at random points in the song that has synchronised lip singing with the lyrics, even though the actress playing the ghost isn’t the artist there are still lots of close ups of the face to see the facial expressions of the 'ghost' which seems to always be blank with a slight sadness which links into her character well. The 'ghost' is always looking around while she is walking around through holes in the wall or to where she is heading. This can been seen as linking in with the music video as she is seen to be 'searching' for themselves. The people who created this video have created links between the lyrics which are being sung and visuals. Examples of this technique are “they follow me” the camera follows the girl (the ghost) as she walks away; “travelling endlessly” they have used the imaging of a hand in black and white moving across a wall which looks like it is endless; when the words “so I can find” are sung the girl looks through a whole in the wall so it looks as though she is looking and trying to find something; “in circles” the producers of the music video move the camera slowly around the guitarist giving the motion that it is going around in circles; when “don’t need no road” is sung the image of a sign post that looks old and is bent saying private road shows, this is giving the audience links between the lyrics and the images shown and when the lyrics “I’m going away for a while” the girl (the ghost) walks away from the camera showing that she is going away. Not only is there a relationship between lyrics and visuals but also between the music and visuals the speed of the song seems to match the speed of what is being played, the music throughout is quite slow so they seem to have got the actress when she is wandering endlessly to walk at the same speed of the song. The transition between different scenes seems to change with the beat of the music there isn’t any fast changes and each scene is shown long enough to make it match with the music. Another feature from Goodwin’s 6 features is intertexuality which means some of the imaging that the audience seeing has come from inspiration from other media products such as films, TV programmes or other music videos. The music video which I have found is similar is Decode by Paramore where the girl in that video is just walking around endlessly which is mimicked in the music video that has been created for Misguided Ghosts by Paramore. There is also intertexuality of a film, this film is Harry Potter where they have ghosts randomly walking around endlessly, even though it isn’t in the same context it is the same idea of a ghost wondering endlessly. What has also been done in a few of the music videos that have been created for Misguided Ghosts by other students has followed the theme of someone walking around endlessly so they could of got their inspiration that. Overall the music video as a whole is a very emotional and meaningful which matches with the song, that has taken inspiration from different media products. It is very well designed and there are many links between lyrics and music and visual images. The artist of the song is very clear and the different effects that have been used match the genre of the song as well of the mood of the song.