MEST 4 coursework blog: Critical Investigation Task #6

Quotes

Consequently, media audiences are not directly influenced by the media. Rather, they choose to adopt a particular opinion, attitude and way of behaving after negotiation and discussion with an opinion leader. The audience is, therefore, not passive, but active.
Furedi argues that moral panics arise when society fails to adapt to dramatic social changes and it is felt that there is a loss of control, especially over powerless groups such as the young. Furedi therefore argues that moral panics are about the wider concerns that the older generation have about the nature of society today – people see themselves (and their families) as at greater risk from a variety of groups. They believe that things are out of control. They perceive, with the media’s encouragement, that traditional norms and values no longer have much relevance in their lives. Furedi notes that people feel a very real sense of loss, which makes them extremely susceptible to the anxieties encouraged by media moral panics.- What a moral panic is from Furedi's perspective.

Many cultural commentators were apprehensive about the impact of this new medium on individual behaviour and on society’s moral order

The "hypodermic needle theory" implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences. The mass media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful influence on behavior change.- Several factors contributed to this "strong effects" theory of communication, including:

- the fast rise and popularization of radio and television

- the emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda

- the Payne Fund studies of the 1930s, which focused on the impact of motion pictures on children, and

- Hitler's monopolization of the mass media during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi party
The theory suggests that the mass media could influence a very large group of people directly and uniformly by ‘shooting’ or ‘injecting’ them with appropriate messages designed to trigger a desired response.

'JUST BECAUSE YOU SHOT JESSE JAMES, DON'T MAKE YOU JESSE JAMES.'
'SAY MY NAME.'
TREAD LIGHTLY.' - Its a play on words, although it is what Walter said, it is an invitation of sorts which warns the reader of what is coming up.

It was cherished as a reassuring reminder of apparently simpler, gentler times”.
Dixon was a cosy anachronism that was smashed up by the arrival of The Sweeney - This compare Dixon of Dock Green to another crime drama in a similar time period - The Sweeney. The shows were very different in the way they portrayed crime and the police force.
Dixon makes its own use of the changing language of police drama – with its “shooters”, “birds” and “blags” and the prioritisation of the CID while former beat copper Dixon takes a back seat – and reflects the changing practices of, and attitudes towards, the police.

· Here is an example of someone actually saying that they have copied someone they’ve seen on TV because they felt them and the character were the same. This killing was supposedly inspired by hit American TV show Dexter, a gruesome, crime/thriller about a socio-path serial killer.
· ‘Dexter made me do it’ – These are the words from a psychotic killer who killed his younger brother because he felt like his TV show idol Dexter, he says it as he is almost forced to commit murder when the show says nothing like it.

Hall won a Golden Globe for his portrayal but the show was criticised in the U.S. for its violent theme by the Parents Television Council

· This article looks at both sides of the argument, the argument being does the media have a direct impact on the audiences behaviour, whether this be the news or in this case a crime drama, for example the Bill and Breaking Bad
· They depend upon media to gather information and then form opinions about crime.
· was found that fear of crime seemed to increase when people watched crime-related programs on television

· The details of violence and dramatization of a crime story may be responsible for the increased fear

· Watching a culprit being caught by the law and sentenced might reduce the fear.

Criminologists, in their professional attempts to explain crime and violence, consistently turn for explanations not to the mass media but to social factors such as poverty, unemployment, housing, and the behaviour of family and peers.
If the antisocial acts shown in drama series and films are expected to have an effect on the behaviour of viewers, even though such acts are almost always ultimately punished or have other negative consequences for the perpetrator, there is no obvious reason why the antisocial activities which are always in the news, and which frequently do not have such apparent consequences for their agents, should not have similar effects

Fourie, P.J 2008 Media Studies Volume 2 - BOOK

At first glance these three different strands do not seem to have much relevance to our study or serial murder killers. However, in relation to "media effects", we might note the case of Canadian MArk Twitchell, the so called "Dexter Killer"
claimed to have been inspired to commit murder by the TV series Dexter (2006-2013)