12A: Audience theory

The hypodermic needle model

This is a crude theory from the 1920s that suggests the media injects information into the audience like a hypodermic needle and therefore can have a dangerous effect on us.

The two-step flow model

The two-step flow model was developed in the 1940s because the hypodermic needle theory was considered too simplistic, assuming the audience consumed media without thinking.

The two-step flow model instead suggests the audience are influenced by ‘opinion leaders’ in the media who mediate how the audience react to media texts. The theory suggests the media is not all-powerful and that social factors are important.

Task: Two-step flow model

1) Summarise the two-step flow model. 

2) In your opinion, is the two-step flow theory still relevant today?

3) How does this YouTube blogger fit into the two-step flow model?

4) How this this Telegraph article on influential tweeters fit the two-step flow model?

Finish for homework if you don't get it done in the lesson - due Monday.