Have modern horrors become too extreme?
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Contents: Uses and gratifications theory – Page 3 Hypodermic needle theory – Page 4 Cultivation theory – Page 5 Reception types – Page 6 Audience profiling – Page 7 Psychographics – Page 8 Socio economics – Page 9 Video nasties, moral panic and censorship – Page 10 BBFC classification process – Page 11 Male gaze – Page 12 Case study one – Page 13 Case study two – Page 14 Primary research – Pages 15 to 17 Secondary research – Page 18 Bibliography – Page 19
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Uses and Gratifications Theory
This theory implied that mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on it's audiences. In the 40/50's mass media was viewed as a powerful influence on behaviour changes. - developed by Bulmer and Katz in 1972 - separated into four groups: personal identity - aspirational values and understanding personal relationships - connecting people, talking to others about it surveillance - sharing information and facts diversions - distracting the audience from their lives
e.g. a radio play of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds both shocked and scared it's listeners in 1938 as some missed the introduction and thought it was a real news announcement of an alien invasion.
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Hypodermic Needle Theory
This theory is the understanding of what the audience does for the media. It suggests that large groups of people at a time can be influenced on a wide scale by the mass media sending them specific messages or information which they expect to give them the outcome of their response that is wanted.
e.g. popular magazines keep people updated on celebrities’ everyday lives regularly as to how they keep fit and what products they use etc. This can be used in the long term to convince the magazines’ readers to buy the same things.
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Cultivation theory
This theory is based on George Gerbner's 'Cultural Indicators' research in the mid 60's. It suggests that key concepts in the media are:
- becoming normalized through reception, attitudes, ideas and values - simply accepted rather than questioned
Cultivation theorists argue that television has long term effects and these are small, gradual and indirect but cumulative and significant.
e.g. A study was conducted in 450 school going children of New Jersey. They had been separated into two groups of heavy viewers and light viewers on the basis of their television viewing time. The children were asked to guess how many people were part of violent acts in an average week and the majority of heavy viewers were gave the figures they had seen on television. In addition to this, the same children overestimated how many people commit serious crimes and were more scared than the light viewers to walk alone at night in the city. http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/short/cultiv.html
This will be relevant to my essay because the theory implies that what is seen in films, like horrors, is not questioned as it gets normalized through the media.
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Reception Types David Morley conducted his studies in the 70/80's into how audiences reacted to television programming. Below is what he concluded.
- Dominant reading reader shares programme's code (meaning system of values, attitudes, beliefs & assumptions) and fully accepts their 'preferred reading' (reading which may not have been the result of any conscious intention on the part of the programme makers)
- Negotiated reading reader partly shares the programme's code and broadly accepts the preferred read878ing, but modifies it in a way which reflects their position and interests
- Oppositional reading reader does not share the programme's code and rejects the preferred reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of interpretation
e.g. adverts for fast food chains are often faced with both positive and negative feedback, with some viewers wanting advertising for unhealthy food to be restricted (oppositional reading) and others supporting the advertisements (dominant reading). A negotiated reader would most likely accept the advertisement but not be completely passive.
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Audience profiling All media texts have a target audience. Without one it won’t be successful in getting a message across or making profit from the film. Media producers use audience research and analysis to ensure it will appeal to their target audience.
Demographics: Demographic audience profiles define groups based on things like age, gender, location and occupation. This is also the basic info of a production company’s target audience.
Geodemographic: This allows companies to look at where the audience lives specifically e.g. council estate, crowded city or rural areas as these audiences may watch different programmes.
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Psychographics This is a study of personality, values, attitudes and lifestyle. Production companies will analyse these aspects of people to gain a more personal understanding of their target audience.
Psychometric: Looking at the psychology behind consumers.
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Socio Economics
This means when production companies target audiences based on social statuses (classes). Also considers earning power and profession.
Below is the graded social classes: A – upper middle class B – middle class C1 – lower middle class C2 – skilled working class D – working class E – lowest in society
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Video nasties, moral panic, censorship and videotape
https://archive.org/details/1.Video.Nasties..Moral.Panic.Censorship.and.Videotape.VNTDG.2 010.DVDRip.XViDDpadT3
The introduction to the documentary we watched was a collection of clips from films that showed extreme, graphic gore. Below are my notes from the documentary:
In the late 70's you would be able to purchase a VHS tape with 20 minutes of horror. The video tapes would usually have a badly recorded image; they would be so worn out that it overall gave the films a strange vibe. Until the early 60's books were censored but now creative people could reach the public without any regulations.
The Young Ones had a video titled "Nasty" which featured the characters as young teens/adults who were discussing video nasties and watching some. It was Peter Chippindale who made up the term. Gory VHS tapes were on sale in local shops and often featured an explicit cover for all to see. They were made popular by their advertisement and not by the contents, however children could see and buy them. 12-16 year olds were buying them. BVA proposed regulating for films. 18 age restrictions were added to graphic films and a lot of content was cut from them. Mary Whitehouse protested against the films without having seen any of their content, she had friends in the Daily Mail and other newspapers who published her articles with titles about children's minds being raped.
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BBFC's classification process: 1909 - Cinematograph Act gives local authorities the ability to give a cinema a license.
1912 - British Board of Film Censors created. They were in charge of film classification decisions
1932 - H certificate was introduced, it stood for Horror.
1952 - X certificate introduced, nobody under 16 could watch these films.
1960 - first trial using Obscene Publications Act.
1970 - Age limit of X raised to 18. U and A was introduced and AA meant 14+.
1982 - BBFC made PG, 15, 18 and R18 categories.
1984 - Video Recording Act passed and the BBFC were made the authority for rating videos suitability for the home.
1989 - Tim Burton's Batman is the first 12 rated film.
1994 - Amendment to VRA regarding the potential harm to viewers concerned in wake of James Bulger case.
2002 - 12A category made. The first 12A film was The Bourne Identity.
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Male Gaze ‘Male Gaze’ is a term that was created by a feminist theorist names Laura Mulvey in an essay she wrote titled ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’.
This phrase means that women in films are portrayed as sexual objects and nothing more to be gazed upon by heterosexual males for their own pleasure.
Mulvey also argued that popular Hollywood films are made to fulfil these heterosexual males’ *Scopophilia.
*Sexual pleasure involved in looking at something.
*Sexual objectification usually takes place with female leads in films being exposed and shown in a demeaning way.
*defined as the viewing of people as depersonalized objects for your own sexual desires.
Mulvey’s theory implies when women watch films they view the women in them as less important in comparison to the male leads and can only see female characters from a male’s perspective. Women are then more likely to gaze upon other women in the same way and end up objectifying women themselves in real life. Because of all of this information, most female characters in the media and film play a ‘secondary character’ to support their male lead. Below examples posters to satisfy male
are of film made the gaze.
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Case Study One: Bobo doll experiment https://www.simplypsychology.org/bobo-doll.html In the early 1960s, a psychologist named Albert Bandura created a series of experiments to explore the topic of observational learning named the Bobo doll experiments. His aim for these experiments was to see if behaviours like aggression can be developed in people through observing and imitating others. The experiment I’ll be discussing is useful for my essay as it can help me understand how film audiences can be influenced by what they watch. The experiment: It was conducted with children aged between three to six, all from the same nursery, 36 of which were boys and the other 36 girls. 12 boys and 12 girls would go into a room individually and either had a male or female model in the same room as them who would behave in an aggressive manner towards the Bobo doll. The adults attacked the doll in a specific way. For example, using a hammer, pushing it and assaulting it verbally. A different set of 12 boys and 12 girls watched a model who was not aggressive towards the doll. These models would actually play quietly and calmly with a different toy completely. The remaining 24 children were left as a control group and did not watch any model at all. In the second stage, each child was taken on their own to a room of nice looking toys, was allowed to play with them for a short period of time and then told the toys were for other children and that they had to play with the toys in another room. In the third stage, each child was taken into a room with two types of toysNon-aggressive:
Aggressive:
Tea set, crayons, three bears, plastic animals.
Mallet and peg board, dart guns, Bobo doll.
Each child’s behaviour recorded every 5 seconds for 20 minutes. Children who watched an aggressive model copied more of the aggression than the other two groups. There wasn’t much difference between each group of children in aggression shown that wasn’t the specific acts copied from models. Girls with an aggressive male showed more physical aggression whereas if they had an aggressive female model they would be more verbal. Boys were more likely to copy models of their own sex than girls were. Boys copied more physical aggression than girls but there was not much difference in verbal aggression between genders.
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Case Study Two: Interview with the Vampire https://www.newsweek.com/nine-horrible-real-life-crimes-were-inspired-movie-or-novel583828
Above is an article being just one example of a Case study that was in the News in America. This story follows Daniel Sterling who was convicted of attempted first degree murder, aggravated mayhem, battery, assault and domestic violence in an attack of his girlfriend of eight years, Lisa Stellwagen in November 1994.
This caused public outrage and played into the hands of the Media moguls that were constantly on the path of blaming media products for violence in the community.
This could be useful for my essay as it shows the potential effects that extreme violence and gore shown in horror films may have on audiences with life threatening outcomes.
Website talking about Intermittent explosive disorder, could link to people being influenced by films as people with this condition experience random and uncontrollable outbursts of anger: https://www.valleybehavioral.com/disorders/ied/signs-symptoms-causes
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Primary Research: Survey Monkey research (continued over two extra pages) Why did I do this and why do we conduct primary research? In order to gage how many people will watch your film along with Box office, we need to find out who our audience is. This is one form of research needed, this is market research. I asked 6 questions to a wide range of participants age ranging from 16-27. Question one:
Question two:
Page 16 Question three:
Question four:
Page 17 Question five:
Question six:
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Secondary Research: Book research
Media and Meaning an introduction is a textbook that I booked out from the college library.
In this book it mentioned the Bobo doll experiment which I have used as one of my case studies. And gave me a piece of information about it that would be useful for my essay.
Below is the quote in relation to the experiment that I may use in my essay:
“later theorists pointed out that there is a very large difference between what people will do in the laboratory with a doll and what they will do in real life with real people.� [ CITATION Col01 \l 2057 ]
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Bibliography http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/short/cultiv.html
https://archive.org/details/1.Video.Nasties..Moral.Panic.Censorship.and.Videotape.VNTDG.2010.DVD Rip.XViDDpadT3
https://www.simplypsychology.org/bobo-doll.html
https://www.newsweek.com/nine-horrible-real-life-crimes-were-inspired-movie-or-novel-583828
https://www.valleybehavioral.com/disorders/ied/signs-symptoms-causes
Colin Stewart, M. L. (2001). Media and Meaning an introduction. London: British Film Institute .