UGT and HNE

In the lesson  today we talked about the Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT)  and the  Hypodermic Needle (HNT). We have previously researched about these theories individually for homework. Below is the infomation that i found.

Uses and Gratifications Theory
This theory is based on how people use media for their need and gratification. In other words we can say this theory states what people do with media rather than what media does to people. Gratifications can be obtained from a medium's content and from the social context it used . For example watching a specific programme, and watching TV with their family. Studies suggest that peoples needs and moods influence how they use and respond to a medium, for example, feeling bored results in them wanting to watch exciting content and feeling stressed encourages relaxing content.

Hypodermic Needle Theory

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. Both images used to express this theory (a bullet and a needle) suggest a powerful and direct flow of information from the sender to the receiver.

In todays lesson i learnt more about this theory, we recited from SpiderMan that says "with great power comes great responsibility" this was applied to the mass media as they are so powerful they can 'inject' whatever messages they want to into their audience.

We were shown The Sun's frount page of Arthur Scargill caught in the motion of a wave which unfortunetly looked as if he was standing in the 'Hitler Stance' with the masthead of 'Mine Fuhrer'. The print unions decided that the photo was too insulting and decided not to print it, therefore resulting in there being no photo on the front page with no masthead. Consiquently proving that the print unions were more powerful than the owner, Rupert Murdoch, as they went against his wishes of keeping it. Below is what the front page would of looked like and then what was printed.