Television and music haven't always got along, audiences haven't been as engaged as they were with music on television since the abrupt end of Top Of The Pops in the late July of 2006. The respectable efforts of 'talent' shows such as The X-Factor or The Voice are the most popular music related television shows now and quite frankly they're already getting boring, leaving the audience implacable, with viewership statistics showing that. Some viewers think that a channel should bring back Top Of The Pops although with new media it just wouldn't be as popular as it was since music is so accessible via the internet - and other forms of new media - where as they had no choice when Top Of The Pops was so ridiculously popular. With the introduction of the internet and other forms of new media, the mainstream way of getting your dose of music has been compromised and a number of viewers have started accessing their music with multi-device consumption creating what is known as audience fragmentation. With the music television industry evolving, the audience is changing too - along with their behaviour and expectations. Some channels like the BBC have tried to air new music TV although even with a loved radio host like Greg James or Nick Grimshaw leading the charge the feedback received has reflected with insolence. This is because audiences expect more, when people watch they come with a background of information of their own - an awareness about social, political, ethical and philosophical matters, specific information about music and artists and what should during the show. The roots for these expectations started growing a long with the digital and electronic age as they can, with a few typed words and a few clicks, gather a large portion of information.
Music Show From The Past - Top Of The Pops
Top of the Pops, which aired on new year's day in 1964, was essential viewing for all British music fans. With limited ways to access music, it was no surprise the views were so consistently high - even when viewers "detested everyone on the show," they continued to watch it as there was nothing else.
The show generally starts with a popular music track with the presenter coming onto stage and welcoming the audience. Top Of The Pops was a relatively simple show, there was always a single presenter who came on stage at the start of the show after the audience roared during their many theme songs. The presenter built up the hype and told the audience who will be performing. Typically, although not during Christmas specials, there was 4-5 artists who performed 3 songs each. Usually each artist would perform all of their songs and then the presenter would give a 5 minute interview - sometimes even allowing the audience to ask some questions. For the Christmas episodes, and the festival specials, the show would also feature a segment like the current charts where they would take rhythmic breaks and let the viewers see the the most highly voted songs. This was also implemented into the weekly show although viewers complained that it was making it "too boring". With the introduction of YouTube, the format of this show has rapidly died down because back when this show was spawned people had little ways to access music so they listened for the
mainstream, popular music. Now that YouTube is about if someone wants to listen to a certain genre or a certain song they can do so in a matter of minutes, which would makes this format fail nowadays.
A more modern music programme which is extremely popular among adults and teenagers is X-Factor. It was aired on the fourth of September in 2004 in the UK. It is immensely popular, even starting a show in the U.S! It's format is simple: four judges on a panel, these judges change year to year although Simon Cowell who is basically the father of the show has stayed on from the get go.
Then there are the contestants who take part and perform for a large audience, which has been increasing and increasing over the decade. It's judges are often criticised for not letting the people who deserve to go through to the higher rounds go through as it wouldn't be entertaining. It has an interactive audience; there's an application for all smartphones that lets you simply vote for who you want to win. With the fluctuation of sales in smartphones in the past five years this lets almost anybody get involved and feel a part of a community. It has a very formulaic format, every season is the same, like most music shows. It's presented by the widely known celebrity Olly Murs.
In conclusion, I think that the music industry benefits greatly because of music shows. The X-Factor and Top of the Pops are very different although they both strived greatly in their time periods. Top of the Pops was popular as there was no other way for people to listen to music without watching. If they wanted music, they had to watch. The X-Factor, on the other hand, is popular because it's what people want to see; the upcoming celebrities, the incredible talent and the well, less talented people that they can laugh at together as a family. It's new people, writing their own songs as well as covering the popular songs they all know and love.
Understand how media audiences respond to media products.
Hypodermic Needle Model.
The hypodermic needle model is a theory about audiences/ The idea is that media messages are directly directly received and accepted by the audience.
The hypodermic needle theory implied that mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audience.
The theory suggests that an audience will simply do as it's told without thinking about it.
It suggests a passive audience, one that does not apply its own thinking to the messages that it receives. This caused a great deal of concern as radio and television became more widely accessible forms of media. The theory has been largely disproved and more complex theories have been developed which take in to account the audiences ability to make rational judgements based on their own experience.
Uses and Gratifications Theory
Uses and Gratifications Theory tries to explain why people consume different types of media and what they get from it. It looks at how an audience will spend time and energy finding media which will meet their needs. Unlike the hypodermic needle model, which assumes that audiences are passive. This theory suggests that the audience take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory started with Herzog in the 1940s and several other theorists including Laswell, Katz and Bulmer and McQuail have helped develop the theory.
Reception Theory
Reception theory looks at how audiences receive and interpret the media they consume. Stuart Hall has developed this idea for media and communication studies. The theory has two parts. The first is concerned with encoding and decoding:
Encoding - This is where the producer of a media product fills that product with a message that they want to get out to people. Newspapers are good examples of this. By anchoring their images with captions and using emotive headlines, they encode their ideas in to the paper.
The second part of the theory concentrates on how someone understands a media product. Hall's idea is that the reader of a media text can interpret it in many ways.
Preferred - This is where the reader understands and agrees with the message.
Negotiated - This is where the reader generally accepts the preferred reading but sometimes modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests.
Oppositional - This is where the reader understands the preferred reading but rejects this reading and has an alternative, opposite view.
McQuail - Why people use media
Information, Personal Identity, Integration and Interaction
PEGI - Video Game Regulator (censorship)
Effects Debate:
The culmination theory suggests that long term consistent exposure to a single violent ilm or game is unlikely to cause someone to become violent overnight but, long term, repeated exposure to violence is likely to desensitise people to violence, both in media and in real life - hypodermic needle theory therefore suggests that playing violent video games will make someone violent.
Participatory.
The Audiences are active and have the means to get their word out, it's even possible that their opinion can make it onto live tv.
Fan Culture.
Fans and the community take an active role and help create a video game or programme.
Are video games really that bad?
Video game violence is an extremely controversial and debated topic in both societal and scientific environments. It's argued whether the content of video games changes the attitudes and actions of the consumer if played excessively and if this is reflected in video game culture overall. This debate has been ongoing for a long time, with a sudden influx of popularity and interest in the 1970s when a popular video game 'Death Race' was released. In said game, you were rewarded for mowing down innocent bystanders with various vehicles. Previously accepted video games which depicted major violence were often justified within the video game (such as police or military force), although in this video game the context contributed to moral perception that the game celebrated and rewarded unjustified murder which sparked outrage and public disapproval - despite this sales weren't squelched; in fact the opposite, sales increased by almost 275% and companies took inspiration for games such as Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row.
Audience response theories are one way of looking at whether or not mass media has an effect on audiences. Scientists propose that different people are more or less prone to becoming violent after playing excessive amounts of violent video games. According to scientists from the University of Chicago, people with antisocial personality disorders (or other mental illnesses) are more prone. Due to the undoubtable addictions that children and teenagers get whilst playing video games, this increases the amount of anxiety and depression leaving them more at risk of being adversely affected by violent video games. In 1999, only 5% of children reported to have been bullied where as in 2012 32% of 12-18 year olds reported being bullied.(http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/kooijmans.html)
There have been many different experiments done and observations made to try and find conclusive evidence of violent video games directly linking to violence. Different universities and scientific labs have done different tests, for example, Jeanne B. Funk from the University of Toledo led a study that looked at 150 people's exposure to video games and how they act in real life, focusing primarily on Desensitization in the pupils. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15936665) On the other hand, psychology professor Steven Kirsh led a study that looked at people's interpretation and explanation of ambiguous information after being exposed thoroughly to violent media. Kirsh's primary areas of study are the effects of violent video games, emotion recognition and social information processing.
Fifty teenagers were exposed to the violent games and those who were interpreted the information in more sinister and violent ways. (https://www.geneseo.edu/~kirsh/vita/affect%20bias.pdf)
The hypodermic needle theory is a linear means of communication that suggests information distributed will be received and wholly accepted by an audience acquiescently. It means mass media has an instantaneous, powerful effect on the receiver's opinions and beliefs. It is thought to have first been conceptualised by the Frankfurt School in Germany when they published a study of human behaviourism. Some people don't see it acceptable to view media this way anymore although it's changed the way we talk about media. Now disbarred attorney Jack Thompson from Florida started his campaign against video games in 1997 when he saw a story in the news about a teenager killing three police officers after playing an excessive amount of notoriously violent video game Grand Theft Auto. He referred to these games as 'death simulators'. In a court of law, he was talking about his murder simulator theory and he based it on a linear model of communication, one where the consumer is placed as a passive, unthinking user who will replicate what is shown in the game. Although it got dismissed with no legal precedent.
Reception theory looks at how audiences receive and interpret the media they consume. Stuart Hall has developed this idea for media and communication studies. The theory has two parts. The first is concerned with encoding and decoding:
Encoding - This is where the producer of a media product fills that product with a message that they want to get out to people. Newspapers are good examples of this. By anchoring their images with captions and using emotive headlines, they encode their ideas in to the paper.
The second part of the theory concentrates on how someone understands a media product. Hall's idea is that the reader of a media text can interpret it in many ways.
Preferred - This is where the reader understands and agrees with the message.
Negotiated - This is where the reader generally accepts the preferred reading but sometimes modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests.
Oppositional - This is where the reader understands the preferred reading but rejects this reading and has an alternative, opposite view.
With consumers in video games, unlike the hypodermic needle theory, they don't take the information they are given at face value. This is against Jack Thompson, the attorney, because here the consumers are active. They decide whether they agree or disagree with what is being told to them. For instance, if for example there was a mission on Grand Theft Auto to kill someone, the consumer would still play the mission knowing that it's morally wrong and knowing well that they would never proceed to do the act in the real world where as with the former theory, the consumer wouldn't even think or argue with what they're doing. In my opinion, anyone playing these kind of video games should be able to morally know the difference between right and wrong.
Uses and Gratifications Theory tries to explain why people consume different types of media and what they get from it. It looks at how an audience will spend time and energy finding media which will meet their needs. Unlike the hypodermic needle model, which assumes that audiences are passive. This theory suggests that the audience take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory started with Herzog in the 1940s and several other theorists including Laswell, Katz and Bulmer and McQuail have helped develop the theory. In regards to video games and violence, it doesn't support either argument wholly. It's not that video game's developers problem that the consumers go out of their way to purchase the game and play but it's against them because they actually produce and publish the game for the public encouraging the violence and the bloodlust.
Audience response theories are one way of looking at whether or not mass media has an effect on audiences. Scientists propose that different people are more or less prone to becoming violent after playing excessive amounts of violent video games. According to scientists from the University of Chicago, people with antisocial personality disorders (or other mental illnesses) are more prone. Due to the undoubtable addictions that children and teenagers get whilst playing video games, this increases the amount of anxiety and depression leaving them more at risk of being adversely affected by violent video games. In 1999, only 5% of children reported to have been bullied where as in 2012 32% of 12-18 year olds reported being bullied.(http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/kooijmans.html)
There have been many different experiments done and observations made to try and find conclusive evidence of violent video games directly linking to violence. Different universities and scientific labs have done different tests, for example, Jeanne B. Funk from the University of Toledo led a study that looked at 150 people's exposure to video games and how they act in real life, focusing primarily on Desensitization in the pupils. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15936665) On the other hand, psychology professor Steven Kirsh led a study that looked at people's interpretation and explanation of ambiguous information after being exposed thoroughly to violent media. Kirsh's primary areas of study are the effects of violent video games, emotion recognition and social information processing.
Fifty teenagers were exposed to the violent games and those who were interpreted the information in more sinister and violent ways. (https://www.geneseo.edu/~kirsh/vita/affect%20bias.pdf)
The hypodermic needle theory is a linear means of communication that suggests information distributed will be received and wholly accepted by an audience acquiescently. It means mass media has an instantaneous, powerful effect on the receiver's opinions and beliefs. It is thought to have first been conceptualised by the Frankfurt School in Germany when they published a study of human behaviourism. Some people don't see it acceptable to view media this way anymore although it's changed the way we talk about media. Now disbarred attorney Jack Thompson from Florida started his campaign against video games in 1997 when he saw a story in the news about a teenager killing three police officers after playing an excessive amount of notoriously violent video game Grand Theft Auto. He referred to these games as 'death simulators'. In a court of law, he was talking about his murder simulator theory and he based it on a linear model of communication, one where the consumer is placed as a passive, unthinking user who will replicate what is shown in the game. Although it got dismissed with no legal precedent.
Reception theory looks at how audiences receive and interpret the media they consume. Stuart Hall has developed this idea for media and communication studies. The theory has two parts. The first is concerned with encoding and decoding:
Encoding - This is where the producer of a media product fills that product with a message that they want to get out to people. Newspapers are good examples of this. By anchoring their images with captions and using emotive headlines, they encode their ideas in to the paper.
The second part of the theory concentrates on how someone understands a media product. Hall's idea is that the reader of a media text can interpret it in many ways.
Preferred - This is where the reader understands and agrees with the message.
Negotiated - This is where the reader generally accepts the preferred reading but sometimes modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests.
Oppositional - This is where the reader understands the preferred reading but rejects this reading and has an alternative, opposite view.
With consumers in video games, unlike the hypodermic needle theory, they don't take the information they are given at face value. This is against Jack Thompson, the attorney, because here the consumers are active. They decide whether they agree or disagree with what is being told to them. For instance, if for example there was a mission on Grand Theft Auto to kill someone, the consumer would still play the mission knowing that it's morally wrong and knowing well that they would never proceed to do the act in the real world where as with the former theory, the consumer wouldn't even think or argue with what they're doing. In my opinion, anyone playing these kind of video games should be able to morally know the difference between right and wrong.
Uses and Gratifications Theory tries to explain why people consume different types of media and what they get from it. It looks at how an audience will spend time and energy finding media which will meet their needs. Unlike the hypodermic needle model, which assumes that audiences are passive. This theory suggests that the audience take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory started with Herzog in the 1940s and several other theorists including Laswell, Katz and Bulmer and McQuail have helped develop the theory. In regards to video games and violence, it doesn't support either argument wholly. It's not that video game's developers problem that the consumers go out of their way to purchase the game and play but it's against them because they actually produce and publish the game for the public encouraging the violence and the bloodlust.
