Unit 6: Critical Approaches (Debate Notes)

I don't think the news effects the way people behave because in the recent general election the news papers Tory propaganda failed to help Theresa May retain her majority. During the election campaign many news papers rallied against the labour party and Jeremy Corbin in order to protect their best interests, spewing out garbage headlines that had no truth to them and taking many things Corbin has done out of context and twisting his words to help make the Tory's look stronger. The Sun has been one of these news papers but unfortunately for them their audience isn't as passive as they thought. The hypodermic needle theory suggest that mass media could influence a very large group of people directly by 'injecting' them with messages designed to trigger a response, in the past news papers would have been peoples only source of information so they would not know to question what the news papers are saying. People aren't listening to the papers and are seeing the oppositional reading. However these days audiences are more active than ever and no longer take everything that is said by the news papers for granted, because of the internet anyone can get any source of information at anytime giving them the ability to question the views of the news papers. The hypodermic needle theory may have proven to be outdated as the news papers have failed to brainwash the nation with their Tory propaganda. Despite all the hate campaigns against Jeremy Corbin readers challenged the views of the news papers and didn't just accept everything they said, we can see this because Corbin's labour party gained the most seats during the election and Theresa May lost her majority .


I believe that the news doesn't influence the way people behave however people do. Reception theory is how people understand things not from the media it's self but from the audiences reception of it. In this scenario people may be less influenced by the news but more influenced by people and we can see this from labours domination of social media in order to win the youth vote. A record number of young voters came out to vote in this years general election and the majority of them voted labour, this may be because they have been influenced on social media, everyone I follow online weather being into politics or not has had their say on who to vote for and if you trust someone you follow then you would be likely to listen to their viewers. This means people are listening less to the news and more to individuals.