AQA Media Studies for A Level: Revision Guide

Hoodies are the disguise of feral Britain The Daily Sketch (1964) reporting on youth culture (mods and rockers) and a caption from the Sunday Express (2008) linking an item of clothing to ‘feral’ behaviour. 104 AQA Media Studies for A Level Revision Guide their own responses to media messages. These ideas assume a direct impact on the audience. Slightly less direct are theories that acknowledge the impact of the media but show this as being part of a complex relationship between the audience and the media. Some see the effect of the media as being cumulative – that is, repetition of messages over time can in uence media responses. This perspective would not see exposure to violent media immediately leading to violent behaviours but would argue that repeated exposure to violent images could lead to desensitisation, making violence less shocking or horri c. The naturalisation of ideas can be created through this culmination effect and explains how myth-making works. Another less direct effects theory, based on the repetition of messages, is the way the media can create or feed into moral panics (Cohen). A moral panic is the widespread public anxiety about something that appears to threaten moral standards. The media can feed into a moral panic and even create one by repeatedly focusing on an issue and creating a scapegoat that can be blamed for the problem. Teenagers are often the centre of moral panics, with their behaviour being identi ed as a threat to wider society. The repeated reporting of youth violence often leads to a fear that is disproportional to the actual threat. The moral panic about mods and rockers ghting in the mid-1960s did not re ect the small number of young people who took part in the ‘battles’, which were little different to the post-pub brawls that had been common for many years. This particular phenomenon proved to be temporary and the media were proven to have attempted to keep the story going by fabricating stories and creating misleading headlines. Moral panics can be good for media business, as worried people seek information on the thing they fear.