Media Studies: Theories & Approaches

Dan Laughey. "Media Studies: Theories & Approaches" (Great Britain; Sparkford, Somerset: Kamera Books, 2009)


"Major Moral Panics in recent times have centred on fears about paedophilia, AIDS, knife and gun crime."


"Children and young people are seen as both the perpetrators and victims of anti-social behaviour - they become the excuse for politicians and policy makers to impose stricter laws and tighter regulations on new forms of media and popular culture."


"Subcultures are themselves apart from the rest of society - subcultures actually choose to rebel against norms and conventions"


"George Gerbner identified a 'Mean World Syndrome' that afflicted heavy TV viewers. Put simply, the more TV you watch, the more likely you are to view the outside world as a hostile, crime-ridden, ghettoised world where danger and vice lurk in every corner." 


"In terms of this latter, Gerbner found that crime on TV was ten times worse than crime in the real world."


"So, it would seem that TV addicts make a direct connection between what they see on the small screen and what they think is happening in reality. TV's cultivating power means that it guides certain individuals into ways of dealing with the world beyond the box."


"TV realism, is far removed from actual reality. Witnessing a drive-by shooting in the flesh would probably make us physically sick or scar us for life, whereas witnessing it every night on TV, we hardly bat an eyelid."