The Frankfurt School

The Frankfurt School was a group of people who developed concerns about power in modern mass media (propaganda). They were thought to be left - winged Jews and neo-marxist, under threat in pre-war Nazi Germany. The group moved to America later on and began to refine their model on media and came up with the Hypodermic Needle / Effects Theory.

This theory explains that ideas are forced in your head by the media, almost as if you are injected by what they want you to think. Nazi propaganda is a vey good example of this. Their media pretty much poisoned the minds of innocent German civilians into thinking that all Jews were evil. Nazi propaganda influenced the public to think this.

Other examples of how we can be influenced by the media are music, films, T.V and games. For instance the television show Jackass, where the people carry out stunts. Admittedly it is funny to watch but the stunts can be very dangerous.

However the Jamie Bulger Case was said to be blamed on a horror film which two boys watched before killing poor Jamie. Could this be due to the film being mis-interpreted or because of a forgotten memory which arose from a subjective image, placing the wrong idea into their heads.

Also in China we understand that they sensor some of its media coverage so as to maintain their image to the public in their country. We discovered this by typing in ‘China’ into Google images where it came up with photos of tanks and war - showing them in a negative light. Whereas if you typed ‘China’ into Google images in China you would find photos of people all looking happy - showing them in a positive light.

But is it right to sensor parts of media?

The problem with this is that not everything influences us and we are all individuals, we don’t all react the same to things. For example, I’m scared of spiders but my boyfriend isn’t.