The Hypodermic Needle Model was the first real model of understanding how people consume and understand media. This model was developed in the 1920's and 1930's after World War 1 propaganda and many big movies effects have been noticed, today, this model is very much outdated and not accepted in our society anymore since it believed that people are simple minded and can be controlled through the mass media. As it happens, they were wrong.
This model worked as a linear communication method, as in, the media is pushed out, injected into the masses and that's about where the interaction ends, the citizen is supposed to consume that piece of media and acknowledge it, and therefore this model is very much based off a passive community, where every individual is the same and is therefore treated the same within the model.
A good example of how such a model was supposed to work, was when on a Halloween Night, 1938, through the radio, Awesome Wells and The Mercury Theatre has broadcast-ed quite a short report through the radio that dramatized the H.J Wells 'War of the Worlds' where it stated that scout forces of an alien army from Mars has landed on one of the American farmlands and with a single robot wiped out 6800 US Soldiers armed to the teeth. Later on it was found that in fact thousands of listeners believed to the fraud and they were utterly terrified.
Some of the techniques from this model are however still used today but in a modified way, mainly in advertisement, some advertisers just have people do amazing stuff, like Red-bull, stick their logo onto their equipment, and suddenly when people think of Red-bull, they also think of all the stuff they did for extreme sports for example.
The Inoculation Model:
This theory was originally produced and developed by a psychologist, William J. MacGuire, in 1961. It is studied to this day mainly by health academies and other psychologists and also used in preparation of advertisements and other things.
This theory believes that you can build up a certain belief or opinion within a person and make it very hard for someone to break that belief/opinion. So for example, a certain person might have a very specific opinion towards a specific topic, and even though someone might present them overwhelming evidence that their opinion is unjustified, they will stick to it anyway. As it can be noticed, this is usually very true, and happens with people from the day they are born.
If a person is born into a very conservative family for example, they will believe in a certain god and that all the new ideas are bad, and therefore someone with a fresh mind might have a lot of trouble converting that person. If someone however lives in a very open minded family, they might have a lot of different opinions on different topics, and be very mindful and open minded about their opinions, ready to change them if they are proven wrong.
This model also believes that every person has some expectations established within their life. For example, if you were born into a rich family, you would also expect to have good and quite expensive clothes, electric devices, etc. but if one day, for some reason you suddenly ended up on a street with your family, it would become a huge shock to you, since that familiarity would be completely broken.
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The Two Step Flow Model:
As the name suggests the Two Steps Flow Model work in certain 2 steps that have to be met. Originally, this idea was developed by Paul Lazarsfeld in 1944 and later was improved in 1955 by Elihu Katz.
This model works by media creating some kind of topic, putting forth the information and the evidence of the information and then releasing it into the public. Within the human society, there are people who are much more intelligent than the others, or have skills that are seen by others as the 'leadership' skills, therefore, such people are seen by others as the obvious leaders, people to listen to or take advice from, since it is believed that they know better what to do or what to believe in, in certain situations. These are called, the opinion leaders. They take in a piece of information from a media source, process it and then analyse it to see what they think of it.
Later those opinion leaders meet up with their friends and talk about different things, eventually they will come onto such a topic of opinions, now, since those friends will usually see those leadership skills within that opinion leader, they will listen to him/her more closely, take his/her advice more and generally be assured that this person knows better than them in many topics. This will therefore form their opinion from those opinion leaders, the people that listen to opinion leaders are called 'opinion followers'.
Anyone can be an 'opinion leader' for someone, some treat their family members as opinion leaders, others trust their friends or husband/wife more to be their opinion leaders, it is entirely different from person to person. Previous events with that specific person for someone can decide if he/she can be an 'opinion leader' for them.
Before the rise of the internet, people treated the super stars as great opinion leaders, and therefore this was used by the media and advertisers, promoting their ideas and products with famous stars, telling people that this is okay.
Now with the rise of the internet, people are listening more to normal people who just are doing a small career on the internet as bloggers or Youtube channels, they are seen as the internet stars by those who watch them, and in today's times, it is them that are the new main opinion leaders, rather than the super rich stars, since normal people can relate more with those new 'Internet Stars'. Advertisers have begun to use those Youtube and other stars to do their advertisements, media however in general, still haven't accommodated to those people within modern television or magazines.
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The Uses & Gratifications Theory:
This theory is quite different than the previous ones that were discussed in this thread. This theory focuses on the user, rather than the piece of media. It was originally created and developed by Herta Herzog in 1944, through the decades, this theory has been updated and further developed by many other people.
This theory focuses on different people within our society, and what kind of media they might be looking for, and what media they might enjoy or not enjoy. So for example, a person interested in military things might be very interested in a TV channel about war machines, but not very interested in a fashion channel and therefore he/she will choose one over the other. One will gratify, the other will not gratify. Each person has their own likes and dislikes and therefore will like/dislike different things than another person.
This theory also studies the uses of media by people, as in, when a person watches something on a TV, what do they do with that knowledge, if someone will watch a tutorial on how to build a simple table, will they go do it or not?
We can therefore call this theory a research, that can be used by both the media and the people, in helping create content that people enjoy.
http://www.jiad.org/article22.html
The Reception Theory:
This theory originates from Hans-Robert Jauss in the late 1960s. This theory is quite similar to The Uses & Gratifications Theory, only that this one focuses on literary media (books, magazines and newspapers) rather than something like a television or internet.
This theory aims to see what different kinds of people like to read, why, when they like to read it etc. So for example, you wouldn't expect an elderly person to read teenage magazines and vice versa. It aims to see how different people react to different source material and whether they like it or not.
Within this theory there are usually three codes of answers, and that is - Like it, On the fence with it, Dislike it.
http://tdonoghuetheory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/david-gauntlett-reception-theory-stuart.html
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