Hypodermic Needle Theory

The hypodermic needle theory implied that mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on their audiences.

The "Magic Bullet" or "Hypodermic Needle Theory" of direct influence effects was not as widely accepted by scholars as many books on mass communication indicate. The magic bullet theory was not based on empirical findings from research but rather on assumptions of the time about human nature. People were assumed to be "uniformly controlled by their biologically based 'instincts' and that they react more or less uniformly to whatever 'stimuli' came along" (Lowery & DefFleur, 1995). The "Magic Bullet" theory graphically assumes that the media's message is a bullet fired from the "media gun" into the viewer's "head" (Berger 1995). Similarly, the "Hypodermic Needle Model" uses the same idea of the "shooting" paradigm. It suggests that the media injects its messages straight into the passive audience (Croteau, Hoynes 1997). This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages. The public essentially cannot escape from the media's influence, and is therefore considered a "sitting duck" (Croteau, Hoynes 1997). Both models suggests that the media is vulnerable to the messages shot at them because of the limited communication tools and the studies of the media's effects on the masses at the time (Davis, Baron 1981).

This theory may affect our target audience because of the drug scenes in our film. Although, we have met the BBFC classification for a 15 and we have made sure that nothing is even 'risky' for the classification. This means that our film will still be able to be seen by 15 year olds and over, and the Hypodermic needle theory should not affect people seeing our film because we will film the drug scenes in a way where it is not promoting them, nor can the audience see what type or 'drugs' we are using so they cant copy it.