By Pad, Rebecca, and Juli
In our presentation we discussed two different theories, the cultivation theory and the gatekeeping theory. The cultivation theory was birthed out of the idea that television shapes the audience view of social reality. The gatekeeping theory is the idea that a social system decides what knowledge a public space will receive. The two each play a vital role in the formation of one’s social media platform. The cultivation theory is dependent on how heavy or light a person is engaged in their social media, which will ultimately have an effect on the attitudes and thoughts that go into their profiles. With the gatekeeping theory there are major websites that are the umbrella for many smaller websites, which is making it harder to truly control your own social media because they control the gates.
In terms of cultivation theory, I think it is interesting to see how people are affected by the media. I heard recently that there was study done on ’90’s kids and how their lives were significantly influenced by Nickelodeon cartoons. We are all affected by media whether we realize it or not.
I think that the gate-keeping theory is an important theory to consider the news. It’s important to understand that all news, and lack of news, comes from some a person in some way, shape, or form. We should be careful not to let those that control the media stop us from receiving the news we want or need. As many of us will be gate-keepers after we leave Newhouse (and some of us might be now) it is an important theory to consider.
Yes it is definitely important to reflect on who the gate-keepers are in our society, and if we are gate-keepers ourselves, thinking about how we control information and how we make our decisions about who knows what information.
Cultivation theory is one of the mass communication theories that believe audience/viewers are passive learners. Another theory that shares the same assumption is hypodermic needle theory/magic bullet theory. It argues that mass media functions as a hypodermic needle/magic bullet, which is able to inject/shoot predominant ideologies into audience. In this sense, hypodermic needle theory is more “passive” than cultivation theory. However, the emergency of Internet and more diverse media changed the game, and it’s no longer one way communication any more. Social media strategists need to understand that new technologies have enabled audience/users to take a very active role, and it would take much more efforts to “influence” them.