What is the 'Media Effects' theory?
Albert Bandura, a world-famous psychologist, created a theory called the 'Media Effects' theory which hypothesizes that the media that a person consumes can directly affect their mind, and can implant attitudes, emotional responses and new styles as a result of this.
How can this theory be applied?
This theory is commonly mentioned when the discussion comes up about violent video games, and how they can affect a person's logical thinking and cause them to become violent in real life. The theory can explain why video games are typically blamed as being the cause for mass shootings, as its users learn and imitate this aggressive behaviour through the modelling of the online game characters.
What are the weaknesses of this theory?
Some people argue that the theory doesn't take into account a biological perspective, and that some behaviour that may seem to be exhibited as a result of consumption of media is actually just genetically inherited. Scientifically, different behaviours and responses in humans can be both learned and inherited, but it can be hard to differentiate between the two. The theory relies on the fact that all consumers of media are passive and will just imitate what they see without any conscious thought.
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