Cultural Effects Model

The Cultural Effects Model argues that an audience member's ideology is gradually built up over a longer time period from seeing various different media texts. This is why it is often nicknamed the "drip" effect. An example of how it is employed in the mass media is with perceptions of women, as representations of 'beautiful' women are shown to the audience as having similar traits across various media texts, which allegedly builds up an idea within the audience member's minds about what defines a woman as being beautiful. It also suggests that if multiple forms of mass media carry the same message, then the majority of the audience will accept this message as being true, for example the impression given that the working class shouldn't be entitled to the same amount of social security, as expressed through newspapers such as the Daily Mail and Channel 4.  

 

This relates to music videos very prominently, as there are many similar traits across music videos which are employed in order to use this theory. An example of this is the idea that "sex sells" in terms of music videos, which sees stars (usually female) donning as few clothes as possible in a video in order to attract an audience. The audience will soon grow to expect and demand this from music videos, as the cultural effects model will argue that their tolerance will grow from seeing similar images across different media texts. An oft-used example of this is Miley Cyrus' video for "We Can't Stop", in which she is scantily clad throughout the majority of the video. The audience take this message from this video, and then relate it to other videos which also show women who are wearing little, for example Anaconda by Nicki Minaj and Gold by Chet Faker. This embeds the view further in the minds of the audience that women are happy to degrade themselves, as the trend for them to dress like this in videos is likely to keep on going further.