Theories/ Critical Approaches

Hypodermic Needle theory

The Active/Passive viewing theory states that there are two different types of audience that watch television. The active audience are people who know what they want to watch and why they want to watch the chosen show.  The passive audience are people who flick through channels and don't really mind what they watch just as long as it passes the time regardless even if they do learn something new.

 For example if I rushed home to watched a documentary and learnt things from the show, That would make me an active audience for that show because I knew it was going to be on and I would have had some sort of reason to want to watch it but if I was just flicking through channels and watched while doing something else I would be a passive audience for that show.

The matrix is filled with things that relate to media theories and Passive and Active audience consumption is one of them. In the The Matrix, most of the human population are in fields hooked up to machines in little pods unaware that they are connected to the matrix and living an artificial or fake digital life. Some of them are fortunate to escape the digital world while others don't. In relation to the Passive/Active theory, the humans that are free from the matrix can be seen as active people because that have chosen to see and realize the reality of the situation. As for the people that live their lives in the matrix, They could be seen as passive people because unlike the active people they have not broken free and can not chose to go back and forth from the digital world to the real world like the active can.    

The Hypodermic needle theory states that people are or can be heavily influenced by the things they see on TV and that TV had a direct effect on viewers. This idea came from the 1940s to the 1950s because the media available around those years were perceived as powerful influences on the way people. This is probably to do with all the propaganda things that were shown on TV around that time period to americans to get them to do certain things like joining the army and also turning some into American patriots.

The name for this theory "Hypodermic needle" is a metaphor made to represent the notion that information is injected into viewers through TV giving them appropriate messages designed to trigger a desired response. This desired response could be someone purchasing a product due to an appealing  advertisement or simply more viewers or popularity to a certain television show or channel.

There is also the "Bullet Theory" which is another metaphor used to describe the same concept as Hypodermic needle theory. This "Bullet Theory" is more or less the same only its more graphic with the way it explains the "Shooting of information". This theory strongly suggests that a powerful and direct flow of information is being shot from sender to receiver constantly on television.

This theory can also be related to The Matrix. In The Matrix, The active people who are free from the digital world can chose to learn anything new at any time just by going into the system. The way they go into the system is by injecting a needle looking plug into the back of their heads. That is just one cross references between the theory and film, here is another. When they are in the digital world they can have information on how to do certain things in seconds by simply making a call and asking for it. What happens is the "operators" will find the appropriate program and then install it or download it to the active persons digital self similar to an injection or shooting someone with information.      

The user gratification theory states that someone watches something something to develop their personalities or social relationships with people. Here is a little list for the different things people may want to use TV to develop on:

Personal Identity - Someone people watch something be cause it may add to their personality or character

Surveillance - Someone people watch shows about factual things in order to know more

Entertainment - Someone people watch TV for fun as a pass time or with people to be entertaining

Personal Relationships - Some people watch to be social and fit in with cultures and community

The Receptive Theory is about how different groups see things. People may be offended by things or may just not agree with what they are seeing or experiencing. This can sometimes also links to personal identity as some people personally might not be able to handle things whether its because they have an image or social reputation to hold or just cant handle things. A really good example for this are homophobic people. Homophobic people are people who have a phobia of homosexual people and cant stand to be around them.

The Effects debate argues that the impact of what a character or story may have on someone. In other words this theory says, that if people constantly see people shooting and people doing bad things in shows and films, they will re act this in real life and be influenced to do similar things.