Hypodermic Needle Model
The Hypodermic needle model is the concept of the media giving the audience information and it causing a certain reaction/response. It is called the hypodermic needle model because of the way a doctor would inject a stimulant into any working muscle and it would work the same way, so it is a theory that by the media 'injecting' certain information into it's audience, all human mind's will react to the information in the same way.
But not everyone agrees with this concept as certain things shown will have different reactions. Not every person likes the same thing and some people will have their own experience or relation to something being shown and whilst some people will be able to relate to what they are being shown in a positive way, others will react to it in a negative way. For example, if an advert is being shown that promotes some kind of chocolate or something sweet, some people would watch it and become hungry and tempted to go and buy it, but for someone who's perhaps on a diet or maybe lactose in tolerant, they might change channels or would switch off, the advert would not have the same kind of positive effect on them as it would on someone who loves chocolate.
One game that I know has received a lot of controversy is 'Grand Theft Auto' it is believed that the game encourages violent behaviour in the player, as you are rewarded with points/money for stealing cars, assaults and murders. One example of this is Neil Dugdale who stormed over to his best friend's house after he'd stopped playing the game with him with a hammer and a kitchen knife shouting how he was going to 'slit his throat'. During the article I read on this it was mentioned how players receive points for aggressive acts and how the game has already received a lot of criticism.
There are obviously positives about media censorship but I believe there are also negatives too. I think sometimes it's possible for young people to be shielded to what goes on in reality, obviously severe gore and potentially psychologically damaging content should be censored, but I think certain things like drug use should not be censored too thoroughly, it's reality that everyone will come across drugs at some point in there life and I believe if it is portrayed in the right way it can be educational and very beneficial to the audience. For example, if drug use is shown in a way where the audience is seeing the negatives and damaging side to drugs as opposed to glamorising it, it could make the audience reconsider taking/ trying illegal drugs. But obviously censorship is good in the sense it shields children from content that could affect them mentally, for example a scene which shows a brutal murder is likely to have some psychological affect on the child because they are too young to comprehend what is going, but at some point slightly later in life they will be able to watch it with a better understanding of what's going on because as they grow up they will come to realise that murders do happen in the world.
The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) is very important for ensuring that the content in films is not damaging to it's audience, but it's interesting looking into films and how the classification is constantly changing. I think this is because in the world we live in, it is a lot more accepted to see perhaps a scene of a sexual nature in a film, and the language has definitely changed a substantial amount. A really interesting example I found on the BBFC's website is 'Quadrophenia' which is a film that was aimed at a younger audience (12-18 year olds) but then received an X rating from the BBFC upon it's release back in 1979, which caused many complaints from the teenagers who had been looking forward to watching it. The reason it was given the x rating was because the BBFC argued that the mob violence stimulated even an adult audience and that the language was excessive even for an X rated film. There are many scenes of a sexual nature as well as strong use of language, alcohol and drug use is also very common during the film. Yet the film was re-classified as a 15 upon theatrical re-release in 1996. It surprises me how quickly times change, it shows how numb society has become to things such as language, for Quadrophenia to go from being suitable for only 18s and over to 15 year olds show how younger people are becoming more used to language and it's no longer something that's frowned upon as much.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079766/parentalguide?ref_=tt_stry_pg