Spiral Of Silence Theory

Founded by Elisabeth Noelle Neumann in 1947, the Spiral of Silence theory was formed when Elisabeth and her husband Erich were asked by the CDU to get the opinion of German citizens in a country where opinion had been violently silenced for years. The theory itself provides that peoples willingness to express their opinion is based on what they perceive the opinion of their environment to be.

The "Baby Godfather" meme is playing on the entire basis of the Spiral of Silence. Baby Godfather is seen telling us to keep our mouths shut if we do not agree with him, which is exactly what the Spiral of Silence theory predicts we will do if we do not perceive our opinion to be that of the majority.

Uses and Gratifications

Uses and Gratifications theory was one of the first theories to assume an active audience is consuming the media put before them. The theory's whole premise lies in the assumption that people know why they are consuming the media they choose. Our meme sheds light on how it is incorrect to generalize the reasons why people consume media, since each audience member makes a conscious decision about why they are consuming the media. This meme alludes to Facebook and other social networking sites, and how it is difficult to decipher the motives most people have in using these kinds of social media. According to the theory, each individual has a personal reason and makes the decision knowingly.

Cultivation Theory

Cultivation Theory was founded by George Gerbner and Larry Gross in the 1960s. Cultivation Theory focuses on the role that television plays in the formulation of beliefs about reality. Gerbner and Gross's article, "Living with Television: The Violence Profile" focuses on television as the ideal medium for cultivation by looking at prevalence, rate, and role, and the violence profile. Our meme pokes fun at the idea that television is becoming more and more violent in order to make people want to stay home and continuing to watch their shows. It is like a vicious cycle that will continue to go on throughout time.

Gatekeeping Theory

We generated this meme to demonstrate the comedic side of the gatekeeping theory. In this meme, we said that even though there is important world news happening, the news networks would rather use their top story air time for Justin Bieber’s arrest. Judging by the amount of buzz this arrest generated, the news networks realized this and assumed this is what the people wanted to see. Bieber’s arrest video was viewed over nine hundred and seventy one thousand times! This alone showed news networks that the arrest is what people wanted to see. Like the Columbia School, gatekeeping gives the audience what they want to see. This allows for the highest possible ratings for each station.

Diffusion of Innovation Theory

Our meme pokes fun at meme star ‘Bad Luck Brian’. As we all know, the iPhone 6 has not been released yet. That being the fact, at first we portray Brian as a “super early” adopter by being the first to get his hands on the new smartphone. It turns out that he ends up being a laggard the very next day due to the launch of the “brand new” iPhone 7. Our meme captures the inability of smartphone companies to provide any drastic changes to the current models that we have now. Ultimately we set out to capture our societies’ rapid yet unnecessary approval of newer models without really knowing the improvements that have been made. We all set out to be early adopters, but ultimately we all turn out to be laggards just like Brian with the constant updates to our devices.

Medium Theory

 

Marshall McLuhan adopted the phrase “the medium is the message” . The phrase as does the meme, illustrates the effects mediums have on the human senses. The meme above gives a sort of revelation aspect to our theory.  The medium theory is the idea that one should observe the media in the ways that each new form of medium disrupts traditional forms of communication and reshapes our understanding of social life.  The medium is the message that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and actions. The meme basically assumes that the relationship between the message and the medium is complementary in both shaping audience’s perception and senses. If the message is the medium, than the medium can also be the message. 

Agenda Setting Theory (Example)

Agenda setting theory was drafted by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in 1972 when through survey and interview research they discovered a correlation between issues voters believed were important and those the mass media gave prominence in news coverage. This led them to assert that the media do not reflect reality. Rather they filter and shape it, setting the public agenda by what stories they report on. This meme (also see: http://memegenerator.net/instance/45605657 )  shows "success kid" congratulating himself on the fact that his daily tweets reflect both what the twitter sphere and the press considered the most important stories of the day. However agenda setting theory argues that media only highlight a few stories each day and so that “agenda” makes the public to perceive those are the most important, which may not be the case.