Media effects on audience perception and behavior

Media Effects: Slumdog Millionaire

The mass media has grown to become a part of every American's daily life. Due to the increasing exposure to media not only in the United States but everywhere else in the world, scholars have theorized and researched on the effects mass media has on people. In this paper, the theatrical film Slumdog Millionaire, widely released in the United States in January 23, 2009, is used in order to analyze the effects of mass media content to the individual and the society.

Slumdog Millionaire takes place in Mumbai, India in 2006. It is a story about destiny with the basic premise that everything happens for a reason. Jamal Malik who works for a call center serving tea is one question away from winning the highest prize in the television program, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. He was taken by force by the police when the host of the show doubted Jamal's capacity and thought that he was cheating. Jamal was treated with brutality by the police. They tortured him through drowning, beatings, and electrocution with the intent of getting the truth.

Jamal grew up in the slums witnessing and experiencing varied kinds of violence and cruelty where children are exploited and women are mistreated. Life in the slums was driven by hunger that people turn to petty crimes in order to subsist. Jamal lived in an environment where gangsters are the lords, slavery is part of everyday, and killings are a normal occurrence. All these are shown in film and they convey messages which are potentially crucial due to their potential effects. The reason for this is that the images of these scenes linger to an individual and leave a lasting impression.

In analyzing the potential effects of the media content of Slumdog Millionaire, the Desensitization Theory as well as the social learning theory is applied in order to speculate on how it could affect the audience.

According to Comstock (as cited in Yates et al., 1998), the "desensitization theory states that individuals who watch large amounts of violence become less sensitive to future violent content than individuals who watch less violence." Explaining further, Rockler-Gladen (2008) said that "because people are exposed to so much violence in the media, violence no longer makes a strong emotional impact upon them." In a study conducted by Cline, Croft, and Courrier (as cited in Yates et al., 1998), it was found that "children who watched a lot of television (arguably a violent medium) became less physiologically aroused when shown the violent clip compared to the children who were not heavy viewers." Desensitization causes less sensitivity or a kind of numbness towards violence. For desensitization to occur there must be continuous, repeated or heavy exposure to violence.

Another theory with regards the effect of mass media on the individual is Social Learning Theory. This was developed by Albert Bandura and focuses on the learning that happens within a social context. Social Learning Theory proposes that individuals learn information and behaviors by observing or watching other people. An individual can learn new information and behaviors without experiencing or showing a change in behavior. Bandura described the four components of observational learning. "To successfully imitate a model we must 1) attend to the model, 2) have some way of retaining what we have seen, 3) have the necessary motor skills to reproduce the behavior" (O'Rorke,2006).

Bandura explained that reinforcement or motivation, the fourth component, is necessary for modeling or imitation to occur. According to the Social Learning Theory, when these conditions are met, an individual would most likely know how to imitate the model of the behavior. However, an individual may also choose not to imitate the socially learned behavior. Social Learning Theory hypothesizes that an individual "can acquire lasting attitudes, emotional reactions, and behavioral proclivities toward persons, places or things that have been associated with modeled emotional experiences" (O'Rorke, 2006). O'Rorke (2006) said that "the potential danger of heavy consumption of television is the exposure to this symbolic world may make the televised images appear to the authentic state of human affairs." And in the absence of someone to explain and distinguish reality from fiction, an individual might imitate the modeled behavior seen on any media content.

Slumdog Millionaire contains numerous violent scenes that adults are the most likely audience for this theatrical film. The scenes showing the police brutality in India depicted violence. They showed Jamal being interrogated rudely and tortured. The tortures included Jamal's head being forcefully submerged, Jamal being brutally beaten and later on electrocuted until he was unconscious. Other scenes that showed violence included killings showing Jamal's brother shooting people. A disturbing scene is when Jamal's brother shot a gangster when he was still in his teens. There were also scenes which showed anti-Muslims hitting, killing, and burning every person in Jamal's village. There were also scenes that showed women and children physically abused. The bombardment of violent scenes would most likely make the audience feel desensitized and less sensitive to the succeeding violent scenes in the movie. This is the possible effect of the violent content of Slumdog Millionaire as proposed by the Desensitization Theory.

Poverty was also strongly depicted in the movie. Scenes of the slum and the way of life of the less fortunate are showed scene after scene. There are scenes where children were shown being forced to work, begging money for the gangsters, getting hungry because they don't have anything and anyone for them, and being forced to commit petty crimes that later on turn to serious ones. These socially relevant issues depicted in the movie so heavy could potentially cause desensitization as well. Uninvolvement to these socially relevant concerns is a potential crucial effect of the desensitization in this case. However, being that the likely audience of this movie is adults, they are more inclined to think critically. Perhaps the bombardment socially relevant issues in this movie might cause them to be more involved and sensitive to the important issues in the Third World.

On the other hand, the Social Learning Theory tells us that the violent scenes in Slumdog Millionaire could potentially be imitated by the target audience. Since the adults have more experience in the world and is more likely to be able to tell reality from fiction as compared to a child, imitating of violent scenes such as shooting other people is not much of a concern. However, equally violent scenes such as physically abusing women and children could potentially be imitated by the adults though not to the same degree as was shown in the movie. Another behavior that may be imitated by the adults is the way foreign tourists in the movie dealt with the slumdogs in India such as protecting the child being beaten up by the police and giving money to compensate for the physical injuries.