ABSTRACT
Media effects studies are usually extremely undiscriminating about how they identify worrying bits of media content, or subsequent behaviour by viewers. The studies give no voice to young people and no opportunity for them to demonstrate their independence, intelligence or free will. The astounding inconsistencies, unapologetically presented by perhaps the best-known researchers in the area, must surely be cause for considerable unease about the effects model. Much of the discourse about children and the media positions children as potential victims, and as little else. Furthermore, media effects research usually employs methods which will not allow children to challenge to the assumption. A fundamental flaw, already hinted at above, is that the effects model necessarily rests on a base of reductive assumptions about and unjustified stereotypes of media content. Media effects research is good news for conservatives and right-wing ‘moralists’.
