Media Effects and Son of Rambow

“I BLAME THE PARENTS”

OPINION LEADERS AND AUDIENCE EFFECT

For someone that doesn’t watch television, you might believe what you see. But for the Son of Rambow, it’s about experiencing media; that’s what you think is true. The characters are structuring the world based on what they do or do not see. However, any sway for against the arguments of Media Effects must realize that it comprises of two controllers: Opinion Leaders and the Audience. Both the Opinion Leaders and the Audience (Will Proudfoot and Lee Carter) are effected by the media in multiple ways. However, their backgrounds and experiences differ and that causes the Opinion Leaders and the Audience to effect each other more than any real evidence that media is the prime suspect.

There are two types of Opinion Leaders in Son of Rambow; the parents and the Brethren. Though all the adults (including the academic instructors) may fill that position, the most effect characters are Mary Proudfoot (the mother) and Joshua (one of the Brethren). These Opinion Leaders are under the assumption that media does harm. They support the Gerbner model of the negative effects of social realities as presented in the media. As adults, they can construct Will’s interaction with media by restricting all forms of media. Once Will has discovered the world beyond what he sees, the Opinion Leaders live in fear that the content is immoral, violent, and wrong. As Mary reveals her own story, the film blocks the content of media that she was being banned from. Instead, it was about her parents subtracting such horrible media without Mary understanding why. This approach is the Mean World Syndrome model which states that there is a “pessimistic view of the real world based on the violence within media.” As Will gets pulled into creating a film that mimics True Blood it is evident that there is violent media. However, Will rules these ideas as real. The Opinion Leaders try to draw connections to his friendships and behaviors to the media without Will every understanding why. Joshua warned that the media will lead him “to a path astray towards the outsiders.” Will trusts these Opinion Leaders and therefore acts upon the warnings and perceptions of the media from others. The Opinion Leaders respond to the Laswell model of audience effect by the relay function of Conductance. They simply receive information, edit it, and then pass it on. The weakness is that it does not fully account for the Cultivation of the viewer’s perspective of the media.

Lee Carter is a problem child as designated by several Opinion Leaders. However, Will is drawn to his experiences and ideas because they are cultivated in a different way other than Mary and Joshua. Will is immersed in new ideas and experiences that are different than how he’s seen the world before. Within his first encounter with Rambo, he truly believes that “he is the best” as the video clip was stating. Why? Because he knows nothing else to compare it to. Beyond that, as he cultivates the images, he views social reality in a different way. It opposes the pessimistic view of the real world based on violent media as Will brings to life the Son of Rambow and uses those conceptions to create a new world in which his father can be saved from death. Its how he’s sees the world and how he hopes to think about it. The pressure from others (Opinion Leaders, Lee Carter, and schoolmates) contributes to complicated shifts on his perspective of mainstream media. Will struggles to satisfy the Brethren, his mother, and Lee Carter, all while trying to satisfy himself. A symbol that appeared most often throughout the film was a watch. This represents time. Lee Carter said that “time heals all wounds,” and as opinions, rules, and experiences flooded Will’s perception of the media, it took time for everyone to understand how several worlds can collide without disaster. This promotes Resonance: messages that resonate and amplify cultivation. Soon enough, Mary was on Will’s side and Joshua was left on his own. This demonstrates exactly how Opinion Leaders need to understand and connect to the audience in which they are communicating too. It seemed that all it took was time for Mary to see positive effects of media on Will, and for Will to see possible threats of the media on himself. There is a balance to which media you place certain value on and participate in.

Lee Carter stands as the mediator between the audience and the Opinion Leaders. Lee Carter had less interaction with Opinion Leaders and therefore lacked direction in his actions and choices. However, his influence on Will was as an Opinion Leader AND Audience member. This meant that the information that was passed on was also experienced alongside Will so that a trust of media perception was formed. In fact, as “the problem child”, Lee recognized much quicker the dangers that Will was dabbling in when different crowds of people and ideas were bombarding their film. Makes you wonder why the cool guys didn’t care much for Lee, but Will thought the world of him. Being “of the world”, Lee had the opportunity to choose the information he wanted to accept as reality. This meant that complete Cultivation of the media is positively enforced when the audience has the support and information from all sources (media, Opinion Leaders, etc.). Lee Carter once said, “Parents… you’re better off without them.” I don’t believe he meant to say that parents should disappear but that his world is constructed without them and he feels his perception of the media is just fine without them. When Will and Lee were filming a rescue scene with an elderly man playing Will’s father, they assured the old man, “we are just pretending… we’re not going anywhere.” This abolishes the negative effect of media with the perception that media might not even effect or change an individual. Once you know it isn’t real, you might not go anywhere. Many of the characters changed their negative perception of the media and translated it to a positive influence of the world. Will and Lee were constructing the world innocently and to them it’s pure – to other, it’s rubbish.

            So is media really the culprit? Or is it just the medium? Or the means to an end? I believe that the Opinion Leaders and the Audience form their own structures of media and relay that to the world around them. This movement tends to shifts ideologies of media effects. However, the increasing numbers of opinions distract from the actual impact or lack of effect media has on its audience. All perceptions of the media and social reality should be accounted for. And in reality, negative things were happening before television came along. So if we educate each other on our perceptions, we will find that media may or may not affect us but there should always be a choice.