BPCG 174 Psychology and Media Solved Question Paper June 2026 TEE for IGNOU BAG, BSCG and BCOMG

Question 1 (Section A, 6+14 marks)

1. Explain the concept of media and social media. Discuss the theoretical explanation of media influence on human cognition and behaviour.

Concept of media (6 marks)

Media are the channels through which information, ideas and entertainment are stored and passed on to an audience. The word comes from the Latin medium, meaning something that stands in the middle, between a sender and a receiver. Traditional or mass media include print (newspapers, magazines, books), broadcast (radio, television) and cinema.

Mass media mostly work one way. A small group of producers sends the same content to a large, scattered audience that has little chance to reply. Their main functions are to inform, educate, entertain, persuade and pass culture from one generation to the next.

Social media is a newer form. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) described it as a group of internet-based applications, built on the technology of Web 2.0, that let users create and exchange their own content. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X and WhatsApp are common examples.

The key differences are that social media is interactive, many-to-many and instant. The audience is also the creator, content can be shared within seconds, and every user leaves a data trail that algorithms use to decide what each person sees next.

Theoretical explanation of media influence (14 marks)

1. Hypodermic needle (magic bullet) theory: This early view held that media inject messages straight into a passive audience. It grew out of propaganda during the World Wars and is often linked with the panic around the 1938 radio play The War of the Worlds. Today it is seen as too simple, because audiences do not all react the same way.

2. Two-step flow model: Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet (The People's Choice, 1944) studied the 1940 US election and found that media ideas first reach opinion leaders, who then pass them on to others. Modern influencers play exactly this role on social media.

3. Agenda-setting theory: McCombs and Shaw (1972), studying the 1968 US election in Chapel Hill, showed that the issues the media cover most become the issues the public thinks matter most. Media may not tell us what to think, but they shape what we think about. This is a direct effect on cognition, through salience.

4. Cultivation theory: George Gerbner argued that heavy television viewing slowly cultivates a view of reality that matches the screen. Heavy viewers tend to overestimate crime and danger, a pattern he called the mean world syndrome.

5. Social learning theory: Albert Bandura's Bobo doll studies (1961, 1963) showed that children copied aggressive models, including filmed ones. Learning from media passes through attention, retention, reproduction and motivation, which explains why viewers copy styles, stunts and even violence.

6. Uses and gratifications approach: Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch (1974) turned the question around and asked what people do with media. Audiences are active and choose media to meet needs such as information, identity, social contact and entertainment.

7. Framing: Entman (1993) explained that the way a story is presented, for example as a law and order issue or as a social issue, shapes how readers understand causes and solutions.

Conclusion

No single theory explains every effect. Modern media psychology treats influence as conditional: it depends on the content, the person's age, needs and beliefs, and the social setting. Together these theories show that media shape both what we know and how we behave.

Question 5 (Section B, 20 marks)

5. Explain the role of media in the formation of stereotypes.

Introduction

A stereotype is a fixed and oversimplified belief about the members of a group, applied to every person in that group regardless of individual differences. Journalist Walter Lippmann brought the term into social science in Public Opinion (1922), describing stereotypes as the pictures we carry in our heads.

Stereotypes have three parts: a cognitive belief (women are emotional), an affective feeling or prejudice (dislike or pity), and a behavioural outcome, which is discrimination. Media are among the strongest sources of these pictures because most people meet many groups only through screens.

How media form stereotypes

1. Repetition and cultivation: When the same image is shown again and again, viewers begin to treat it as normal and true. Gerbner's cultivation theory explains how heavy viewers absorb the TV version of reality.

2. Social learning: Following Bandura, children copy the roles they see rewarded on screen. A girl who sees only male scientists and a boy who sees only female carers learn what is "right" for their gender.

3. Under-representation and symbolic annihilation: Gerbner and Gross (1976) used this term for groups that are missing or trivialised in media. Gaye Tuchman (1978) applied it to women. When a group is rarely shown, audiences conclude that it matters less.

4. Framing and news selection: News that links crime or terrorism mainly with one community builds suspicion against the whole community, even when facts show otherwise.

5. Advertising shortcuts: A 30-second advert has no time for depth, so it uses quick, familiar types: the homemaker mother, the busy father, the comic sidekick.

6. Algorithms and echo chambers: On social media, recommendation systems show users more of what they already watch, so stereotyped memes and reels spread quickly and are rarely challenged.

Indian examples

Skin colour: For years fairness cream adverts linked fair skin with jobs, confidence and marriage. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) issued guidelines in 2014 against adverts that show darker skin as inferior, and in 2020 Hindustan Unilever renamed Fair & Lovely as Glow & Lovely.

Gender: Detergent and cooking adverts long showed only women at work in the home. ASCI has since framed guidelines against harmful gender stereotypes in advertising.

Region and age: Films have often shown people from the North-East as outsiders and older people as helpless or a burden, which shapes how viewers treat them in real life.

Psychological effects

Stereotypes feed prejudice and discrimination. They can also be internalised: Steele and Aronson (1995) showed that awareness of a negative stereotype, called stereotype threat, lowers test performance in the targeted group.

Conclusion

Media both create and reinforce stereotypes, but the same power can break them through counter-stereotypical characters, responsible advertising codes and media literacy that teaches audiences to question what they see.