Audience Theory

Aim: to explore audience theory and apply to coursework in preparation for exam question

Starter: Look at the images. What do you see?

Aim: to explore audience theory and apply to coursework in preparation for exam question

Do the producers influence the audience? or Does the audience influence the producers?

Aim: to explore audience theory and apply to coursework in preparation for exam question

TEXT

AUDIENCEPRODUCER

Hypodermic Needle Theory

Audiences passively receive the ideology transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the data.

Any problems with this theory?

TEXT MESSAGE PASSIVE AUDIENCE

Two-Step Flow Theory

The ideology is FILTERED by ‘opinion leaders’ and passed on to less active associates.

Uses and GratificationsBlumler and Katz:

• Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.

• Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life

• Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts

• Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains

Hierarchy of needs- Maslow

Stuart Hall’s Reading the Media• Dominant, or Preferred Reading how the director/creator wants the audience to view the media

text;

• Opposition Reading when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their

own meaning of the text;

• Negotiated Reading a compromise between the dominant and opposition readings,

where the audience accepts parts of the director's views, but has their own views on parts as well.

Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze

Objectification Martha Nussbaum:

(1) instrumentality: the treatment of a person as a tool for the objectifier's purposes;

(2) denial of autonomy: the treatment of a person as lacking in autonomy and self-determination;

(3) inertness: the treatment of a person as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity;

Objectification

(4) fungibility: the treatment of a person as interchangeable with other objects;

(5) violability: the treatment of a person as lacking in boundary-integrity;

(6) ownership: the treatment of a person as something that is owned by another (can be bought or sold);

(7) denial of subjectivity: the treatment of a person as something whose experiences and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account.

Rae Langton:

(8) reduction to body: the treatment of a person as identified with their body, or body parts;

(9) reduction to appearance: the treatment of a person primarily in terms of how they look, or how they appear to the senses;

(10) silencing: the treatment of a person as if they are silent, lacking the capacity to speak.

Objectification

Aim: to explore audience theory and apply to coursework in preparation for exam question

Other theories you might want to research:

MarxismPostmodernismStructuralismAbercrombie and Langhurst-HegemonyRichard Dyer- genre and escapismFandom