Audience

Theory

GRATIFICATION THEORYIn 1959, Blumler and Katz stated that music videos are used for four reasons, which are;

• Entertainment and Diversion• Personal Comparison • Personal Identity• Surveillance

This theory suggests that media users play an important role in choosing and using the media. The theorists state that a media user seeks out a media source that best fulfils the needs of themselves. The idea of entertainment and diversion allows escapism for the audience, so they can be engaged in some sort of media and will be in their own world and can escape from realism. For example, some people may play videos games or may listen to music to get away from the real world and to escape to their own world. The idea of personal comparison demonstrates that media is a friend who cares about the artist – which can frequently be seen in Pop music. For example, artists are able to communicate with their audience in a range of different way as they could do this through the use of their music videos as they may directly address the audience by looking at the camera, but also the artist could tweet a fan on twitter or like one of their pictures on Instagram and this will demonstrate a bond between the two people.

Entertainment and Diversion and Personal Comparison

The concept of personal identity presents how an audience will fit into a certain group or how they will present themselves to that group – this is in relation to both the audience and the artist because the artist will have to ensure that they will fit into and look like they are a part of the genre of music that they have been placed into. The audience will have to ensure that they will fit in with the artist they are following and make sure they can relate in some way. Lastly, the idea of surveillance allows the audience find out what is happening in the world through the use of different medias. For example, if an audience read a magazine, they are able to find out what is going on in the world in relation to certain artists and will be able to find out more information about them whether it is personal things or anything in relation to their music.

Personal Identity and Surveillance

CULTIVATION THEORYThis theory was constructed by George Gerbner and Larry Gross in 1975 and is primarily about how something is represented toward its audience. This theory was developed to check the long term effects that television shows or any type of media shown on the television had on American audience of all ages. The majority of this research came from a larger project known as ‘Cultural Indicators’ - the purpose of the this project was to track the ‘cultivated’ effects on television viewers. The idea of the cultivation theory is that audience consume media and gradually develop views about the world, some of which could be false. However, this has an impact on the audience as it can often change their perception on their understanding of representation including; gender, sexuality, young people and ethnic groups. The main concept of this theory is to present that certain television shows and other media shown on the television can have a great effect on the way that its audience views society. There are two key components to this theory which are; ‘mainstreaming’ and ‘resonance’. The concept of ‘mainstreaming’ presents that through the use of continuous exposure to the same images and labels, the audience will begin to become used to it and will see it all the time, hence the name ‘mainstreaming’. For example, if someone was watching a lot of shows about murder, then they may begin to think that people around them could be murderers or could resemble something similar. The concept of ‘resonance’ presents that television viewers may be affected by what they are seeing as they may have been a witness of a murder or have been a victim of violence – meaning that a viewer is often forced to relive their own personal experience of violence or what they have witnessed through the use of a character in a television show.

RECEPTION ANALYSIS THEORYThis theory was generated by Stuart Hall in 1980 and states that audiences are able to make sense of media texts according to their social position, which includes; gender, age, class and their ethnic background. This theory is an active audience theory which means the audience will receive information, but they will also be actively involved in a way instead of only receiving the information which is known as the passive audience theory. This theory identifies the audience being actively engaged in the interpretation of media texts rather than just consuming the text because different people will interpret texts in a range of different ways.

COPYCAT OR MODELLING THEORYThis theory was constructed by Loren Coleman in 2004 and states that audiences are influenced by the media texts that they consume which can often be perceived as a negative thing. For example, if someone played a lot of violent video games or watched a lot of violent films which included features like murders and suicides, than this could be copied and the person playing these games or watching these films could decide to murder someone or do something similar which they have witnessed in all the games and films they have been playing and watching. The name ‘copycat’ and ‘modelling’ make this theory quite obvious as the person will be copying or modelling what they have previously seen. Furthermore, this is not always the case, however – this is often an assumption used by journalists to explain an individuals negative behaviour because they do not understand why else they would have done the act they had done.

LONG TAIL THEORYThe Long Tail theory was generated by Chris Anderson in 2006 and demonstrates how the internet has influenced audience consumption. The concept behind this theory is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a small number of ‘hits’ (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and is heading toward a huge number of niches (niche audiences) in the tail. As the cost of production and distribution begin to fall, there is now less need to create physical versions of products as more people will digitally get them. To summarise this theory, it essentially presents how the introduction of broadband has had an impact on the consumption of certain media’s.

The two images I have shown help represent this theory – the dinosaur presents the head and the tail which makes it clearer when trying to explain this graph and what it means. One of the ways you could explain the graph is that the head of the of it is one shop that has around 50 customers and the long tail could represent 50 different websites that each have one customer. From this we can see that niche audiences are no longer economically unviable and they people are more likely to purchase things that have a large mass audience. This concept can be reinforced through the fact that 37% of Amazon books are no longer sold on the high street as they only appeal to niche audiences and there is no point stocking products in the shop if only one person is willing to buy it.