Message (institution)

Medium

Audience

Audience theory is concerned with

how audiences interpret

messages

AUDIENCE THEORY…

•Audiences accept media messages•Audiences easily influenced•Do not make own use of texts or interpret in own way

•Audiences are involved in their interpretations of media texts•Audiences create their own meanings•Audiences question and respond to institutions

PASSIVE

ACTIVE

Passive or active audiences

Ien Ang (1991) detailed that media producers have an imaginary entity in mind before the construction of a media product.

What is she talking about?

Ang (1991) states that 'audiencehood is becoming an ever more multifaceted, fragmented and diversified repertoire of practices and experiences'.

You must detail the social demographic of your target audience (gender, age, ethnicity, social class).

THEORY #1

The Hypodermic Needle Model

• Dating from the 1920s

• One of the first attempts to explain how audiences react to mass media

• Suggests that audiences passively receive information transmitted via a media text

• Suggests that audiences do not try to process or challenge the information

• Developed when mass media was still fairly new

The Frankfurt School’s Hypodermic Theory (1930s)

This Marxist theory, which was championed by theorists such as Theodore Adorno, assumes a direct stimulus-response relationship between audience reactions and the consumption of media texts.

• The message is entirely accepted by the audience• The audience has no role in interpreting the text• Is considered mostly obsolete today• Still quoted during moral panics (computer games, violent

films etc)

Criticisms Of Hypodermic Theory • Doesn’t allow for resistance or rejection of media messages.

• Elitist.

• Simplistic.

THEORY #2

Look at these media texts

What do you think consumers get from these texts?

Do different texts offer different things to different people?

Uses & GratificationsUses and Gratifications Theory states that people use media texts in different ways, for different reasons. Blumler and Katz’s in ‘74 expanded on the 60s version

Unlike the Hypodermic needle model U and G theory argues that it’s:

“...not what does the media do to people, but what do people do with the media”

4 Areas Entertainment/DiversionThe media text is enjoyable; an escape from routine and

problems; an emotional release

Information/SurveillanceThe media text is a source of information; a form of education

Social RelationshipsThe media text is part of social life or is a replacement for a

social life.

Personal IdentityThe media product reflects your own values, ideals and hopes

or “life”

THEORY #3

Reception Theory

Reception Theory

• Encoding/decoding model of the relationship between text and audience - the text is encoded by the producer, and decoded by the reader

• There may be major differences between two different readings of the same code created by situated culture - social class, gender, ethnicity etc.

• Using recognised codes and conventions and drawing upon audience expectations relating to aspects such as genre and use of stars, the producers can position the audience and thus create a certain amount of agreement on what the code means. This is known as a preferred reading

Stuart Hall, 1980

Stuart Hall (1980) analysed the readings within audiences as either:

• 1.Dominant or Preferred Reading: The meaning they want you to have is usually accepted.

• 2.Negotiated Reading: The dominant reading is only partially recognised or accepted and audiences might disagree with some of it or find their own meanings.

• 3.Oppositional Reading: The dominant reading is refused, rejected because the reader disagrees with it or is offended by it, especially for political, religious, feminist, reasons etc.

Preferred Reading

The preferred reading is the reading media producers hope audiences will take from the text.

In this example, it’s that a Big Mac is delicious and fills you up.

Oppositional reading

Audiences outside the intended target audience may have an oppositional reading.

This is where the audience reject the preferred reading and supply their own meaning, in this example, an awareness of advertising and how the real burger looks different to the adverts

Negotiated Reading

Negotiated reading is when audiences acknowledge the preferred reading, but modify it to suit their own values and opinions.

In this example, it’s that Big Mac’s aren’t healthy, but one every now and then is ok.

“I like Big Macs but I know they are unhealthy so I eat them rarely and as part of a balanced diet”