AUDIENCE THEORY

A2 Media Studies

Active Audience

Different audiences can understand a media message but can have different responses to it. Some people believe and accept the message, others reject it using knowledge from their own experience or can use processes of logic or other rationales to criticise what is being said.

Miller and Philo, 2001

MOST AUDIENCE THEORY FOCUSES ON TWO QUESTIONS..

How powerful are the media in influencing the ideas and behaviour of the audience?

And… How does the media shape an

audience’s perception of the world?

Audience theories suggest that representations are open to different interpretations and that their meanings are not fixed.

CONSUMPTION OF MEDIAThere are different ways of consuming media texts…

Primary media(texts demand close and concentrated attention from audience, eg. Films in cinemas)

Secondary media(texts provide a background for an audience who are often doing something else at the same time and are distracted, eg. Radio and some TV programmes)

Audience Theory

There are three theories of audience that we can apply to help us come to a better understanding about the relationship between texts and audience.

1.The Effects Model or the Hypodermic Model

2.The Uses and Gratifications Model3.Reception Theory

The Effects Model

The Effects ModelThe consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience

It is normally considered that this effect is negative

Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence

The power lies with the message of the text

The Effects Model

This model is also called:

The Hypodermic Model

Here, the messages in media texts are injected into the audience by the powerful, syringe-like, media

The audience is powerless to resistTherefore, the media works like a drug and

the audience is drugged, addicted, doped or duped.

The Effects Model

Key evidence for the Effects Model

1. The Frankfurt School theorised in the 1920s and 30s that the mass media acted to restrict and control audiences to the benefit of corporate capitalism and governments

2. The Bobo Doll experimentThis is a very controversial piece of research that apparently proved that children copy violent behaviour

The Effects Model

The Bobo Doll Experiment

This was conducted in 1961 by Albert Bandura

The Effects Model

In the experiment:Children watched a video where an adult

violently attacked a clown toy called a Bobo Doll

The children were then taken to a room with attractive toys that they were not permitted to touch

The children were then led to another room with Bobo Dolls

88% of the children imitated the violent behaviour that they had earlier viewed. 8 months later 40% of the children reproduced the same violent behaviour

The Effects Model

The conclusion reached was that children will imitate violent media content

There are many problems with the experiment. What do you think are the flaws with the methodology? Does it indeed prove that children imitate violent media content?

The Effects Model

The Effects Model (backed up by the Bobo Doll experiment) is still the dominant theory used by politicians, some parts of the media and some religious organisations in attributing violence to the consumption of media texts.

The Effects Model

Key examples sited as causing or being contributory factors are:

The film Child’s Play 3 in the murder of James Bulger in 1993

The game Manhunt in the murder of Stefan Pakeerah in 2004 by his friend Warren LeBlanc

The film A Clockwork Orange (1971) in a number of rapes and violent attacks

The Effects Model

In each case there was a media and political outcry for the texts to be banned

In some cases laws were changed, films banned, and newspapers demanded the burning of films

Subsequently, in each case it was found that

no case could be proven to demonstrate a link between the text and the violent acts

The Effects Model

The Effects Model contributes to Moral Panics whereby:

The media represent inactivity, make us into students who won’t pass their exams or ‘couch potatoes’ who make no effort to get a job

The media produces violent ‘copycat’ behaviour or mindless shopping in response to advertisements

The Uses and Gratifications Model

It is still unclear that there is any link between the consumption of violent media texts and violent imitative behaviour

It is also clear the theory is flawed in that many people do watch violent texts and appear not to be influenced

Therefore a new theory is necessaryThis is called the:

Uses and Gratifications Model

The Uses and Gratifications Model

The Uses and Gratifications Model is the opposite of the Effects Model

The audience is activeThe audience uses the text & is NOT

used by itThe audience uses the text for its own gratification or pleasure

The Uses and Gratifications Model

Here, power lies with the audience NOT the producers

This theory emphasises what audiences do with media texts – how and why they use them

Far from being duped by the media , the audience is free to reject, use or play with media meanings as they see fit

The Uses and Gratifications Model

Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs for:

DiversionEscapismInformationPleasureComparing relationships and lifestyles with

one’s ownSexual stimulation

The Uses and Gratifications Model

The audience is in control and consumption of the media helps people with issues such as:

LearningEmotional satisfactionRelaxationHelp with issues of personal identity Help with issues of social identityHelp with issues of aggression and violence

The Uses and Gratifications Model

Controversially the theory suggests the consumption of violent images can be helpful rather than harmful

The theory suggests that audiences act out their violent impulses through the consumption of media violence

The audience’s inclination towards violence is therefore sublimated, and they are less likely to commit violent acts

Reception Theory

Given that the Effects model and the Uses and Gratifications have their problems and limitations a different approach to audiences was developed by the academic Stuart Hall at Birmingham University in the 1970s

This considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded (understood) by audiences

Reception Theory

The theory suggests that:When a producer constructs a text it is

encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to convey to the audience

In some instances audiences will correctly decode the message or meaning and understand what the producer was trying to say

In some instances the audience will either reject or fail to correctly understand the message

Reception Theory

Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings (or decoding) of the text:

1. Dominant or preferred2. Negotiated 3. Oppositional

Reception Theory

1.Dominant Where the audience decodes the

message as the producer wants them to do and broadly agrees with it

E.g. Watching a political speech and agreeing with it

Reception Theory

2. Negotiated Where the audience accepts,

rejects or refines elements of the text in light of previously held views

E.g. Neither agreeing or disagreeing with the political speech or being disinterested

Reception Theory

3. Oppositional Where the dominant meaning is

recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons

E.g. Total rejection of the political speech and active opposition

Reception Theory

Audience Decodes Meaning/Message

Dominant or preferred

Producer

Encodes NegotiatedMeaning

Oppositional

Question

If every media text is open to interpretation, what happens to the idea of “absolute truth”? Can “truth” be constructed by the audience?