INTRODUCTION

• Content analysis recapping and help

• Audience theories

• Hypodermic needle model

• Social learning theory/cultivation theory

• Two step flow

• Uses and gratifications

• Criticisms

• Social media

1

CONTENT ANALYSIS

• Recapping

• Pilot re categories

• Narrow down your focus

• Once table complete you can ask for guidance about theory/theories

• See the online resources list

• Make sure you draw on 6 academic sources – some for content analysis

• See handout on Assignment two analysis details

• Blog contribution details

2

AUDIENCE RESEARCH

• First half of 20th century:

• hypermodermic needle theory (4.12)

• Media impact

• Bobo doll experiment – criticisms

• Social learning

• Results are inconsistent

3

GERBNER

• Longer term impact (Cultivation theory 4.00)

• TV helps form understandings of the world

• Link between heaving TV viewing and fearful attitude to crime and violence

• But Experiments (including Bobo doll) are artificial

• Fearful people may be drawn to particular genres

• Some criticisms and explanations: social learning and cultivation https://youtu.be/8wTcmKqv3wA (3.03)

4

TWO-STEP FLOW

• Media voting behaviour during US presidential election

• Religious, social class, family ties, local social networks were more important than media

• People who pass on opinions e.g. of media coverage/campaigns

• Two step flow theory (4.52)

• Opinion leaders

5

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS

• Katz and Lazarsfeld

• What people with the media rather than what the media does to people

• Short term gratifications and longer term gratifications

• Katz – 14 different needs under 5 broad categories

• McQuail: 4 categories (uses and gratifications 3.48)

• Diversion

• Personal relationship

• Personal identity

• surveillance

6

SOME CRITICISMS

• Both uses and gratifications and two-step flow remain influential

• E.g. digital media – may be influenced via social networks (two step flow)

• Decline of social class, religious participation > media influence

• Assumes people have clear rational for media assumption

• People may exaggerate reasons for media consumption

• Neglect roles of sociological categories (class, locality, gender)

• Suggests the media exists to satisfy the demand/needs of audience

• Longer term influences?

7

HALL: ENCODING/DECODING

• Questions of discourse, meaning, power

• Encoding meanings – institutional, political, ideological messages.

• Preferred meanings are encoded

• Audiences decode these messages.

8

THREE RESPONSES

Dominant

Media

Output

9

EXAMPLE OF RESPONSES

10

SOCIAL CONTEXT: DIFFERENTIAL READINGS

• Different cultural frameworks that individuals have

• Morley – nationwide – not all groups were easy to classify

• Positioning of audience

• Assumes dominant understanding/preferred meaning are the same

• Hall’s model is inflexible

• Doesn’t account for range of responses

11

AUDIENCES AS PRODUCERS OF MEANING

• Economic power of cultural industry is great

• Consumers actively choose

• Meaning produced by consumers themselves interacting with text

• Fiske draws on de Certeau’s notion of guerrilla warfare

• Grassroots cultural resistance

• Convergence culture

• boundaries between media are breaking down

• Consumers as producer/produsage/prosumers

• Ethnographic work on the use of iPod by Bull

12

SUMMARY

• Audiences

• Hypodermic needle

• Bandura and social learning theory/cultivation effects

• Two-step flow

• Uses and gratifications

• Encoding/decoding and three responses

• Social context/social media

• Guerrilla warfare

13

REFERENCES

• Barker, C. and Jane, E. A. (2016) Cultural Studies, Theory and Practice. London, Sage.

• Branston, G. and Stafford, R. (2010) The Media Student’s Book. Oxon, Routledge.

• Fuchs, C. (2017) Social Media. A critical Introduction. London, Sage.

• Hodkinson, P. (2017) Media, Culture and Society, An Introduction. London, Sage.

14