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AUDIENCE THEORY

WHY DO THEY CHOOSE TO CONSUME CERTAIN TEXTS?

 

HOW DO THEY CONSUME THEM?

 

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY CONSUME TEXTS?

Looking into audiences at: the location they consume the texts, how much they consume them, the size of the audeince (mass or niche) and subjectivity (gender, nationallity, race and religion). Audiences are now changing they are no longer mass but niche.

Effects Model

The media effects model is how the consumption of media texts has effect or influences you. Normally considered as negative. Passive and powerless to prevent the influence. The 'Hypodermic Model' refers to the belief that everything is injected into you, and that media is like a drug that addictive. The Frankfurst school were the first to look at the media effects theory and peoples reactions to Nazi propaganda. The Frankfurt school looked at the following as possibly contributing to this communication theory:

 

  • The media response to the use of propaganda such as radio and Television broadcasting by the Nazi Party.

  • The power of the US media through advertising and entertainment.

  • The rising popularity of these new media forms.

  • People end up thinking what they are told because there is no other source of information.

 

 

 

THE BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT (1961) BY ALBERT BANDURA

 

 

 

The experiment as seen in the video of children aged between the ages of three and five copied the behaviour what they saw. There were many criticisms of the study including that the demonstrations are measured almost immediately. With such snap shot studies we cannot discover if such a single exposure can have long-term effects. It is also possible to argue that the experiment was unethical. For example, there is the problem of whether or not the children suffered any long-term consequences as a result of the study. 

 

Many real cases are closely linked and blamed on films. For example the 1991 horror movie Childs Play 3 is notorious for its links to the 1993 murder of three year old Jamie Bulger, in Liverpool, England. The 10 year old killers, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, supposedly saw the film, and imitated a scene where a victim is splashed with blue paint.

 

Moral Panic set in throughtout that the media produces inactivity (couch potatoes) and produces violent 'copycats'.

Uses & Gratification Model

This model is the oposite of the effects model. It belives that audiences are active and that they use the text for their own gratification and pleasure. They also belive that the power lies with the audience not the producers.

 

Use media to gratify needs for:

  • Diversion

  • Escapism

  • Information

  • Pleasure

  • Comparing relationships & Lifestyles

  • Sexual Stimulation

  • Learning

  • Emotional Satisfaction

  • Realxation

  • Help with issues

  • Social Identity

  • Aggression & Violence

 

The theory suggests consumption of violent images helpful rather than harmful and that audiences act out.

Reception Theory- Stuart Hall

Considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded by audiences. And suggests the producer constructs texts encoded with meanings or messages. Hall went on to suggest three main perspectives in the way that audiences respond to texts.

 

  • Dominant or Preferred- decodes message and agree

  • Neogotiated- accept, reject or refines elements of the text

  • Oppositional- reject but recognise.

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