AUDIENCE THEORY

A2 Media Studies

Learning Objectives:To understand the key types of audience theoryTo apply audience theory to an example music video

Audience Theory

Three questions:

1) Why do audiences choose to consume certain texts?

2) How do they consume texts?

3) What happens when they consume texts?

WHY?

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 Model

3. Reception Theory

The Effects Model

The Effects Model The 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 resist

Therefore, 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 experiment

This 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

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 film Severance (2006) in the murder of Simon Everitt

What are the flaws of this theory?

The Effects Model

The Effects Model contributes to Moral Panics whereby:

The media produce 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 (Jamie Bulgar etc…)

The Uses and Gratifications Model

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

The audience is active

The audience uses the text & is NOT used by it

The audience uses the text for its own gratification or pleasure

Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch

The audience is conceived as active. In the mass communication process, much initiative in linking gratification

and media choice lies with the audience member. The media compete with other sources of satisfaction. According to the research, goals for media use can be grouped into five

uses.

The audience wants to: be informed or educated identify with characters of the situation in the media environment simple entertainment enhance social interaction escape from the stresses of daily life

How do you think people used your Music Video?

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:

Diversion

Escapism

Information

Pleasure

Comparing relationships and lifestyles with one’s own

Sexual stimulation

Maslow’sHierarchy of Needs (1943)

The Uses and Gratifications Model

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

Learning

Emotional satisfaction

Relaxation

Help with issues of personal identity

Help with issues of social identity

Help 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 decodethe 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 preferred

2. 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 Negotiated

Meaning

Oppositional

Think about your music video

Individually- make notes on What reasons are there for an audience watching your video?

Who is the intended audience? How do you know?

How are the following things used to engage /attract an audience?

Mise-en-scene

Camera

Sound

Editing

Think about the 3 different theories, how could they be applied to your music video?

Section B

Media texts will never be successful unless they are carefully constructed to target established audience needs and desires. Evaluate the ways that you constructed your media texts to target a specific audience.

(25 marks)