Audience Theories

In class we all discussed the topic of Audience Theory.

Why are audiences so important?


My initial thoughts were:
- They are the ones who will be exposed to your video
- To gain awareness and popularity
- To gain money
- To promote it
- To give feedback

Together we decided this: A media text in itself has no meaning until it is read or decoded by an audience.


We can define an audience by using SAGEL. (Socio economic group, Age, Gender, Ethnicity and Lifestyle.)

The audience theories we have learnt about are:
- Hypodermic Needle Model/ Magic Bullet Theory
- Two Step Flow
- Uses and Gratifications Theory
- Reception Theory

Hypodermic Needle Model


This theory suggests that audiences passively receive the information transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the data. It also suggests that as an audience, we are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by them.



Together as a class we discussed what 'audience theory' was.

We discussed terms such as the 'Uses and Gratifications Theory' aka the Hypodermic Needle Effect, and the 'Magic Bullet Theory'.

The idea of the hypodermic needle effect is that mass media is so powerful in these days, that it can target the audience directly with any message it wants to give because the audience are passive receivers of meanings ideas and values.

It originated in the 1920's where the government believed if they made a media text broadcasted to a mass audience, they would recieve its message passively.

Two Step Flow
People believe the HNM didn't explain the idea of the relationship of the audience and the text well enough. The two step flow theory was created by Lazarsfeld et al in 1940. The findings of research suggested that information from text does not flow directly into the audience's mind.

Here is a diagram we all copied down to demonstrate this theory:



Reception Theory
Work was done to see the way audiences recieve the meaning of a mass media text and how their lives interfere with their interpretation. This work was based on Stuart Halls' encoding model. The text is encoded by the producer, then decoded by the reader. Different lifestyles and age can affect the way people interpret texts, for example, an older generation may not find something as funny as the younger generations would. This means the texts can be polysemic, which means it has many meanings




Uses and Gratifications


When televisions were first invented, media theorists were aware of the choices audiences made when watching media texts. As the audience are no longer passive consumers, they were known as active consumers. Blumler and Katz said that individuls might choose texts for different reasons and they came up with 4 reasons as to why people may choose differently:


Diversion - To escape from everyday chores and problems
Personal Relationships - Audiences used the media for emotions interaction.
Personal Identity - Seeing your personality and character being reflected in texts, maybe soaps.
Surveillance - To learn information such as weather and the news

My audience might relate to my video for personal relationships and personal identity, they could empathise with the main character and see traits of Zak's in theirselves.