audience theory powerpoint
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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?
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