how media audiences respond
TRANSCRIPT
How Do Media Audiences Respond to Media Products?Task 3 – Abygail Jones
Hypodermic Needle Model• This is the idea that, subtle/not so subtle
messages are put in to media products to get a desired reaction from the audience.
• This message is received, understood and accepted by the audience.
• This theory suggests a passive audience.
• As televisions and radio’s became increasingly popular throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s – it influenced behaviour changes in the viewers.
• The theory is largely disproved – such things have been published to prove this theory wrong: “The People’s Choice” written by Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet.
• http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20Clusters/Mass%20Media/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory/
Uses and Gratifications Theory
• This focuses on why the audience uses specific media sources by looking at things such as:
• The idea that people consume different types of media – what do they get from it?• How audiences spend their time/energy
finding the required media source?
• This theory suggests an active audience.
Uses and Gratification Theory• The theory began in 1944 with Herta Herzog
– she interviewed soap opera fans and identified three types of gratifications: Emotional, wishful thinking and learning.
• 1970 Abraham Maslow – Argued people looked to satisfy their needs based on hierarchy, hence the pyramid hierarchy theory. From bottom to top, Biological/physical, security/Safety, social/Belonging, Ego/Self-respect and Self-actualisation.
• 1969 – Jay Blumler and Denis McQuail – Studied why people watched political programmes, 1972 4 groups were created: Diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance.
Uses and Gratification Theory The theorists each came up with their own categories gratifications:
Harold Lasswell
• Surveillance• Correlation
• Entertainment• Cultural Transmission
Denis McQuail
• Information• Personal Identity• Integration and Social Interaction
Bulmer and Katz
• Diversion• Personal Relationships
• Personal Identity• Surveillance
Denis McQuail (1987) Why People use Media?
• His gratifications explained:
• Information: • Relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings,
society and the world – e.g. the news.• Seeking advice on practical matters, opinions and decision
choices – e.g. Looking up the symptoms of an illness.• Satisfying curiosity and general interest – e.g. Googling something • Learning: Self-educating – e.g. learning a foreign language
• Personal Identity• Finding reinforcement for personal values – e.g. personally specific
media need – a gossip magazine (OK!).• Finding models of behaviour – e.g. changing your personality – being
more aggressive/confident online etc.• Identifying with valued other - e.g. having the same interest as
someone else, adopting their interest etc.
Denis McQuail Why People Use Media?
• Integration and Social Interaction:• Gaining insight into circumstances of others: social empathy e.g.
putting yourself in other people’s shoes and seeing the benefit/disadvantages of your life.
• Identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging – e.g. having the same interests as a large group of people, feel safe, like you belong etc.
• Finding a basis for conversation and social interaction – e.g. Finding something in common with someone else i.e. liking Doctor Who.
• Having a substitute for real-life companionship – e.g. having a friend online/games/social networks etc.
• Entertainment• Escaping, or being diverted from problems – e.g. Using media to
distract yourself – reading a magazine during a panic attack/ watching TV when you’re ill etc.
• Relaxing – e.g. Playing games, reading, scrolling through Facebook, tumblr etc.
• Getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment – e.g. from a particular country/culture e.g. Navaho, finding something to relate to.
Why I Personally Interact with Media
• I use a range of media, from television to magazines:
• Information• I use tumblr religiously. I go on it to find out the latest news, information and
spoilers for upcoming TV series/films that I enjoy.• I also give advice and receive advice from other users who are having the
same issues as me.• I can’t usually control what I see, but if I’m curious about something, it’s
easy to find relevant information/pictures.• I learn a lot from tumblr. Whether it’s about something I’m interested in – or
something I’ve never even heard of before e.g. The Devil’s Tramping Ground.
• Personal Identity• I am a regular consumer of Kerrang! Magazine. I buy it because it’s a
magazine that applies to my personal needs – I want to find out what’s happening in the rock music world and this magazine enables me to do that.
• Online, media such as Facebook, I am a lot more confident than usual, I’ll talk to people I don’t really know and I’ll express my opinions freely.
• Integration and Social Interaction• Facebook and Tumblr are key media sources I use that make me use
social empathy, whether that’s putting myself in the shoes of less/more fortunate people – people who can’t afford expensive, items such as iPhone’s etc. and people who can.
• On Tumblr there are a range of groups that have similar interests to me, this enables me to carry out conversations with them and feel like I belong to a certain group.
• I substitute real-life companions a lot, the majority of my ‘friends’ are online and spread out across the country and in other countries as my social life is practically lifeless.
• Entertainment• I use YouTube, tumblr, Facebook, Kerrang! And other books to
distract myself from a lot of problems such as: interacting socially, family arguments etc.
Why I Personally Interact with Media
Reception Theory• This is looking at how audiences receive and interpret
media.
• The theory was developed by Stuart Hall, there are two parts: Encoding and Decoding:
Encoding: A media products producer fills it with a particular message. Celebrity gossip magazines are very good at this, they produce false accusations aiming it at celebrities wanting a desired reaction from their audience, usually shock or anger.
Decoding: This is where the audience receive the producers message and interprets the message: for example in the celebrity gossip magazine, if the anchoring captions are bad, the audience will unravel a truth and will learn that the problem is being emphasized by the publisher.
Hall’s Idea• The second part of the theory
concentrates on how the audience understands a media product:
• Hall’s idea is that the audience can interpret media text in different ways:
• Preferred: The reader receives, understands and agrees with the message in the product.
• Negotiated: The reader understands, somewhat accepts and then applies the products message to their own life.
• Oppositional: The reader understands the products message but rejects it, finding an alternative view.
• How they read and apply their ideas depends on their values, experiences and backgrounds – everyone is different and everyone has different ideas about the messages they receive.
Passive or Active Consumption• There are two different ways of interpreting a type of
audience/consumer and they are Passive or Active.
• Passive – They don’t apply their own ideas, they follow whatever the message tells them – the Hypodermic theory suggests passive audience.
• For example, when the original War of the World’s came out on the radio on October 30th 1938 – the audience heard that Martian’s had begun an invasion on Earth in a place called Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.
• The audience took this literally as an alien attack and fled from New Jersey, finding ‘safety’ in more rural areas, riots broke free and people raided stores.
• Active – They apply their own ideas, they hear what the message tells them and then they apply their own ideas to it. The Gratification and Reception theory suggests an active audience.
• For example: Kerrang magazine captions suggest something else is going on in the picture, they usually use humour to do this – making it out that what’s happening in the picture is funny, almost mocking the rock stars.
• Fans take this in to their own hands to interpret just what’s happening in the picture, if it’s a gig picture it’s pretty self explanatory etc.