Learning outcomes
• Will be able to describe audience theory
• Will be able to describe audience responses
• Will be able to described the effects debate
Audience
– No media product is put together without some idea
of that audience that is going to see, read or hear it;
hence, the concept of audience is at the heart of all
media study .
• Target audience
– Demographics-the consumer is categorised in terms of
concrete variables such as age, class, gender,
geographical area.
– Psychographics-the consumer is categorised in terms
of their needs and desires such as those who aspire to
a richer lifestyle or those who want to make the world
a better place.
• Read attached PDF for extended
understanding of audience theory, before
reading this.
Audience theory remember these key
points
• 1. Audience theory is to do with how we understand the
audience
• 2. How we believe the audience mediates and understands
the media texts i.e. how the audience interprets what it
reads, hear and sees.
• 3.It also questions what effects the media has on the
audience if any?
• 4. If there is such a thing as a heterogeneous audience
• 5. how the audience has changed due to web 2.0
• 6. You must quote David Gauntlett here, as he disagrees
with the effects debate, OCR love him.
Point 1
•
•
•
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How we understand the audience is based on whether we see the audience as a
heterogeneous mass i.e. meaning we are all the same or as individuals. These two
theories are linked to whether we agree with the following theories discussed in
the next few pages. What is important to remember is the media classify
audiences into categories
i.e. demographics age, gender, sexuality, soc, ethnicity they do this through
audience research i.e. NRS for magazines, and even films i.e. horror is often aimed
at men and constructed for me.
Psychographics: to do with your personality type i.e. a traditional people would
not go and see a horror film, but a thrill seeker might do.
So whether we agree with heterogeneous or seeing people as individuals it is clear
that some sort of media profiling is taken place, this is because the media rely on
advertising, consider Xfactor on a Saturday night who is the target audience for
this. The media collect this date from audience research boards, focus groups and
other audience research agencies.
Audience theories Point 2
• Over the years there has been different theories about how the audience
mediate and interpret the text, this again is linked to how you view the
audience. The theories include:
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•
•
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Hypodermic Needle
Two Step Flow
Uses and Gratification
Reception theory.
Hypodermic needle
This model came about in the 1920s
read attached PDF, it is largely
redundant now because of web 2.0 ,
i.e. people choose to watch things
when they want. However, it is a good
model to highlight the ‘effects
debate’, as theorists used this model
to suggest that the Nazis could use
the media to inject ideas into people’s
minds.
In a nutshell, the Hypodermic Needle
Model suggests that information is
absorbed into the human brain
without thought. We are therefore
vulnerable from consuming media
texts and easily manipulated by
producers. We accept dominant
ideologies as the norm.
What the model says
– This theory suggests that the audience receive an
intravenous injection of a media text which could
be negative or positive.
– The weakness of this model is that audiences are
seen as passive and malleable with no thought of
their own.
Two step flow model
•
The 'Multistep Flow Model says that most people form their
opinions based on opinion leaders that influence the media.
Opinion leaders are those initially exposed to a specific
media content, interpret based on their own opinion and
then begin to infiltrate these opinions through the general
public who then become "opinion followers" These
"opinion leaders" gain their influence through more elite
media as opposed to mainstream mass media. In this
process, social influence is created and adjusted by the
ideals and opinions of each specific "elite media" group and
by these media group's opposing ideals and opinions and in
combination with popular mass media sources. Therefore,
the leading influence in these opinions is primarily a social
persuasion.
•
•
•
•
The two-step flow of communication model suggests that
ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from
them to a wider population i.e celebrities. It was first
introduced by sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld et al. in 1944 and
elaborated by Elihu Katz and Lazarsfeld in 1955 and
subsequent publications
Unlike the hypodermic needle model which considers mass
media effects to be direct, the two-step flow model stresses
human interaction in the process, from one to another.
According to Lazarsfeld and Katz, mass media information is
channeled to the "masses" through opinion leadership. The
people with most access to media, and having a more
literate understanding of media content, explain and diffuse
the content to others
Contrasting viewpoint:
Active V’S Passive audience
Uses and gratification
• Uses and Gratifications Theory is a popular
approach to understanding mass media and
mass communication. The theory discusses
how users proactively search for media that
will not only meet a given need, but enhance
knowledge, social interactions. It assumes
that members of the audience are not
passive but take an active role in media
conception. The theory also holds that
audiences are responsible for choosing
media to meet their needs. This approach
suggests that people use the media to fulfil
specific gratifications. This theory would
then imply that the media compete against
other information sources for viewers'
gratification. (
• Katz, E., Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. 1974)
Give some examples of why we watch
television
• Information
• finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate
surroundings, society and the world
• seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices
• satisfying curiosity and general interest
• learning; self-education
• gaining a sense of security through knowledge
• Personal Identity
• finding reinforcement for personal values
• finding models of behaviour
• identifying with valued other (in the media)
• gaining insight into one's self
• Integration and Social Interaction gaining insight into circumstances of
others; social empathy
• identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging
• finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
• having a substitute for real-life companionship
• helping to carry out social roles
• enabling one to connect with family, friends and society
•Entertainment
• escaping, or being diverted, from problems
• relaxing
• getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment
• filling time
• emotional release
• sexual arousal
(McQuail 1987: 73)
Reception theory
•
StuarytHall is the main theorist for this.
•
Thirty years ago, much research was conducted on how individuals received and
interpreted a media text, and whether their individual circumstances (age, gender, class,
ethnicity, sexuality) affected their reading. I.e. think about how an Indian audience and a
western audience interpreted Slumdog millionaire is it the same response? Think about
their individuals differences not just ethnicity, but class, age, gender and even sexuality.
•
Stuart Hall addressed this in the video on representation, that though a process of
encoding/decoding, that audiences take on their own readings of a text they negotiate and
interpret that meaning.
•
Producers (media) are able to engineer their products to position audiences to accept the
preferred reading of a text. However, people are all different and have different sets of
ideals, beliefs and values (ideology), which can create oppositional or negotiated readings.
•
This links nicely to genre and how we accept and categorise a text or group of texts i.e if we
take on the preferred reading we understand the genre and accent the dominant
hegemonic code.
Stuart Hall also developed Hall's Theory of encoding and decoding, focusing on the
communication processes.
•
Reception Theory
•
•
•
How audience receive and understand media has been heavily research, in the
1980s and 1990s a lot of work was done on the way individuals received and
interpreted a text, and how their individual circumstances (gender, class, age,
ethnicity) affected their reading.
This work was based on Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model of the relationship
between text and audience - the text (media product) is encoded by the producer,
and decoded by the reader. Hall believed media texts encoded based on a
dominant code, where social, cultural and political ideology was shared by media
producers. If the audience understood this they were decoding the dominant
code. Hall put foward the idea that there were major differences between two
different readings of the same code.
He suggested media producers use recognised codes and conventions, and by
drawing upon audience expectations relating to aspects such as genre and use of
stars, the producers can position the audience and thus create a certain amount of
agreement on what the code means. This is known as a preferred reading, where
you accept the dominant code. Hall suggested there are three main ways an
audience can understand a text or media product: Negotiated, Preferred or
oppositional
Audience positioning
• Stuart Hall, in his research [19731, suggested that texts
were 'encoded' by the producers of the texts to contain
certain meanings related to the social and cultural
background of the creator of the text. However, once the
reader of the text 'decoded' that text then the meanings
intended by the producer may change. Hall then went on to
suggest three main perspectives involved in the way in
which an audience responds to a particular text. This
involves how the audience is positioned by the text.
• Hall’s work is important because he moved away from the
idea that that the media can have a direct effect on people
he extended the notion of an active audience and offered
three different ways that the audience can interpret media
texts.
Preferred reading
• The preferred reading also known as the dominant
hegemonic reading where the audience accepts the
meaning created by a producer. It is called a hegemonic
meaning as hegemonic is the dominant viewpoint
produced by the ideology of society, here dominant
viewpoint is male, white, elite and well educated.
• One theory of the way a media text is understood by the
audience is called the preferred meaning. In this model, the
meaning which is created through encoding by the codes
and conventions is accepted by the audience and they
interpret the meaning the producer enclosed.
• In this model the audience is passive and follows the
hyperdermic needle model
Negotiated
• The negotiated or negotiated hegemonic position is
established when the audience member negotiates
with the media text i.e. You agree with aspects of the
production, but disagree with other. In this model you
understand the preferred reading, but rather than be
passive, you negotiate and adapt the preferred
meaning. This model places emphasis on the audience
in the process of constructing a meaning i.e. You are
asked to sympathise with a character in that film,
which you dislike, but you enjoy the film. You are
negotiating your own understanding this is an active
response.
Oppositional meaning
• The oppositional hegemonic position is established
when the audience member understands the preferred
meaning, but disagrees with it due to their own set of
attitudes and beliefs. For instance this could be seen
where a Palestinian watches the American news, they
have a conflict with the text itself due to their beliefs or
experiences of the trouble.
• This theory is important as it can challenge the effects
model and the hypodermic needle model because it
challenges that all the audiences are the same, and
that they will have the same experience from a text.
Moral panics and the effects debate
Moral panics
•
A moral panic is a term used to describe a sudden flurry of
attitudes towards the media (usually film or music) when
something which is perceived as too shocking or graphic is
released to the public. For example when the film Reservoir
Dogs was released in the UK there was a "Moral Panic"
because many thought that it was too violence, and in
particular the way the violence was treated by director
Quentin Tarantino was offensive. This moral panic spread
and the film was banned until an edited version was
released years later.
•
Moral panics are usually inspired by real life events and
tragedies for which the media, and usually the director of
the most violent film of the moment, receive blame. The
Columbine High School massacre sparked a moral panic into
two areas of the media, violent films and violent music
Most moral panics in media focus around the role of
violence in the media as a whole instead of against any
particular film.
•
The problems
•
"The first problem is that there is too much of it (violence) the glut
of media violence desensitises viewers and contributes to 'Mean
World Syndrome' (a wholly negative view of the world)
• secondly much of it (media violence) can be easily imitated,
especially by young children a third problem is the manner in which
violence is depicted. It is one thing to show a shooting or a
stabbing; it is another to show it in sadistic slow motion with the
bullets actually penetrating the body
• The fourth problem is Hollywood's infatuation with guns, instead of
portraying guns as, at best, a necessary evil, handguns especially
are portrayed as a means of empowerment"
The effects debate
• The effects debate is linked to moral panics because
some in society worry that violence, graphic films and
music can have an effect on people. This view is often
linked to the hypodermic needle model or where the
audience is viewed as passive, and heterogeneous i.e
the same and can be directly influenced by the media,
or whether we agree with individual differences i.e
reception theory.
• There are others including David Gauntlett who
disagree with this view and say other issues such as
peoples experience and background play a role with
how we interact with the media text.
The effects model
•
The Frankfurt school, set up in 1923, were concerned about the possible effects of
mass media. They proposed the "Effects" model, which considered society to be
made up of individuals who were susceptible to media messages. The Frankfurt
school envisioned the media as a hypodermic syringe, and the contents of the
media were injected into the thoughts of the audience, who accepted the
attitudes, opinions and beliefs expressed by the medium without question. This
model was a response to the German fascists use of film and radio for propaganda
uses, and later applied to American capitalist society. The followers of the
hypodermic model of Effects adopted a variant of Marxism, emphasising the
dangers of the power of capitalism, which owned and controlled new forms of
media. Researchers in the fifties also supported the Effects model when exploring
the potential of the new medium of television. Researchers were particularly
concerned over increases in the representation of violent acts on television, which
correlated with increases in violent acts in society. In the nineties, there was
considerable concern over what were called "video nasties". The tabloid papers
created a moral panic over whether particular violet films could influence child
behaviour – and whether Childs Play 3 influenced the child killers of Jamie Bulger.
Media effects Point 3:
• What effect does the media have on the
audience if any. This is linked to whether the
audience is seen as passive, where they soak
up the violence, or whether it has no effect on
them at all.
Media violence
• Media Violence • The debate is dominated by one question—
whether or not media violence actually
causes real-life violence. But closer
examination reveals a political battle. On the
one hand, there are those who blame media
violence for problems in societal and want to
censor violent content to protect children. On
the other hand there are those who see
regulation as the slippery slope to censorship
or a smokescreen hiding the root causes of
violence in society.
• This again comes down to the question of
whether we believe in the hypodermic needle
or follow a uses and gratification view point.
Research
• Laval University professors Guy
Paquette and Jacques de Guise studied
six major Canadian television networks.
Paquette and de Guise also identified a
disturbing increase in psychological
violence, especially in the last two years.
The study found that incidents of
psychological violence remained
relatively stable from 1993 to 1999, but
increased 325 per cent from 1999 to
2001. Such incidents now occur more
frequently than physical violence on
both francophone and anglophone
networks.
Graphical
•
•
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Other research indicates that media violence
has not just increased in quantity; it has also
become much more graphic, much more
sexual, and much more sadistic.
Explicit pictures of slow-motion bullets
exploding from people's chests, and dead
bodies surrounded by pools of blood, are now
commonplace fare.
Millions of viewers worldwide, many of them
children, watch female World Wrestling
Entertainment wrestlers try to tear out each
other's hair and rip off each other's clothing.
And one of the top-selling video games in the
world, Grand Theft Auto, is programmed so
players can beat prostitutes to death with
baseball bats after having sex with them.
American research
• Busy parents who want to protect their children from
media violence have a difficult task before them. The
CMPA found that violence appears on all major
television networks and cable stations, making it
impossible for channel surfers to avoid it.
• Nightly news coverage has become another concern. In
spite of falling crime rates across North America,
disturbing images of violent crime continue to
dominate news broadcasting. As news shows compete
with other media for audiences, many news producers
have come to rely on the maxim: "If it bleeds, it leads."
Violence and death, they say, keep the viewer numbers
up. Good news
Films
• As well, movie ratings are becoming less and
less trustworthy in terms of giving parents real
guidance on shows with unsuitable content.
PG-13 movies tend to make more money than
R-rated films, and as a result, the industry is
experiencing a "ratings creep": shows that the
Motion Picture Association of America would
once have rated R are now being rated as PG13, in order to increase box-office profits and
rental sales.
Music
•
•
•
Music and Music Videos
Music and music videos are pushing into
new and increasingly violent territory.
When singer Jordan Knight, formerly of the
popular New Kids on the Block group,
released a solo album in 1999, Canadian
activists called for a boycott of the album
because it included a song advocating date
rape.
"Don't you get it, bitch? No one can hear
you.
Now shut the fuck up, and get what's
comin' to you... You were supposed to love
me!!!!! (Sound of Kim choking)
NOW BLEED, BITCH, BLEED
BLEED, BITCH, BLEED, BLEEEEEED!"
(Source: From the song Kim, by Eminem)
Video games
•
•
Violence in general, and sexual violence in particular, is also a staple of the video
game industry. The current trend is for players to be the bad guys, acting out
criminal fantasies and earning points for attacking and killing innocent bystanders.
Although these games are rated M, for mature audiences, it's common knowledge
that they are popular among pre-teens and teenaged boys.
"As easy as killing babies with axes."
(Source: Advertising copy for the game Carmageddon)
For example, players in Grand Theft Auto 3 (the best-selling game ever for
PlayStation 2) earn points by carjacking, and stealing drugs from street people and
pushers. In Carmageddon, players are rewarded for mowing down pedestrians -sounds of cracking bones add to the realistic effect. The first-person shooter in
Duke Nukem hones his skills by using pornographic posters of women for target
practice, and earns bonus points for shooting naked and bound prostitutes and
strippers who beg, "Kill me." In the game Postal, players act out the part of the
Postal Dude, who earns points by randomly shooting everyone who appears -including people walking out of church, and members of a high school band. Postal
Dude is programmed to say, "Only my gun understands me."
Weaknesses with the effects debate
• However, theorists since have thought that media
could not have such direct effects on the
audiences they serve, and consider the media as
a comparatively weak influence in moulding
individual beliefs, opinions and attitudes. Other
factors present in society, such as personal
contact and religion, are more likely to influence
people. The Effects model is considered to be an
inadequate representation of the communication
between media and the public, as it does not take
into account the audience as individuals with
their own beliefs, opinions, ideals and attitudes:
Criticisms of media violence
• David Gauntlett
http://theory.org.uk/tenthings.htm
Web 2.0
• Finally where we have all this media to choose from is it the
case that we can be seen as one heterogeneous audience,
which is passive, is it not more the case that we are now
creatingt the media, and choosing when and where we
want to watch it. The final quote suggested the audience is
fractured, Ien Ang – said “Audiencehood is becoming an
even more multifaceted, fragmented and diversified
repertoire of practices and experiences”
• This means meaning the audience is not one type of
individual, but there are different types, different ways of
experience media. The changes in technology, and the role
of the internet, web 2.0 means that audiencehood and who
we view the audience has changed completely.
Finally think about how you have
created your product for your
audience?
Audience theory remember these key
points
• 1. Who is your audience i.e. demographics and psychographics?
• 2. How did you research your audience
• 3. How could you use audience theory to explain your audience using
theorists?
• 2. How do you believe the audience mediates and understands the media
texts i.e. how the audience interprets what it reads, hear and sees.
Include quotes from different theories and theorists look for a compare
and contrast view.
• 4. What do you think to the effects debate make sure you show
contrasting views and use Gauntlett’s view.
• 4. Do you believe a heterogeneous audience explain your view?
• 5. How has the audience changed due to web 2, how would this effect the
way you market and distribute this film?
• 6. Finish off with the quote about fragmentation.