Audience theory

Audience theory

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  INTRODUCTION Audiences can respondto, use and interpret texts in different ways. The relationship between text and audience is fluid and will change at different times. The idea that meaning is embedded and unchanging, and that all audiences respond the same way is one that we have to get away from. Audiences are not uniform, with different cultural and social experiences, that use and interpret different ways.
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  STUART HALL Suggested threeways that an audience responds to a text PREFERRED or DOMINANT reading NEGOTIATED readings OPPOSITIONAL or RESISTANT readings If this is true them one text cannot have a static meaning as we do not know how it is going to be read.
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  PREFERRED OR DOMINANTREADING This is where the audience reads it really closely to what the producer intended. This is more likely to happen when the reader’s social and cultural experiences match that of the producer
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  NEGOTIATED READINGS Where theaudience goes through some sort of negotiation with themselves to allow them to accept the way the text is presented. It might be that they agree with some bits but not others
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  OPPOSITIONAL OR RESISTANTREADINGS This is where the user is in conflict with the text due to their beliefs. Such as a narrative who portrays an adulter sympathetically will be in conflict with a person whose culture says adultery is wrong.
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  EFFECTS MODELS There arefour main effect theories which deal with the way the media effect the audience that uses them. Hypodermic needle model Two step flow Uses and gratifications Reception theory
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  CRITICISM OF EFFECTSMODELS As we have seen with the different readings this idea that mass audiences are affected in a particular way by the contents and messages in a text might be one that can be realistically challenged.
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  HYPODERMIC NEEDLE This wasthe first model, developed by The Frankfurt School, and states that the audience is completely passive and just accepts the ideas and meaning s of the text. Although it would seem to be outdated it is still the base of governments wanting to control the media in order to control its population. It also still seems to cause a generalised concern about how the media effects us.
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  HYPODERMIC NEEDLE Sometimes calledSilver Bullet Model. Never seriously held by theorists. But this idea that the media are so powerful that they can inject their message into their audience crops up repeatedly in popular media in moral panics about excessive media violence or sex by people who call for greater control of media.
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  TWO STEP FLOW
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  USE AND GRATIFICATIONS Thepsychological basis for this more recent model is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, It suggests that the audience is highly active and will use the media for a range of their own needs and wants. So gives the power to the audience rather than the producers. Media likely to reinforce rather than change opinion. Among chief exponents of this model are McQuail and Katz
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  ‘not what themedia do with people but rather what people do with the media’ The active audience is the term used although somewhat overlooks the way people are seduced by the media and will invent their
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  USES AND GRATIFICATIONS Themain areas identified in this model are -need for information about geographical/social world ( news and drama) - need for identify by using characters and personalities to define our sense of self and social behaviour ( film and celebrities) - need for social interaction through experiencing relationships and interaction of others (soap and sitcom) - need for diversion, play and entertainment ( game show quizzes)
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  RECEPTION THEORY This theoryrecognises the audience as an essential element in the creative process. States that the meaning is part of the relationship between text and audience. This is Stuart Hall amongst others, encoding, decoding, different reading types.
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  RECEPTION THEORY
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  MODE OF ADDRESS Thisrefers to the way that a text speaks to us. Whether it be formal informal
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  FRAME OF REFERENCE