A for Audience

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2008 ROUTE ONE TEACHING RESOURCES LTD


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Media Studies


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A brief introduction to theoryADVERTISING

A for Audience


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A for Audience Audience is the starting point for most

media tasks whether you aredeconstructing or constructing a

media text.

You need a working knowledge of thetheories which are relevant to audience.

They attempt to define how audiences readand react to texts.


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The Hypodermic Needle Model This theory was the first attempt in the 1920s to explain how

audiences react to mass media.

It suggests that audiences passively receive informationwithout any attempt to challenge what they are receiving.

This theory suggests that audiences are manipulated by thecreators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking is

easily changed by the media we come into contact with.

This theory was developed when the mass mediawas still in its infancy.

This theory is often used to argue why certain groups in societyshould not be exposed to certain media texts, for example the

fear that watching violence initiates violence.


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Two Step Flow

Moving into the 1940s the Hypodermicmodel was found to be too simplistic.

Audiences werent the unthinking massesthat this theory presumed.

Mass media was quickly becoming anintrinsic part of everyday life. Researchers

such as Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson,and Hazel Gaudet suggested that informationdoes not flow directly from the media text

into the minds of the masses.


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Researchers felt that media was filteredthrough opinion leaders.

Two Step Flow is sometimes referred to as

the limited effects paradigm.


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Katz and Lazarsfeld saw opinion

leaders as people in certainsegments of society who areinterested in particular subjects and

they become experts on thosesubjects.


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These peopleabsorb certain

media messagesand inform their

peers.

Opinion leaders arenot necessarily

traditional leadersin society,

although they canbe.


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The main point isthat mass mediacommunicationdoes not reachthe public in a

giant wave.

There are twosteps in the

process, a rippleeffect among

groups within apopulation.

The opinionleader, then, is

the key (or stone) to this

model of communication.


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In the 1980s and 1990s theway individuals receive andinterpret a text was the major focus of research.

Reception Theory Encode

The individual circumstancesof each reader (gender,class, age, ethnicity) affectedtheir reading.

This work was based on StuartHall's encoding/decoding modelof the relationship between textand audience.


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The text is encoded by the producer, and decoded by the reader.Decode

There may be major differences between twodifferent readings of the same code.

The producers of advertising material can

however, by using recognised codes andconventions, and the audiences

expectations of certain content, position theaudience.

Known as a preferred reading.

In this way they can create a certain amountof agreement on meaning.


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Often advertisers will add text, or other supporting images to a picture to ensure that

the audience is directed to a preferred reading.

Adding words to the central image, or giving direction through accompanyingimages in this way is called anchoring.


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Uses &Gratifications

In the 1960s mediatheorists realised that

audiences made choicesabout what they did whenconsuming texts.

They were not a passivemass, audiences weremade up of individualswho consumed texts for different reasons and indifferent ways.


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Back in 1948 Lasswell suggested thatmedia texts had the following

functions for individuals and society:

correlation personal relationships

entertainment - diversion

personal identity

surveillance


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In 1974 Bulmer and Katz built on thistheory and developed what we know as

the uses and gratifications theory.

Individuals might choose and usetexts for different reasons.

They identified the following


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Surveillance - finding usefulinformation, news, weather reports,financial news, holidays, produce.


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Personal Relationships - themedia is used for emotional

and social interaction.

Media gives a common ground on which we

can build conversation and relationship; weidentify with certain media personalities or alternatively soap operas or celebrities can beused to substitute family life.


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Diversion - escape from problems androutine, or purely for entertainment.


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Personal Identity - learning

behaviour and values fromtexts; identifying yourself with

a particular text.


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As we have alreadyidentified, different readers willinterpret an image in different ways, they willalso read in different ways. We do not have totake in an advertisement in any particular order to make sense of the overall message.


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As media analysts however it is alwaysbest to approach the deconstruction of an

advertisement, whether still or moving

image, in a systematic way; trainingourselves to work through them

consciously, carefully and logically.


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Different readers will interpret detailin different ways according to their demographic and psychographic

background.


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Demographics:

Recognisable characteristics of mediaconsumers such as age, gender,

education and income level.


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Psychographics:

A moresophisticated formof demographicsthat includesinformation aboutthe psychologicaland sociologicalcharacteristics of media consumers,

such as attitudes,values, emotionalresponses andideological beliefs.


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Media Audiences

Who is the target audience?

Think of recent advertisements that have beenspecifically aimed at children, teenagers, young

professionals, parents or the elderly.

Describe each one.

What does the text assume about the audiencescharacteristics?

Add your thoughts to your notes.

Can you think of two advertisements that are aimed atthe same demographic group but are aimed at different

psychographic profiles?

A for Audience

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