Audience theories - A2 Media
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Transcript of Audience theories - A2 Media
There are three theories that we can apply to help us understand the relationship between texts and audience.
1. The Effects Model or the Hypodermic Model
2. The Uses and Gratifications Model
3. Reception Theory
The 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
This model is also called: The Hypodermic Model
Here, the messages in media texts are injectedinto the audience by the powerful, syringe-like, media
The audience is powerless to resist
Therefore, the media works like a drug and the audience is drugged, addicted, doped or duped.
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
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 conclusion reached was that children will imitate violent media content
The Effects Model (backed up by the BoboDoll 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.
There are many problems with the experiment.
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 film Severance (2006) in the murder of Simon Everitt
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 contributes to Moral Panics whereby:
The media produce 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
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 necessary
This is called the: Uses and Gratifications Model
The Uses and Gratifications Model is the opposite of the Effects Model
The audience is active
The audience uses the text & is NOT used by it
The audience uses the text for its own gratification or pleasure
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
Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs for:
Diversion
Escapism
Information
Pleasure
Comparing relationships and lifestyles with one’s own
Sexual stimulation
The audience is in control and consumption of the media helps people with issues such as:
Learning
Emotional satisfaction
Relaxation
Help with issues of personal identity
Help with issues of social identity
Help with issues of aggression and violence
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
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
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
Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings (or decoding) of the text:
1. Dominant or preferred
2. Negotiated
3. Oppositional
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
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