By Oscar Thomas

AS MEDIA AUDIENCE THEORIES

In media and every media text is targeted at a specific audience therefore this makes audience a very important topic for media studies. Everybody is part of the audience

from people who watch the news to people who spend their days on social network; everyone is part of an audience. To establish the target audience the producer may use certain

signs and signifiers to create and establish a certain audience using genre. An audience can consist of people

from different different cultures and backgrounds however usually people from these different backgrounds will be in

different audiences.

OVERVIEW OF AUDIENCE

Any specific person or group who consume media texts (in any form such as; magazines; films; social networks etc…)

are part of a specific and selected audience. There are three main audience groups, thee are:

1. Mass Audience: a group consuming commercial TV programs.

2. Niche audience: people with a unique interest.3. Individual audience.

4. Active audience: these use media texts for their own purposes this means they create their own views,

opinions and judgments.5. Passive audience: these audiences believe everything

they consume. This in a way can be seen as brain washing.

TYPES OF AUDIENCE

1. Hypodermic needle effect.2. Cultivation theory.

3. Two step flow.4. Reception theory (Encoding/Decoding model)

5. Uses and gratification theory

TYPES OF AUDIENCE THEORIES

This theory relates to the audience being passive and was created in the 1950s-1960s. This theory believes media

texts has a direct and immediate effect and it believes that views are injected into the audience using advertising and

propaganda with the purpose of creating a response. This theory can be quite dangerous for the audience

considering that it will most likely have a negative impact specifically among teenagers and children who do not yet create their own thoughts and opinions. This means that

video games and children films can be dangerous for children.

HYPODERMIC NEEDLE EFFECT

This is closely linked with the hypodermic needle effect and is in close relation to the audience being passive. This theory suggest that it takes more than one message to

dissolve into that of the audiences thoughts. An example of this is the Good4Life adverts that are overly played and create the though that too much sugar, salt and fat can

affect our health. This theory can be both for good and bad for example a bad affect can be violent videogames such as GTA can affect what children believe are right and wrong.

CULTIVATION THEORY

This is the first theory that relates to the audience as being slightly active but the leaders opinion (such as the director) are the intermediate to promote a message, a product or a campaign to their loyal audience. The biggest example of

this is Rupert Murdoch who owns BSKYB and also newspapers such as The Times and The sun. This means

that whatever opinion he wants to promote this opinion will be fed into the audience. However, usually this theory

reeduces the power of the media but for Rupert Murdoch the number of media institutions override this.

TWO STEP THEORY

This theory also promotes actives audiences and focuses on the audience decoding an encoded media text. This means

that the audience interpret media texts in their own way. The way in which the audience decode these messages

depend in their ages, nationality or culture. This can create positives and negatives due to arguments being formed but

also allows them to make their own views.

RECEPTION ANALYSIS

The uses and gratification model suggests that media audience is active while consuming media they have a set of needs, social and psychological. The audience is using the

media which doesn’t have the power to manipulate.

The following link is to a youtube video about this theory:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y-h5lNol-0

USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY