audience theory a level media studies. most audience theory focuses on two questions.. how powerful...
TRANSCRIPT
MOST AUDIENCE THEORY FOCUSES ON TWO QUESTIONS..
• How powerful are the media in influencing the ideas and behaviour of the audience?
And…
• How does the media shape an audience’s perception of the world?
Audience theories suggest that representations are open to different interpretations and that their meanings are not fixed.
CONSUMPTION OF MEDIA
There are different ways of consuming media texts…
•Primary media
(texts demand close and concentrated attention from audience, eg. Films in cinemas)
•Secondary media
(texts provide a background for an audience who are often doing something else at the same time and are distracted, eg. Radio and some TV programmes)
•Tertiary media
(texts that are consumed by audiences who are almost unaware of their own engagement with the media, eg. Advertising or radio stations broadcasting in shops)
Market-Liberalism
Perspective
Political-Economy
Perspective
Stresses power of AUDIENCE over media producers
Audience preference decides what media texts are produced
Audience research and pre-testing
Stresses the power of PRODUCERS over media audiences
Media is produced to appeal to advertisers
The power of media organisations are open to abuse - promoting political parties etc
HYPODERMIC NEEDLE MODEL
TWO STEP FLOW MODEL
USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
THEORYRECEPTION THEORY
Dating from 1920s
Passive audience
Information is unmediated
Also called the ‘limited effects paradigm’
Social effects are important in the way audiences consume texts
Blumler and Katz 1974
Audiences consume texts for different reasons and in different ways
Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model
Texts have preferred meaning
PASSIVE AUDIENCESEffects Theory
Some commentators see the media as a sinister and insidious force.
The Frankfurt School (Adorno and Horkheimer) – a group of Marxist intellectuals developed a critique of the mass media after expressing horror at the success of Nazi Germany propaganda.
They argued the media had considerable power over the behaviour and beliefs of the audience.
The passive audience soak up the empty promises of mass entertainment, becoming willing victims who both produce and consume the products of consumer capitalism.
The audience are powerless to resist the effects of media messages.
THE TWO STEP FLOW MODEL
Katz and Lazarsfeld
Reception in which media messages are mediated by others – ‘opinion leaders’.
US presidential campaign 1940
Our opinion can form or develop based on what others have to say.
Importance of word of mouth
ENCODING/DECODINGStuart Hall drew upon the Gramscian hegemony theory in developing the encoding/decoding model.
He wanted to focus on how dominant ideological messages can be resisted or reinterpreted by audience members.
At the encoding stage, the producers of texts create messages (codes) which they expect their viewers/readers to understand.
When the audience come in contact with the text, we decode the messages to create meaning.
Fundamentally, media messages are POLYSEMIC – they contain numerous possible interpretations.
However, we can be steered towards a preferred reading of a text.
In 1980 David Morley did a study of audience responses when watching the BBC TV show Spotlight. As a result of his research, he decided that
audiences tend to fall into three groups based on their
interpretation of the text.....Preferred Reading
Negotiated Reading
Oppositional Reading
Audience members from outside the target
audience may reject the preferred reading,receiving their own
alternative message.
Negotiated reading is when audiences acknowledge
the preferred reading, but modify it to
suit their own values and opinions.
ACTIVE AUDIENCESThe Uses and Gratifications Theory
The audience has a set of needs (Blumler and Katz 1975)
•Diversion
•Integration & Social Interaction
•Personal identity
•Surveillance/Information
We use the media to gratify our needs.
We actively seek out media products that we really want.
Links with liberal-pluralist perspectives (consumers hold the power over producers)
Coronation Street viewers are individuals who are motivated by different impulses
A need for company
The need to be part of a group
The need to identify with characters and scenarios
Relaxation
The need for structure and order – offers a reassuring routine
To combat loneliness – allows audience to perceive themselves to be part of an IMAGINED COMMUNITY
USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
1) SURVEILLANCE/INFORMATION
We want to find out about society and the world.
2) INTEGRATION & SOCIAL INTERACTION
Companionship through identification with television characters
We want to find out more about the circumstances of other people so we can empathise/sympathise with the lives of others.
Sociability through discussion about television with other people.
3) PERSONAL IDENTITY
Finding reinforcement for personal values.
Identifying with a valued other in the media.
Gaining insight into one’s self.
USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
NEW MEDIA – THE INTERNET
UTOPIAN
• The internet user is savvy, well informed and creative
• Distinctions between production and reception are blurred
• Online communities allow audiences to interact with each other and producers
• Active
DYSTOPIAN
• Studies of internet users have shown an unequal distribution in terms of gender, age, ethnicity and social class.
• There are increasing levels of corporate domination – big companies exploit the potential for making money from users.
• Levels of control and surveillance inhibit the autonomy and creativity once associated with the internet.