RECEPTION THEORIES

Exam Focus

EXAM Q.3 MAY ASK YOU TO DISCUSS RECEPTION THEORIES. There are three main reception

Theories.

1. The Hypodermic needle model

2. The Uses & Gratifications model

3. Reception Theory –Encoding/decoding model

1. HYPODERMIC NEEDLE MODEL The media “injects” its beliefs &

values (ideology) into the passive viewer.

HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY Dating from the 1920s, this theory was the first

attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media. It is a crude model and suggests that audiences passively receive the information transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the data.

Don't forget that this theory was developed in an age when the mass media were still fairly new - radio and cinema were less than two decades old. Governments had just discovered the power of advertising to communicate a message, and produced propaganda to try and sway populaces to their way of thinking. This was particularly rampant in Europe during the First World War

Images from Leni Riefenstahls Nazi propaganda film Triumph of The will.

Basically, the Hypodermic Needle Model suggests

that the information from a text passes into the mass

consciouness of the audience unmediated, ie the

experience, intelligence and opinion of an individual

are not relevant to the reception of the text.

This theory suggests that, as an audience, we are

manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that

our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by

media-makers. It assumes that the audience are passive

and heterogenous(all the same).

WAR OF THE WORLDS – RADIO SHORTLY AFTER 8 O’CLOCK ON SUNDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 30, 1938, MANY AMERICANS BECAME ANXIOUS OR PANIC-STRICKEN AFTER LISTENING TO A REALISTIC LIVE ONE-HOUR RADIO PLAY DEPICTING A FICTITIOUS MARTIAN LANDING AT NEW JERSEY.

THE BROADCAST COULD BE HEARD IN ALL REGIONS OF THE UNITED STATES. THE PLAY INCLUDED REFERENCES TO REAL PLACES, BUILDINGS, HIGHWAYS, AND STREETS THIS CREATED A SENSE OF REALISM. THE BROADCAST ALSO CONTAINED PRESTIGIOUS SPEAKERS, CONVINCING SOUND EFFECTS, AND REALISTIC SPECIAL BULLETINS. THE DRAMA WAS PRODUCED BY A 23-YEAR-OLD THEATRICAL PRODIGY NAMED GEORGE ORSON WELLES (1915-1985), SINCE THEN, WE HAVE BECOME MORE SOPHISTICATED MEDIA USERS.

TASK

Can you think of any specific texts that

have influenced the behaviour of the audience?

JEFFREY DAHMER Jeffrey Dahmer was a particularly horrible serial

killer & cannibal. In one case, a victim, handcuffed, escaped & ran to the police. Dahmer followed & convinced thepolice to let the man go with him. He took him to his basement killed& ate him. Jeffrey Dahmer had a favourite film that he liked to watch before hewent out killing. In Pairs Make a list of your ideas of which film motivated Dahmer?

ANSWER - STAR WARS GEORGE LUCAS

HOW FAR DO YOU THINK THE HYPODERMIC NEEDLE MODEL IS STILL RELEVANT TODAY?

IN PAIRS

1. Have you ever been influenced by a text?

2. List why you think this model is or isn’t relevant today?

3. The hypodermic needle model argues that we are passive viewers, do you agree? Give reasons for your argument.

2. USES & GRATIFICATIONS MODEL.

The basic idea of this model is that theaudience is not passive but active, and USES media texts to gratify a need.

Can you think of any examples of when youuse the media to gratify a need?

This model is in opposition to the hypodermicneedle model, as it claims audiences have a sayin how media influences them.

USES & GRATIFICATIONS

During the 1960s, as the first generation to grow up with television became grown ups, it became increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they did when consuming texts.

Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways.

THE ACTIVE AUDIENCE/USERSELECTION/CHOICE/INTERACTION/COMMUNICATION...

LASSWELL & MEDIA FUNCTIONS In 1948 Lasswell

suggested that media texts had the following functions for individuals and society:

surveillance – what

texts do you consume ? correlation what texts

do you consume ?

entertainment what texts do you consume ?

Cultural transmission what

texts do you consume ?

USES & GRATIFICATIONS MODELIN PAIRS FIND EXAMPLE OF TEXTS FOR EACH.

Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes (ie uses and gratifications):

Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.

Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, e.g . substituting soap operas for family life

Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts

Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains

Since then, the list of Uses and Gratifications has been extended, particularly as new media forms have come along: video games, the internet

USES & GRATIFICATIONS & SOAPS

Watching TV Soap Operas A major focus for research into why and how people watch TV has been the

genre of soap opera. Adopting a U & G perspective, Richard Kilborn (1992: 75-84) offers the following common reasons for watching soaps:

regular part of domestic routine and entertaining reward for work

Launch pad for social and personal interaction

fulfilling individual needs: a way of choosing to be alone or of enduring enforced loneliness

identification and involvement with characters (perhaps cathartic)

escapist fantasy (American supersoaps more fantastical)

focus of debate on topical issues

a kind of critical game involving knowledge of the rules and conventions of the genre

GRATIFICATIONS OF TV QUIZ SHOWS: SELECTED RESPONSES SELF-RATING APPEAL

I can compare myself with the experts

I like to imagine that I am on the programme and doing well

I feel pleased that the side I favour has actually won

I am reminded of when I was in school

I laugh at the contestants’ mistakes

Basis for Social Interaction I look forward to talking about it with others

I like competing with other people watching with me

I like working together with the family on the answers

The children get a lot out of it

It brings the family together sharing the same interest

It is a topic of conversation afterwards

Excitement Appeal & Educational Appeal

I like the excitement of a close finish

I like to forget my worries for a while

I like trying to guess the winner

Having got the answer right I feel really good

I get involved in the competition

I find I know more than I thought

I find I have improved myself

I feel respect for the people on the programme

I think over some of the questions afterwards

It’s educational

(McQuail, Blumler & Brown 1972)

finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world

seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices

satisfying curiosity and general interest

learning; self-education

gaining a sense of security through knowledge

INFORMATION

PERSONAL IDENTITY

finding reinforcement for personal values

finding models of behaviour

identifying with valued other (in the media)

gaining insight into one's self

INTEGRATION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION

gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy

identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging

finding a basis for conversation and social interaction

having a substitute for real-life companionship

helping to carry out social roles

enabling one to connect with family, friends and Society

ENTERTAINMENT

escaping, or being diverted, from problems

relaxing

getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment

filling time

emotional release

sexual arousal

USING SCHEDULES IDENTIFY SPECIFIC TEXTS YOU CONSUME & WHAT NEED THEY GRATIFYWORK IN PAIRS

Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.

Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life

Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts

Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains

In the 21st C, many of us do not just consume one text at a time, for example, I may have the TV on, be on the phone & flicking through a magazine.

I may listen to the radio while reading a newspaper.

FRAGMENTED CONSUMPTION

Primary Consumption Secondary Consumption

Which texts/media do you consume as primary consumption

Which texts do you consume as secondary consumption?

Which texts do you consume as tertiary consumption?

ANALYSE YOUR MAGAZINE MARKET LEADER. IDENTIFY & LIST HOW IT GRATIFIES NEEDS?

Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.

Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other

interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life

Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts

Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains

CRITICISMS OF USES & GRATS

U & G research has been concerned with why people use media.

Whilst this approach sprang from 'mainstream' research in social science, an interpretive tradition has arisen primarily from the more arts-oriented 'cultural (and 'critical') studies'.

The approach sometimes referred to as reception theory (or reception analysis) (e.g. focuses on what people see in the media, on the meanings which people produce when they interpret media 'texts'

3. RECEPTION THEORY

Extending the concept of an active audience still further, in the 1980s and 1990s a lot of work was done on the way individuals received and interpreted a text, and how their individual circumstances (gender, class, age, ethnicity) affected their reading.

HOW COULD DIFFERENT AUDIENCES AFFECT THE READING OF THIS TEXT

Text Pair work 5 mins.

Gender

Age

Class

Education

Ethnicity

Nation

PROF. STUART HALL

This work was based on Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model of the relationship between text and audience - the text is encoded by the producer, and decoded by the reader, and there may be major differences between two different readings of the same code.

However, by using recognised codes and conventions, and by drawing upon audience expectations relating to aspects such as genre and use of stars, the producers can position the audience and thus create a certain amount of agreement on what the code means. This is known as a preferred reading.

ENCODING - DECODING

Readings Factors that can effect

reading

Preferred – we accept the dominant encoded reading of the text

Negotiated- we accept some & reject some of the preferred reading

Oppositional – we reject/disagree with the preferred reading

Gender Age Social demographic Nation Ethnicity Cultural knowledge Social class Education

IN PAIRS IDENTIFY THE:

Preferred

Negotiated

Opposiotnal readings of this cover

IDENTIFY THE READINGS Preferred

Negotiated

Oppositional readings of this text

WHAT IS THE PREFERRED READINGS OF THESE TEXTS & WHO IS THE PRIMARY TARGET AUDIENCES

Gender Age Social

demographic Nation Ethnicity Cultural

knowledge Social class Education

PREFERRED READING & TARGET AUDIENCE

Jeremy Kyle

Mens Health

300

Cosmopolitan

The independent

Saga magazine

POLYSEMY & AUDIENCES

As we have seen with semiotic analysis (Roland Barthes, denotation & connotation)

Semiotic analysis of signifiers is text centred, focussing more on how the text is encoded with a meaning.

Reception theory shows that media analysis now focuses on audiences – as the decoders/readers/users, who bring their cultural knowledge to a text. This also show how texts can be read as polysemic(many meanings/readings)

ENCODING – DECODING

Hall referred to various phases in the Encoding/Decoding model of communication as moments, a term which many other commentators have subsequently

employed (frequently without explanation). John Corner offers his own definitions:

1. the moment of encoding: 'the institutional practices and organizational conditions and practices of production' (Corner 1983, 266);

2. the moment of the text: 'the... symbolic construction, arrangement and perhaps performance... The form and content of what is published or broadcast' (ibid., 267); and

3. the moment of decoding: 'the moment of reception [or] consumption... by... the reader/hearer/viewer' which is regarded by most theorists as 'closer to a form of "construction"' than to 'the passivity... suggested by the term "reception"' e.g. – we construct meaning from the text (ibid.).

RECAP The hypodermic needle model The intended message is directly

received and wholly accepted by the receiver. Two-step flow The people with most access to media, and

highest media literacy explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of the hypodermic needle model.

Uses and gratifications People are not helpless victims of mass media, but use the media to get specific gratifications.

Reception theory The meaning of a "text" is not inherent within the text itself, but the audience must elicit meaning based on their individual cultural background and life experiences

THE EFFECTS MODEL - IS THE IDEA THAT AUDIENCES ARE PASSIVE AND SOAK UP THE MEDIADAVID GAUNTLETT

1. The effects model tackles social problems 'backwards': simplifying the causes

2. The effects model treats children as inadequate: their intelligence is underestimated

3. Assumptions within the effects model are characterised by barely-concealed conservative ideology

4. The effects model inadequately defines its own objects of study 5. The effects model is often based on artificial elements and

assumptions within studies 6. The effects model is often based on studies with misapplied

methodology 7. The effects model is selective in its criticisms of media depictions of

violence 8. The effects model assumes superiority to the masses 9. The effects model makes no attempt to understand meanings of the

media 10. The effects model is not grounded in theory‘ Audiences are not

blank sheets of paper on which media messages can be written; members of an audience will have prior attitudes and beliefs which will determine how effective media messages are.

FURTHER RESEARCHPLEASE RESEARCH AUDIENCES & READINGS FOR THE EXAM

www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c. www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/audience. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hall_%28cultural_theorist

%29 www.theory.org.uk/mediaeffects. www.godnose.co.uk/downloads/alevel/textual

%20analysis/semiotics. http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~johnca/spch100/7-4-uses. Google Books: Understanding media cultures: social theory and mass communication By Nick

Stevenson

Media and cultural studies: Page 163 Meenakshi Gigi Durham, Douglas Kellner - 2006

HOMEWORK/PORTFOLIO RESEARCH

TASKS1. Apply The Uses & Grats model to your

market leader magazine cover

2. Apply Uses & grats to your production cover

3. Evaluate how your cover gratifies needs.

4. Discuss the preferred readings of your market leader.

5. Discuss the preferred/negotiated & oppositional readings of your production

6. Add to you research portfolio