1. A2 Media Studies
AUDIENCE THEORY

2. Different audiences can understand a media
message but can have different responses to it.
Some people believe and accept the
message, others reject it using knowledge from
their own experience or can use processes of logic
or other rationales to criticise what is being said.
Miller and Philo, 2001

3. 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.

4. 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)

5. Audience Theory
 There are three theories of audience that we
can apply to help us come to a better
understanding about the relationship
between texts and audience.
1.The Effects Model or the Hypodermic
Model
2.The Uses and Gratifications Model
3.Reception Theory

6. The Effects Model
The Effects Model
 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

7. The Effects Model
 This model is also called:
The Hypodermic Model
 Here, the messages in media texts are injected
into 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.

8. The Effects Model
 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 experiment
This is a very controversial piece of research that
apparently proved that children copy violent
behaviour

9. The Effects Model
The Bobo Doll Experiment
 This was conducted in 1961 by Albert Bandura

10. The Effects Model
 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

11. The Effects Model
 The conclusion reached was that
children will imitate violent media
content
 There are many problems with the
experiment. What do you think are the
flaws with the methodology? Does it
indeed prove that children imitate
violent media content?

12. The Effects Model
 The Effects Model (backed up by the
Bobo Doll 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.

13. The Effects Model
 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

14. The Effects Model
 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

15. The Effects Model
 The Effects Model contributes to Moral
Panics whereby:
 The media represent 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

16. The Uses and Gratifications Model
 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

17. 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

18. The Uses and Gratifications Model
 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

19. The Uses and Gratifications Model
 Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs
for:
 Diversion
 Escapism
 Information
 Pleasure
 Comparing relationships and lifestyles with one’s
own
 Sexual stimulation

20. The Uses and Gratifications Model
 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

21. The Uses and Gratifications Model
 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

22. Reception Theory
 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

23. Reception Theory
 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

24. Reception Theory
 Stuart Hall identified three types of audience
readings (or decoding) of the text:
1. Dominant or preferred
2. Negotiated
3. Oppositional

25. Reception Theory
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

26. Reception Theory
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

27. Reception Theory
3. Oppositional
 Where the dominant meaning is
recognised but rejected for
cultural, political or ideological
reasons
 E.g. Total rejection of the political
speech and active opposition

28. Reception Theory
Audience Decodes Meaning/Message
Dominant or preferred
Producer
Encodes Negotiated
Meaning
Oppositional

29.  If every media text is open to
interpretation, what happens to the idea
of “absolute truth”? Can “truth” be
constructed by the audience?