Looking at Audience Theory

1. Audience Theory…

2. G235: Critical
Perspectives in Media
Q1b

3. The Exam
Question 1a - Discuss your production journey in relation to
one or more of the headings
»25 marks
»30 minutes
Question 1b – Analyse ONE piece of work in relation to
ONE key concept specified in the exam.
»25 marks
»30 minutes

4. 1(b)
• In this question you will be asked to apply one
of the following theoretical concepts to either
your AS or A2 coursework:
– Representation
– Audience For this question
you choose ONE
– Narrative piece of AS or A2
coursework to
– Genre discuss.
– Media Language

5. You need to consider (write) the
following about your production
• How the audience is represented in your
product
• How your product can be applied to audience
theories
• How the audience for your product was
constructed and researched

6. Aims/Objectives
• To consider the way audiences are
grouped and targeted
• To reinforce basic audience theory
• To have an understanding of how to
evaluate your coursework against a
consideration of your target audience.

7. • mass-produced - made for the 'mass' of people.
There is a downside to this, of course, in that it can
also be interpreted as 'commercial' or 'trashy'.
• niche - a small target audience that is highly
specific
• alternative – outside of the mainstream. Going
against dominant ideology includes minority
groups, perhaps with subversive values

8. Gaining Feedback from your Audience
• You attempted to gain feedback from your
target audience in order to get their
opinions.
• What else did you do? Blogs – images and
ideas? Polls to tailor the product better for
your audience?

9. Audience Theories

10. Message (institution)
Audience
theory is
concerned
with how Medium
audiences
interpret
messages
Audience

11. PASSIVE ACTIVE
•Audiences accept •Audiences are
media messages involved in their
interpretations of
•Audiences easily
media texts
influenced
•Audiences create
•Do not make own
their own meanings
use of texts or
interpret in own way •Audiences question
and respond to
institutions

12. Ien Ang (1991) detailed that
media producers have an
imaginary entity in mind before
the construction of a media
product.
What is she talking about?

13. Ang (1991) states that 'audiencehood
is becoming an ever more
multifaceted, fragmented and
diversified repertoire of practices and
experiences'.
You must detail the social demographic
of your target audience
(gender, age, ethnicity, social class).

15. • Dating from the 1920s
• One of the first attempts to explain how audiences react to
mass media
• Suggests that audiences passively receive information
transmitted via a media text
• Suggests that audiences do not try to process or challenge
the information
• Developed when mass media was still fairly new

16. The Frankfurt School’s Hypodermic Theory
(1930s)
This Marxist theory, which was championed by
theorists such as Theodore Adorno, assumes a
direct stimulus-response relationship between
audience reactions and the consumption of media
texts.

17. • The message is entirely accepted by the
audience
• The audience has no role in interpreting the
text
• Is considered mostly obsolete today
• Still quoted during moral panics (computer
games, violent films etc)

18. • This theory can relate directly
to music videos – debate at
the moment concerned with
rap/gangster videos, Marylin
Manson etc.

19. "These are bad people who did this.
Kids out of control. When I was young
it was all Pac-Man and board games.
Now they're playing Grand Theft Auto
and want to live it for themselves."
This was said about the 2011 London riots
How much do you agree with this statement?

20. “If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in
dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic
music.” – Marcus Brigstocke

21. Criticisms Of Hypodermic Theory
• Doesn’t allow for resistance or rejection of
media messages.
• Elitist.
• Simplistic.

23. Look at these media texts
What do you think consumers get from these texts?
Do different texts offer different things to different people?

24. Uses and Gratifications Theory states that
people use media texts in different ways, for
different reasons. Blumler and Katz’s in ‘74
expanded on the 60s version
Unlike the Hypodermic needle model U and G
theory argues that it’s:
“...not what does the media do to people, but
what do people do with the media”

25. Entertainment/Diversion
The media text is enjoyable; an escape from routine and
problems; an emotional release
Information/Surveillance
The media text is a source of information; a form of
education
Social Relationships
The media text is part of social life or is a replacement for a
social life.
Personal Identity
The media product reflects your own values, ideals and hopes
or “life”

26. Think about which product you have made that
Audience Theory could apply too and answer
this:
Which of these needs are likely to be satisfied by
your product?
7 Minutes – GO!

28. Reception Theory

29. Reception Theory
• Encoding/decoding model of the relationship
between text and audience - the text is encoded by
the producer, and decoded by the reader
• There may be major differences between two
different readings of the same code created by
situated culture - social class, gender, ethnicity etc.
• Using recognised codes and conventions and 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

30. • You must think about the meanings behind
your text and how you encoded them and
they are decoded according to audience’s:
Situated Culture
• So people from different social groups will
have knowledge of the codes of different
types of media text

31. Stuart Hall (1980) analysed the readings
within audiences as either:
• 1.Dominant or Preferred Reading: The meaning
they want you to have is usually accepted.
• 2.Negotiated Reading: The dominant reading is
only partially recognised or accepted and
audiences might disagree with some of it or find
their own meanings.
• 3.Oppositional Reading: The dominant reading is
refused, rejected because the reader disagrees
with it or is offended by it, especially for
political, religious, feminist, reasons etc.

32. Reception Theory
How might different
people feel about this
advert?

33. Preferred Reading
The preferred reading is the reading media producers
hope audiences will take from the text.
In this example, it’s that a Big Mac is delicious and fills
you up

34. Oppositional reading
Audiences outside the intended target audience may have an
oppositional reading.
This is where the audience reject the preferred reading and
supply their own meaning, in this example, an awareness of
advertising and how the real burger looks different to the
adverts

35. Negotiated Reading
“I like Big Macs
but I know they
are unhealthy so I
eat them rarely
and as part of a
balanced diet”
Negotiated reading is when audiences
acknowledge the preferred reading, but modify it to
suit their own values and opinions.
In this example, it’s that Big Mac’s aren’t healthy, but
one every now and then is ok.

36. • What is your preferred reading?
• How do you encode it through your use of
technical aspects (camerawork, editing,
sound, mise en scene)?
• What different readings might the audience
produce?
7 Minutes – GO!

37. • Stronger answers do 3 things well:
– Outline the concept of Audience with reference to relevant
x3 theorists
– Apply these ideas to a range of specific elements from
ONE PIECE coursework
– Emphasis is on examples from your product and how
they support or challenge a theory
• Poor answers will lack reference to theory and specific
answers.
• Choice of text is important.
• Don’t forget your Target Audience – Surveys, socio-
cultural background

38. “People who watch things and read things are brainwashed
by them and believe everything they say”
“People watch things and read things because they
get certain things out of it, like for entertainment or
education”
“Different people get different things out of media texts”

39. Terminology Checklist!
• Encoding
• Decoding
• Dominant
• Negotiated
• Oppositional
• Socio-cultural context
• Reception
• Uses and Gratifications - surveillance, escapism,
personal identity & relationships
• Hypodermic Needle
• passive audience/active audience

40. Web 2.0
• Allows audiences to be interactive through
customisation of texts and platforms to
express their own opinions
• Specifically refers to social networking sites
and sites which rely on user generated content
(blogs, web forums, YouTube…) or sharing
content (torrents…)
• Challenge traditional models of audience as
they place the power to create and influence
in the hands of the audience rather than
institutions