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AUDIENCE THEORY
A2 Media Studies
Learning Objectives:To understand the key types of audience theoryTo apply audience theory to an example music video
Audience Theory
Three questions:
1) Why do audiences choose to consume certain texts?
2) How do they consume texts?
3) What happens when they consume texts?
WHY?
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
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
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.
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
The Effects Model
The Bobo Doll Experiment This was conducted in 1961 by Albert Bandura
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
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
The film Severance (2006) in the murder of Simon Everitt
What are the flaws of this theory?
The Effects Model
The Effects Model contributes to Moral Panics whereby:
The media produce 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 (Jamie Bulgar etc…)
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
Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch
The audience is conceived as active. In the mass communication process, much initiative in linking gratification
and media choice lies with the audience member. The media compete with other sources of satisfaction. According to the research, goals for media use can be grouped into five
uses.
The audience wants to: be informed or educated identify with characters of the situation in the media environment simple entertainment enhance social interaction escape from the stresses of daily life
How do you think people used your Music Video?
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
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
Maslow’sHierarchy of Needs (1943)
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
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
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
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 decodethe 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
Reception Theory
Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings (or decoding) of the text:
1. Dominant or preferred
2. Negotiated
3. Oppositional
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
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
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
Reception Theory
Audience Decodes Meaning/Message
Dominant or preferred
Producer
Encodes Negotiated
Meaning
Oppositional
Think about your music video
Individually- make notes on What reasons are there for an audience watching your video?
Who is the intended audience? How do you know?
How are the following things used to engage /attract an audience?
Mise-en-scene
Camera
Sound
Editing
Think about the 3 different theories, how could they be applied to your music video?
Section B
Media texts will never be successful unless they are carefully constructed to target established audience needs and desires. Evaluate the ways that you constructed your media texts to target a specific audience.
(25 marks)
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