Audience

Uses and gratifications: blumler and katz

This theory represents a change in thinking as researches began to describe the effects of the media from the point of view of the audience. It looks at the motives of the consumer of the media questioning why we choose to watch the things we do. The theory argues that the audience have social and psychological needs which generate certain expectations.

Surveillance This need claims people feel better when they believe they know what's happening in the world around them, we feel more secure when are knowledge is fulfilled which is why we go to certain places to gain information.

Personal identity Being a subject of the media allows and individual to confirm their identity and position within society. People within the media help audiences define themselves.

Personal relationshipsAudience members can form a relationship with the media itself and use it to form a relationship with others many people us TV as a companionship. Creating relationships with characters that they get upset when they do etc.

DiversionThis refers to escapism using the media as a way to stop thinking about your life and problems. People watch the media to forget about their own lives and to distract themselves.

Reception theory stuart hall

Halls theory claims that media texts are encoded by the produces meaning that whoever produces the product fills it with messages and values. The text is then decoded by spectators in different ways and possibly not in the way the encoder intended

Dominant reading The audience view the text in the way the producer intended it to be viewed They agree with the ideology in the text

Negotiated reading This is a compromise between agreeing and disagreeing The audience agrees with some aspects of the text but may see others differently Often the audience see the text at face value, recognising how its trying to influence them and therefore not letting it do so fully

Oppositional reading The audience completely rejects the intended reading and creates their own insteadThey disagree with the messages the producer has put into the text and do not read the advert in the preferred way.