How Do Media Audiences Respond to Media Products?Task 3 – Abygail Jones

Hypodermic Needle Model• This is the idea that, subtle/not so subtle

messages are put in to media products to get a desired reaction from the audience.

• This message is received, understood and accepted.

• This theory suggests a passive audience.

• As televisions and radio’s became increasingly popular throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s – it influenced behaviour changes in the viewers.

• The theory is largely disproved – such things have been published to prove this theory wrong: “The People’s Choice” written by Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet.

• http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20Clusters/Mass%20Media/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory/

Uses and Gratifications Theory

• This focuses on why the audience uses specific media sources by looking at things such as:

• The idea that people consume different types of media – what do they get from it?• How audiences spend their time/energy

finding the required media source?

• This theory suggests an active audience.

Uses and Gratification Theory• The theory began in 1944 with Herta Herzog

– she interviewed soap opera fans and identified three types of gratifications: Emotional, wishful thinking and learning.

• 1970 Abraham Maslow – Argued people looked to satisfy their needs based on hierarchy, hence the pyramid hierarchy theory. From bottom to top, Biological/physical, security/Safety, social/Belonging, Ego/Self-respect and Self-actualisation.

• 1969 – Jay Blumler and Denis McQuail – Studied why people watched political programmes, 1972 4 groups were created: Diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance.

Uses and Gratification Theory The theorists each came up with their own categories gratifications:

Harold Lasswell

• Surveillance• Correlation

• Entertainment• Cultural Transmission

Denis McQuail

• Information• Personal Identity• Integration and Social Interaction

Bulmer and Katz

• Diversion• Personal Relationships

• Personal Identity• Surveillance

Denis McQuail (1987) Why People use Media?

• His gratifications explained:

• Information: • Relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings,

society and the world – e.g. the news.• Seeking advice on practical matters, opinions and decision

choices – e.g. Looking up the symptoms of an illness.• Satisfying curiosity and general interest – e.g. Googling something • Learning: Self-educating – e.g. learning a foreign language

• Personal Identity• Finding reinforcement for personal values – e.g. personally specific

media need – a gossip magazine (OK!).• Finding models of behaviour – e.g. changing your personality – being

more aggressive/confident online etc.• Identifying with valued other - e.g. having the same interest as

someone else, adopting their interest etc.

Denis McQuail Why People Use Media?

• Integration and Social Interaction:• Gaining insight into circumstances of others: social empathy e.g.

putting yourself in other people’s shoes and seeing the benefit/disadvantages of your life.

• Identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging – e.g. having the same interests as a large group of people, feel safe, like you belong etc.

• Finding a basis for conversation and social interaction – e.g. Finding something in common with someone else i.e. liking Doctor Who.

• Having a substitute for real-life companionship – e.g. having a friend online/games/social networks etc.

• Entertainment• Escaping, or being diverted from problems – e.g. Using media to

distract yourself – reading a magazine during a panic attack/ watching TV when you’re ill etc.

• Relaxing – e.g. Playing games, reading, scrolling through Facebook, tumblr etc.

• Getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment – e.g. from a particular country/culture e.g. Navaho, finding something to relate to.

Why I Personally Interact with Media

• I use a range of media, from television to magazines:

• Information• I use tumblr religiously. I go on it to find out the latest news, information and

spoilers for upcoming TV series/films that I enjoy.• I also give advice and receive advice from other users who are having the

same issues as me.• I can’t usually control what I see, but if I’m curious about something, it’s

easy to find relevant information/pictures.• I learn a lot from tumblr. Whether it’s about something I’m interested in – or

something I’ve never even heard of before e.g. The Devil’s Tramping Ground.

• Personal Identity• I am a regular consumer of Kerrang! Magazine. I buy it because it’s a

magazine that applies to my personal needs – I want to find out what’s happening in the rock music world and this magazine enables me to do that.

• Online, media such as Facebook, I am a lot more confident than usual, I’ll talk to people I don’t really know and I’ll express my opinions freely.

• Integration and Social Interaction• Facebook and Quotev (a creative, story publishing website where I can express

my opinion on other peoples stories and receive feedback on my own ideas.) are key media sources I use that make me use social empathy, whether that’s putting myself in the shoes of less/more fortunate people – people who can’t afford expensive, items such as iPhone’s etc. and people who can.

• On Quotev, there are forums and blogs that I can follow and relate to – giving my opinions on certain stories/peoples ideas, it enables me to also help and receive help from other users – as I focus solely on a particular few genres I can join forums and groups that relate to me.

• I substitute real-life companions a lot, the majority of my ‘friends’ are online and spread out across the country and in other countries as my social life is practically lifeless.

• Entertainment• I use YouTube, tumblr, Facebook, Quotev, Quizilla, DeviantArt and other books

to distract myself from a lot of problems such as: interacting socially, family arguments etc.

Why I Personally Interact with Media

Reception Theory• This is looking at how audiences receive and interpret

media.

• The theory was developed by Stuart Hall, there are two parts: Encoding and Decoding:

Encoding: A media products producer fills it with a particular message. Celebrity gossip magazines are very good at this, they produce false accusations aiming it at celebrities wanting a desired reaction from their audience, usually shock or anger. An example of this is the Darryl Hunt case – Darryl Hunt is an African-American citizen born in North Carolina – he was convicted of the rape and murder of a white woman, Deborah Skyes despite the gruelling fact that there was no actual evidence – even with no evidence, Hunt was sentenced by an all-white jury to life in prison – the media industry fully supported this and produced articles in favour of the victim.

Decoding: This is where the audience receive the producers message and interprets the message: for example in the celebrity gossip magazine, if the anchoring captions are bad, the audience will unravel a truth and will learn that the problem is being emphasized by the publisher.

Hall’s Idea• The second part of the theory concentrates on

how the audience understands a media product:

• Hall’s idea is that the audience can interpret media text in different ways:

• Preferred: The reader receives, understands and agrees with the message in the product. For example: if a magazine tells the reader that there is a diet that 100%, 10/10 works, the reader will believe it and use it.

• Negotiated: The reader understands, somewhat accepts and then applies the products message to their own life. Using the same example, if a magazine offered a diet that they said 100%, 10/10 worked, the reader would consider and probably end up trying it.

• Oppositional: The reader understands the products message but rejects it, finding an alternative view. Still using the same example, if the magazine offered an effective diet, the reader would straight up decline trying it – refusing to accept that the diet can be that effective.

• How they read and apply their ideas depends on their values, experiences and backgrounds – everyone is different and everyone has different ideas about the messages they receive.

Passive or Active Consumption• There are two different ways of interpreting a type of

audience/consumer and they are Passive or Active.

• Passive – They don’t apply their own ideas, they follow whatever the message tells them – the Hypodermic theory suggests passive audience.

• For example, when the original War of the World’s came out on the radio on October 30th 1938 – the audience heard that Martian’s had begun an invasion on Earth in a place called Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.

• The audience took this literally as an alien attack and fled from New Jersey, finding ‘safety’ in more rural areas, riots broke free and people raided stores.

• Active – They apply their own ideas, they hear what the message tells them and then they apply their own ideas to it. The Gratification and Reception theory suggests an active audience.

• For example: Kerrang magazine captions suggest something else is going on in the picture, they usually use humour to do this – making it out that what’s happening in the picture is funny, almost mocking the rock stars.

• Fans take this in to their own hands to interpret just what’s happening in the picture, if it’s a gig picture it’s pretty self explanatory etc.