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AUDIENCE THEORIESMaria Dikova

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MEDIA EFFECTS THEORIES

Different theories see audience in different ways. Audience can be active or passive.

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HYPODERMIC THEORY

The hypodermic needle model or the ‘magic bullet’ model implies that the mass media has a direct and powerful effect on its audiences. Back in the days, mass media were perceived as powerful influence on behavior change, due to some factors like:

the popularisation of radio and TV emergence of advertising

It is a model of stating that an intended message is straightly received and wholly obtained by the receiver. It ‘injects’ the idea of something, reflecting on influencing the audience to do something, taka a specific action, regarding the topic.

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BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT

The bobo doll experiment is the collective name of a few experiments conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961. It demonstrated that children are able to learn through observing adults’ behavior. More specifically, the experiment consisted of researchers who physically and verbally abused an inflatable doll in front of children, who later repeated the adults actions.

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USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY

It originated in 1970s as a reaction to the mass communication research, as it focused on the active audience and user instead.

The uses and gratification model tries to explain the uses and functions of the media for individuals, groups, society.

There are 3 objectives in establishing uses and gratifications theory:

i. To explain how individuals use mass media to gratify their needs

ii. To discover underlying motives for individuals’ media use

iii. To identify the positive and negative consequences

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BLUMLER AND KATZ’S MODEL

Blumler and Katz’s user and gratification theory suggests that an individual plays an active role in choosing and using the media, as they are goal orientated. It assumes that people use the media to fulfill specific needs. However, uses and gratifications points out that there exist alternate choices of satisfaction.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

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PREFERRED READINGS THEORY

The theorist that explores the preferred/ dominant readings theory is Stuart Hall. This model refers to the creators of various media texts that expect you to perceive them in a certain way.

For instance, McDonalds Big Mac advertisement encourages feelings of hunger in the audience, therefore influencing their decision to buy one. However, the next time you pass by McDonalds you might choose to buy it, or you might not. The audience is still characterised as active, meaning that they will take conscious decisions.

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The audience may reject the preferred reading, receiving their own alternative message. This is called an opposition reading.

Negotiated reading is when audiences acknowledge the preferred reading, but modify it to suit their own values and opinions – a compromise.

Stuart Hall has identified 3 different types of reading: Dominant – agrees with message from the TV

programme Oppositional – understands the TV programme message

but rejects it Negotiated – the viewer who agrees with the message in

the TV programme but doesn’t agree with all of the ideas