There are three theories that we can apply to help us understand the relationship between texts and audience.

1. The Effects Model or the Hypodermic Model

2. The Uses and Gratifications Model

3. Reception Theory

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

This model is also called: The Hypodermic Model

Here, the messages in media texts are injectedinto 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.

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 experimentThis is a very controversial piece of research that apparently proved that children copy violent behaviour

The Bobo Doll Experiment This was conducted in 1961 by Albert Bandura

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 conclusion reached was that children will imitate violent media content

The Effects Model (backed up by the BoboDoll experiment) is still the dominant theory used by politicians, some parts of the media and some religious organisations in attributing violence to the consumption of media texts.

There are many problems with the experiment.

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

In each case there was a media and political outcry for the texts to be banned

In some cases laws were changed, films banned, and newspapers demanded the burning of films

Subsequently, in each case it was found that no case

could be proven to demonstrate a link between the text and the violent acts

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

It is still unclear that there is any link between the consumption of violent media texts and violent imitative behaviour

It is also clear the theory is flawed in that many people do watch violent texts and appear not to be influenced

Therefore a new theory is necessary

This is called 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

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

Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs for:

Diversion

Escapism

Information

Pleasure

Comparing relationships and lifestyles with one’s own

Sexual stimulation

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

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

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

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 decode the 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

Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings (or decoding) of the text:

1. Dominant or preferred

2. Negotiated

3. Oppositional

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

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

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