A2 Media Studies Audience Theory Research. Disclaimer: Information collated from the work of KippMajors.

1. Message (institution)
Medium
Audience
Audience theory is
concerned with how
audiences interpret
messages
AUDIENCE THEORY…

2. •Audiences accept
media messages
•Audiences easily
influenced
•Do not make own
use of texts or
interpret in own way
•Audiences are
involved in their
interpretations of
media texts
•Audiences create
their own meanings
•Audiences question
and respond to
institutions
PASSIVE ACTIVE

3. Ien Ang (1991) detailed that
media producers have an
imaginary entity in mind before
the construction of a media
product.
What is she talking about?

4. Ang (1991) states that 'audiencehood
is becoming an ever more
multifaceted, fragmented and
diversified repertoire of practices and
experiences'.
You must detail the social demographic
of your target audience (gender, age,
ethnicity, social class).

6. • Dating from the 1920s
• One of the first attempts to explain how audiences react to
mass media
• Suggests that audiences passively receive information
transmitted via a media text
• Suggests that audiences do not try to process or challenge
the information
• Developed when mass media was still fairly new

7. The Frankfurt School’s Hypodermic Theory
(1930s)
This Marxist theory, which was championed by theorists such as Theodore
Adorno, assumes a direct stimulus-response relationship between audience
reactions and the consumption of media texts.

8. • The message is entirely accepted by the audience
• The audience has no role in interpreting the text
• Is considered mostly obsolete today
• Still quoted during moral panics (computer games, violent films etc)

9. Criticisms Of Hypodermic Theory
• Doesn’t allow for resistance or rejection of media messages.
• Elitist.
• Simplistic.

11. Look at these media texts
What do you think consumers get from these texts?
Do different texts offer different things to different people?

12. Uses and GratificationsTheory states that
people use media texts in different ways, for
different reasons. Blumler and Katz’s in ‘74
expanded on the 60s version
Unlike the Hypodermic needle model U and G
theory argues that it’s:
“...not what does the media do to people, but
what do people do with the media”

13. Entertainment/Diversion
The media text is enjoyable; an escape from routine and problems; an
emotional release
Information/Surveillance
The media text is a source of information; a form of education
Social Relationships
The media text is part of social life or is a replacement for a social life.
Personal Identity
The media product reflects your own values, ideals and hopes or “life”

15. ReceptionTheory

16. ReceptionTheory
•Encoding/decoding model of the relationship
between text and audience - the text is encoded by
the producer, and decoded by the reader
•There may be major differences between two
different readings of the same code created by
situated culture - social class, gender, ethnicity etc.
•Using recognised codes and conventions and drawing upon
audience expectations relating to aspects such as genre and
use of stars, the producers can position the audience and thus
create a certain amount of agreement on what the code
means. This is known as a preferred reading

17. Stuart Hall (1980) analysed the readings within audiences as either:
•1.Dominant or Preferred Reading: The meaning
they want you to have is usually accepted.
•2.Negotiated Reading: The dominant reading is
only partially recognised or accepted and
audiences might disagree with some of it or find
their own meanings.
•3.Oppositional Reading: The dominant reading is
refused, rejected because the reader disagrees
with it or is offended by it, especially for political,
religious, feminist, reasons etc.

18. Preferred Reading
The preferred reading is the
reading media producers hope
audiences will take from the
text.
In this example, it’s that a Big
Mac is delicious and fills you up.

19. Oppositional reading
Audiences outside the intended target audience may have an
oppositional reading.
This is where the audience reject the preferred reading and
supply their own meaning, in this example, an awareness of
advertising and how the real burger looks different to the
adverts

20. Negotiated Reading
Negotiated reading is when audiences
acknowledge the preferred reading, but modify it to
suit their own values and opinions.
In this example, it’s that Big Mac’s aren’t healthy, but
one every now and then is ok.
“I like Big Macs
but I know they
are unhealthy so I
eat them rarely
and as part of a
balanced diet”