1. A2 Media Studies Audience
Audience Theory – A2 MEDIA STUDIES Section A Question 1B
All media products have a target audience
They also sometimes (particularly in the case of propaganda) try to construct an audience
Products can have a mass audience or a niche audience
The producer’s texts need to know the importance of their audience when making products.
The first audience theory…The Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt school (a group of media theorists in the 1920s and 1930s) were concerned
about the possible effects of mass media. They proposed the effects model which
considered society to be composed of isolated individuals were susceptible to media
messages.
The Frankfurt school envisioned the media as a hypodermic syringe.
The contents of the media were injected into the thoughts of the audience who accepted
the attitudes, opinion and beliefs expressed by the medium without question.
The second theory: The two step flow
Developed by Lazarsfeld and Katz in the 1940s and 1950s
Two Steps:
First – Opinion leaders get information from a media source
Second – Opinion leaders then pass the information, along with their interpretation, to
others (friends, family, acquaintances, etc.)
Strengths:
-Audiences are active and seen as part of a society
2. A2 Media Studies Audience
Limitations:
-More than two steps in the flow of communication?
Social media with us sharing and retweeting ect causing things to trend is an example of the
two step theory.
Moving on from the two step flow audiences becoming active
During the 2960s as the first generation to grow up with television became grownups it
became increasingly apparent to media theorist that audiences made choices about what
they did when consuming texts
Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who actively
consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways
Uses and Gratifications 1974
Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974 stating
that individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes (i.e. uses and
gratifications):
1. Diversion – escape from everyday problems and routine
2. Personal relationships – using the media for emotional and other interaction e.g.
substituting soap operas for family life
3. Personal Identity – finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and value from
texts
4. Surveillance – information which could be useful for living e.g. weather reports, financial
news, and holiday bargains
Since then, the list of uses and gratifications has been extended, particularly as new media
forms have come along (e.g. video games)
Applying uses and gratifications Spice Girls – Wannabe
Uses and Gratifications Example How does it appeal to the
audience
Diversion:
Entertainment and
escapism
Music video are a form of
diversion as we have
stopped everything to
watch it and weren’t
distracted by anything else
Dance routines, Causing
chaos, Teenage girls, having
fun
Personal Relationships Super Fans, posters,
advertisement
Personal Identity Harassing the members ,
having fun, wild, boisterous
Girls might copy their
behaviour. Follow one of
the spice girls
3. A2 Media Studies Audience
Surveillance and
Information
David Morley
In a very significant study of audience responses to a popular new magazine programme in
the early 1980s, the nationwide Audience David Morley suggests that there are three amin
different kinds of reading audience members can produce:
Dominant (Hegemonic) reading
The reader shares the programmes code (its meaning, system of values, attitudes, beliefs
and assumptions) and fully accepts the programmes preferred reading
Negotiated Reading
The reader partly shares the programmes codes and broadly accepts the preferred reading
but modifies it in a way which reflects their position and interests
Oppositional (Counter Hegemonic) Reading
The reader does not share the programmes code and rejects the preferred reading, bringing
to bear an alternative frame of interpretation.
