1. Audience Theory
In your exam, you need to be able to talk about:
• The issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically,
British) by international or global institutions;
• The ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption
illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour.
Key theory
Summary:
You need to be aware of a broad shift from a perception of a ‘mass audience’ to one
which recognises that an audience is made up of individuals.
Along with this altered view is a shift in emphasis from what the media do to the
audience to an acceptance that audiences bring many different approaches to the
media with which they engage.
The Hypodermic Needle Model
• A 1920s theory which considers audience to be passive and heterogeneous.
Audiences passively receive the information and do not process or challenge
the data. This model is quoted during moral panics. (e.g. ‘Manhunt’, ‘Hot
Coffee’).
Uses & Gratifications
• Audiences made up of individuals who actively consume texts for different
reasons and in different ways. Audiences seek out media texts which support
their existing view, so they are not influenced by the media – they influence
the media.
Reception Theory
• Individual circumstances (gender, class, age, ethnicity) affect reading, so not
everyone will agree with the preferred reading of a text.
Effects Theory (Anderson and Dill)
• Found that real-life violent video game play was related to aggressive
behaviour and delinquency BUT the experiment was done in a lab and was
biased.