2. Hierarchy of Needs
● An American psychologist, Abraham
Maslow, suggested that we all have
different layers of needs. We have to
achieve certain needs before going on
to the next layer.
● Needs lower down show less
importance, whereas the higher tiers
reflect more importance. The first four
levels are categorised as deficiency
needs and the top level is known as
growth/being needs.
3. Passive Audiences
● A passive audience is more likely to accept the messages encoded in a
media text without challenge and are therefore more likely to be directly
affected by the messages.
● Researchers investigating the effect of media on audiences have
considered the audience in two distinct ways.
● The earliest idea was that a mass audience is passive and inactive. The
members of the audience are seen as couch potatoes just sitting there
consuming media texts – particularly commercial television programmes
● It was thought that this did not require the active use of the brain. The
audience accepts and believes all messages in any media text that they
receive. This is the passive audience model.
4. The Hypodermic Model
● In this model, the media is seen as powerful and able to inject ideas into
an audience who are seen as weak and passive, ‘the passive audience’.
● This model was proposed by Harold Lasswell in the 1920s. It explains
how the audience is directly affected by what they view and hear. This
shows to intimidate effect the audience straight away.
● It suggests that a media text can ‘inject’ ideas, values and attitudes into
a passive audience, who might then act upon them. This theory also
suggests that a media text has only one message which the audience
must pick up. This theory suggests that the audience is powerless
towards resisting the impact of the message which, in some cases,
could be dangerous.
5. The History of the Hypodermic Effect
● The Hypodermic model was first arose from the Nazi Germany in the
1930s, leading to the second World War period. Within this period,
many powerful German films, such as Triumph of the Will
(Riefenstahl, Germany, 1935), seemed to use propaganda methods to
‘inject’ ideas promoting the Nazi cause into the German audience.
6. Cultivation Theory
● This theory also treats the audience to be passive aswell as the hypodermic
model. Its suggest that the repetitive exposure of the same message, this can
be presented by advertisement and will have a huge effect on the passive
audience by changing their attitudes and values of their beliefs.
● A similar idea is known as desensitisation, this suggest that the long-term
exposure to violent media makes the audience used this this behaviour and to
become less likely to be shocked by violence, this then may reflect on their
behave and act more violently.
● This theory has many limitations such as that screen violence is not the same
as real violence. Many do the audiences has been aware of screen murders
and violence but however, there is no evidence that this has led audiences to
be less shocked by real killings and violence.
7. More on Cultivation Theory
● This theory was developed by George Gerbner and other at the school
Anneburg School Communications at the University of Pennsylvania.
● He began the 'Cultural Indicators' research project in the mid-1960s, to study
whether and how watching television may influence viewers' ideas of what the
everyday world is like.
● This theory has a time period for the effect to establish the opinion over time.
Where as, the hypodermic model does not as it effects the passive audience
immediately .
● The criticism are to simplistic does account background of the viewers.
● Mass media will always be changing
8. Two step flow theory
● This theory was developed by Lazarsfeld and Katz. Their approach was
done by looking at how voters made their mind during an political election. It
suggests messages from the media move in two distinct ways.
● Initially, the higher opinion leaders, encounter messages from the media and
pass on their own interpretations.
● However, this information does not flow directly from the text into the minds
of its audience. This is then passed on to a more passive audience, wanting
them to be similar to their leaders so to do this follow their views. They are
not being influenced by a direct process, but by a two-step flow.
9. More on Two-step Flow Theory
● This theory appeared to reduce the power of the media, and some
researchers concluded that social factors were also important in the
way in which audiences interpret texts. This led to the idea of active
audiences
● Strengths- Audiences are more active and seen as part of society.
● Limitations- more likely to have more that two steps in the flow of
communication e.g retweeting on twitter.
10. Active Audiences
● This model is newer and view the audiences rather as a ‘passive
audience’ but who are active and interact with the communication
process and use media texts for their own purposes. They are
prosumers. We behave differently because we are different people
from different backgrounds with many different attitudes, values,
experiences and ideas.
● This is the active audience model, and is now generally considered to
be a better and more realistic way to talk about audiences.
11. Uses and Gratifications Model
● This model arose from audiences that are a complex mixture of
individuals who select media texts that best suits themselves and their
beliefs.
● The users and gratifications model suggests that the media has active
audiences. Furthermore, this makes active decisions about what they
decide to consume depending on there needs.
● For example, this was shown by audiences that chose to watch
programmes that make them feel good (gratifications), or that give
them useful information (uses), e.g. news or information.
12. Reception Theory
● This theory is an active audience theory that is based of f looking at how audiences interact with a
media text taking into account their ‘situated culture’.
● This idea was created by Professor Stuart Hall in ‘The Television Discourse’ in 1974. This had also been
supported and helped by the following, David Morley and Charlotte Brunsden.
● It also suggests that social and daily experiences can affect the way an audience reads a media text and
reacts to it.
● Hall suggests that an audience has an important impact in the process of reading a text. This can be
referred into three separate dementions:
1)The Dominant or Preferred Reading. The audience shares the code of the text and fully accepts its
preferred meaning as intended by the producers.
2)The Negotiated Reading. The audience partly shares the code of the text and broadly accepts the
preferred meaning but can change the meaning in some way according to their own experiences.
3)The Oppositional Reading. The audience understands the preferred meaning but does not share the
text’s code and rejects this intended meaning. This can be called a radical reading that may be, say
Marxist or feminist or right wing
