Audience Research

1. Media Audiences

2. Hierarchy of Needs
• Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ involves a 5 tier pyramid model.
• He suggests that needs in the lower tiers, such as physiological
needs, must be met and satisfied in order for the needs of the high
tiers to be met, needs like self-actualisation.
• The first four tiers of the pyramid are referred to as ‘deficiency
needs’ (physiological, safety, love and belonging, and esteem
needs).
• By contrast, the very top tier (self-actualisation) is referred to as
the ‘growth or being need’.
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory can be used in terms of media
because for the audience to want to watch different types of
media, they must first have satisfied their ‘deficiency needs’. Then
they can turn to self-actualisation needs whereby the audience
‘desire to become the most that one can be’, which different mass
media satisfies in various ways.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

3. Passive audiences
• The concept of the passive audience suggests that we
are not active in the way we choose what happens to
us whilst we are watching media. In this model, it is
almost as if we are being experimented on, as we are
seen as powerless to avoid being affected by what we
consume.
• This model is sometimes referred to as the ‘media
effects’ model. It refers to the way in which audiences
are considered affected by whatever they consume.

4. The Hypodermic Syringe Model
• The media effects theory (the Hypodermic syringe
model, proposed by Harold Lasswell in the 1920’s) is an
outdated model which explained how mass audiences
may react to mass media.
• This model suggests that passive audiences receive
information and ideas by the mass audiences from
what they hear and see such as in media texts; the
information has a direct as well as immediate effect on
the passive audience.
• This theory is still debated in the area of Media and
Psychology. I am going to explain the hypodermic
syringe model further in the next slide.

5. The Hypodermic Syringe Model
• The Hypodermic syringe model suggests an ‘Audience is
powerless towards resisting the impact of the message
which, in some cases, could be dangerous’
• An example of where the hypodermic syringe model has
become dangerous is in the 1930’s.
• The Nazis used propaganda leading up to the war. This
propaganda included posters which presented the allied
forces as callous. As well as that, films such as the
‘Triumph of the Will’ involved propaganda methods. The
Nazis influenced many Germans to believe that what
the Nazis were doing was morally correct and almost
made them feel as if they were looked down upon if
they disagreed.

6. Two step flow
• Whereas the hypodermic needle model states that people are directly
influenced by mass media, the Two-Step flow of communication
model by Elihu Katz states that people’s opinions are influenced by
opinion leaders, who in turn are influenced by mass media.
• According to Lazarsfeld and Katz, mass media information is
channelled to the "masses" through opinion leadership.
• This can be seen in social media where media personalities pass on
their opinions to the masses having garnered their opinions from the
mass media. Similarly, in politics, the politician will pass on their
messages and opinions based on how they want to be perceived
having received the input from mass media.

7. Active audiences
• More recent theories argue that audiences are not passive but instead
active consumers of media. They use media to gratify their needs.
• An active audience does not just passively receive information from
the media they are watching but are instead actively involved.
• Television quiz shows like QI demonstrate the concept of active
audiences very well: the audience (both the live viewers and television
audience) are actively involved with the quiz and when questions are
asked to the panellists, the audience themselves try to think of the
answer.
• Another example is the very popular programme I’m a celebrity get me
out of here. Throughout this programme there are trials as well as quiz
questions which make the audience think what they would do in that
scenario as well as what the answer to the quiz questions are. Active
participation involves both live and home audiences.

8. Examples of quiz shows
which have active
audiences.

9. Blumler and Katz
• This theory positions audiences as active users of media to gratify needs.
• For Blumler and Katz, people use the media today in four different ways:
• Surveillance: this refers to audience’s need to know what is happening elsewhere in
the world. We want to find out about current events. Some audiences want to be
informed and educated by the media – such as news and current affairs.
• They equally want to see how other people handle events – in soap operas, sitcoms
and films. They access this information and education by reading newspapers which
include the world’s current affairs, by seeing the crises and challenges in fictional
lives, by watching documentaries, history, lifestyle and special interest programmes.
• Personal identity: audiences tend to gravitate towards media that reflects their own
values, ideals and ideology. Audiences want to see their sense of identity reflected in
what they watch; they like to read or watch media texts that let them compare their
own life experiences with those they are reading or watching about.

10. Blumler and Katz
• Personal Relationships: Audiences are social beings whose need to be part of a group are met in
many different ways through their experience of media texts, such as ‘interacting’ with on-
screen persona such as following the work of specific actors and directors, presenters and
comedians, singers and performers. Some audiences are devoted followers of soaps, sitcoms,
presenters and performers.
• Audiences enjoy the familiarity of recurring genres and they can form virtual relationships with
the characters. They might state that they ‘always like’ a particular director or they chose a film
because of an actor’s work. For instance, Miranda offers the pleasure of entertainment,
escapism and diversion by making us laugh. In particular, both slapstick humour and verbal
humour entertain us. Examples of these include when Miranda kicks a waiter’s tray of food into
the air, Miranda always pushing Stevie to the ground, Miranda calling Stevie her small friend.
• Equally, they enjoy sharing media experiences with fellow fans, family and friends, such as
during multi-player video games, gigs with fellow music fans, ‘water-cooler’ moments discussing
a TV drama or serial, panel and game shows with the family such as Strictly or Grand Tour.
• Entertainment, Escapism, Diversion: Audiences want to escape from their everyday lives and
their own problems. As a result of this they choose media texts that will allow them to do so, for
example, they may watch a comedy in order to divert their attention from their own lives.
• To sum up: for Blumler and Katz, audiences use media to gratify needs (the uses and
gratifications model of audience behaviour).

11. Audiences want to see
how other people handle
events – in soap operas,
sitcoms and films.

12. Interactive audiences
• “Media Studies 2.0” was published online by David Gauntlett (British
sociologist and media theorist) in 2007. He argued that due to the digital
revolution, the classic teaching methods about media need to be
updated as they fail to define when the categories of producers and
audiences unite.
• Gauntlett argues that because of interactive websites such as YouTube in
a web 2.0 world, audiences can now become producers and create their
own identities and potentially influence their own audiences.
• For Jenkins, who describes the interface between audiences and
electronic media as participatory culture, the way that audiences
consume media has changed. Consumers are now producers. “Our focus
should not be on emerging technologies, but on emerging cultural
practices.”

13. Cultivation theory
• Cultivation theory treats the audience as passive, similarly to the
hypodermic syringe model. This theory suggests that if an
audience is exposed to a message repeatedly then it could have
an impact on their values, attitudes and personality.
• Companies use this by repeating their message in
advertisements. Film makers have also desensitised the passive
audience by exposing them to repeated violent media, such as in
Reservoir Dogs (director Quentin Tarantino) where violence is a
key part of the plot. This repeated exposure to violence makes
audiences less likely to be shocked by the violence portrayed.
• Research has shown that children who are heavy viewers believe
the television version of reality more than light viewers. After 6
weeks of controlled viewing of action adventure programs the
heavy viewers were found to more fearful of the everyday world
than light viewers.

14. Reception analysis
• Reception theory by Stuart Hall holds that the producer of media texts encodes
the product with values and messages. However, the key element in this model is
that these are then received and decoded (‘read’) by the audience in one of three
ways:
• Dominant or preferred reading - this is where the audience read the text and
understand it in the way the producer meant it. This is good for the producer as it
means they have got their message and values across. An example may be that a
product is appealing to a female reader, making her want to buy it, or an
audience finds a comedy film funny in the way that a director intended.
• Negotiated reading - this is where the audience accept the views of the producer
but will make their own opinions up on whether to buy a product or not. The
producer is getting their opinion across even if the reader is making their own
judgement.
• Oppositional reading - this is where the ‘reader’ rejects what the producer is
trying to say and puts their own interpretation on the message, either because
they did not agree with, or did not understand, the original message.