The document discusses two theories of audience behavior - Uses and Gratifications Theory and Reception Theory. Uses and Gratifications Theory proposes that audiences are active, choosing media to fulfill social and psychological needs like surveillance, personal identity, relationships, and diversion. It believes audiences control media consumption to meet these needs. Reception Theory argues media producers encode texts with values and messages, and audiences can decode them as the dominant/preferred meaning, a negotiated meaning, or an oppositional meaning.

1. AUDIENCE THEORY

2. BLUMER AND KATZ - USES AND
GRATIFICATIONS THEORY
 How audiences choose to consume the media.
 Audiences watch sad films to connect with feelings and emotions etc.
 Audiences watch comedies to have a laugh and to be happy.

 Passive Audience = Take in what they watch for example the News

Active Audience = Gives the audience choice of what they want to watch.

3. CONTINUED. .
The 'Uses and Gratifications' model represented a change in thinking, as researchers begin to describe
the effects of the media from the point of view of audiences. The model looks at the motives of the
people who use the media, asking why we watch the TV episodes and programmes that we do, why we
bother to read newspapers, why we find ourselves so compelled to keep up to date with our favourite
soap operas, or consume films.
•The theory makes the audience active as they choose what they want to consume, they are not forced
into consumption. For example, you are in control, the media just creates the product.
This theory believes the audience has social and psychological needs which generate certain expectations.
The audience control media not the other way round.
The model is broken down into four different components:

4. 1. SURVEILLANCE
Surveillance is based around the idea that people feel better having
the feeling that they know what is going on in the world around them.
(We watch the news as we feel it is a reliable source) All about
awareness - we use mass media to be more aware of the world,
gratifying a desire for knowledge.

5. 2. PERSONAL IDENTITY -
Explains how being a subject of the media allows us to confirm the
identity of ourselves within society.
Media can form personal identities which can be seen in music
videos/ films. Pop stars can become role models, but leads to outcry
when one does something wrong. Music videos/songs allow us to
connect with such identities and help us fit into society.

6. 3. PERSONAL
RELATIONSHIPS -
- Within the media
We can form a relationship with the media and also use the media to form a
relationship with others
People use TV as a form of companionship which creates an intimate experience
Having a favorite TV programme in common can often be the start of a
conversation
Some families use sitting around watching TV as a stimulus for conversation, talking
to each other about the programmes or related anecdotes.

7. 4. DIVERSION -
Diversion describes what is commonly termed as escapism for
example watching the TV so we can forget about our own lives. We
watch music videos to take our mind off our everyday lives, we want
to distract our self from the problems we are experiencing.

8. STUART HALL - RECEPTION
THEORY
This theory states the media texts are encoded by producer meaning that whoever produces the text fills the product with
values and messages. Texts then are decoded by the media.
Producer encodes the meaning/message and the audience become:
• Dominant/Preferred
• Negotiated
• Oppositional
Dominant -
View media texts the way the producer intended and there agree with it.
Negotiated -
Compromise between dominant and oppositional, they see it from the producers point of view, but also they are own.
Oppositional -
Rejects the preferred reading and creates their own reading of the text.