This document discusses several theories of media audiences: - Audience Theory created by Blumer and Katz in 1974 focuses on what audiences gain from media texts and how audiences view and respond to texts differently. - Uses and Gratifications Model examines negotiated, dominant, and oppositional readings of texts and how audience theories have shifted from mass to niche viewers. - Active audiences are engaged in interpreting media, while passive audiences are powerless to resist media messages injected like syringes. - Reception Theory builds on semiotics and how audiences decode encoded media texts based on their own experiences and culture.

1. Audience Theory
By Emma Bradshaw

2.  It was created by Blumer and Katz 1974.
 This is also an active audience.
 This theory looks at what the audience would gain
from a media text, and how differently audiences
recognise/view texts and create different responses.
Uses and Gratifications Model

3.  Morley suggested that there are three ways of
reading texts;
 Negotiated, Dominant, Oppositional Readings
 Audience theories have also shifted from mass to
niche or individual viewers.
 A mode of address also suggests that some whole
channels can address a particular audience e.g. Dave
Active Versus Passive Audiences

4.  This is an active audience
 This is a theory which suggests that there is a body
who interprets a media text before it reaches the
audience and tells them what to think.
Two Step Flow Model

5.  This is a passive audience.
 This type of theory is based on the concept of
messages from the media being injected into the
audience like a syringe, and the audience being
powerless to resist it. The audience can become
‘addicted’ to the media text.
 This is also a theory which suggests that when an
audience views a media text, the don't question the
information/context that they are viewing.
Hypodermic Syringe Model

6.  This theory builds upon the semiotic theory.
 Semiotics are signs which we all understand i.e.
Conventions we are used to.
 This is an active audience.
 In order for an audience to understand a text it is
encoded in signs which we are all familiar with, and
we decode that we see depending on our own
experiences and the culture we live in.
Reception Theory