Lesson on audience theories

1. • How do audiences behave when presented with a
media text?
• How much attention do they give it?
• Does engaging with the text have any specific
effects on the audience?
AUDIENCE THEORY
STARTER
To understand and make reference to audience
theories in the exam paper.
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of media concepts
These and similar questions are important for
producers, critics and regulators, all of whom would
like to be to predict audience behaviour in advance.

2. Try to remember your last encounter with each
of the following media texts
• A film seen at the cinema
• A newspaper
• A magazine
• A video game
• A radio programme
• A television programme
1. How much effort did you have to put in to gain access to each text? Did you have to
pay for it, make a special journey...?
2. How much knowledge about each text did you have before you approached it?
3. How much do you remember about each text – do you think you have changed in
any way as a result of watching/listening/reading it?

3. PASSIVE AUDIENCE ACTIVE AUDIENCE
Early theorists (1920s)
tended to see audiences as
passive, ie. Sitting back,
waiting to be entertained
or educated, and then
following the direction the
text suggested.
The active model of
behaviour takes the
process of reading media
texts to be more about
engagement, with
audiences seeking ‘to do
something’ with whatever
is presented to them.
The uses and gratification
model suggests that
audiences find different
needs satisfied by different
types of media texts.

4. The effects/hypodermic model
• Original model for audience
• Stressed the effect of mass media on their audiences
• Follows the idea that audiences are injected with ideas
and meanings
• Associated with propaganda (eg.Nazi films such as
Triumph of the Will)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6WMXd8ZqmM
• Associated with totalitarian states and dictatorships
who have complete control of the media, usually in the
belief that strict regulation of the media will help in
controlling entire populations

5. The Frankfurt School
• The Frankfurt School (ie. School of thought) developed
in pre-war Germany.
• Concerned about the power of the mass media had to
propagandise on behalf of Facism.
• The Frankfurt School were left-wing and under threat
in Germany.
• They moved to America and refined their theories in
post-war America.
• They articulated criticisms of a capitalist system which
controlled media output, creating a stupifying mass
culture – a passive audience.
• The American audience passively accepted the
‘American Dream’ of boundless consumption.

6. Media influence over morals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZkC_fNxm
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• Watch the following clips and try to identify
some of the issues concerning the power and
influence of the media.

7. Cultivation Theory
• As audiences watch more and more film and
television, they gradually develop certain
views about the world, some of which are
‘false’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw9DsOA1
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8. Desensitisation
• If we are exposed to too much violence, or too
much blatant sexuality, we will become less
sensitive to real violence and sexuality.

9. Copycat theory
• This approach suggests that people will
imitate what they see in the media – eg. If
young people watch Natural Born Killers they
will go on a killing spree.
• This is not so much a theory as an assumption
perpetuated by the press

10. Reception Analysis and Ethnography
• Audiences are seen as active producers of
meaning, rather than as merely consumers of
media meanings.
• They make sense of media texts according to
their social position (in terms of their identity)
and their gender, race, class etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJd1rkDoU
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11. Uses and Gratification
• Instead of researching what the media do to the audience,
this approach studies what the audience does with the
media.
• This approach also takes account of people’s personalities
and personal needs and suggests that audience’s find
different needs satisfied by different texts.
Cognitive – the desire to learn Audiences gain knowledge and think
through problems or new ideas - make-
over programmes, interior decoration
Affective – emotional satisfaction Feel good films induce a sense of well-
being
Tension Release – relaxation Action films provide visceral excitement,
comedies provoke laughter
Personal integrative – help with personal
identity issues
We identify with characters who face
similar problems to ourselves
Social integrative – help with general
issues in society
Audiences ‘work through’ arguments about
a social issue (safe in the knowledge that
this does not face them)

12. Apply the Uses and Gratification
theory
• Apply the theory to soap operas
• What do fans of soap operas claim it does for
them? (Refer to specific examples and
audiences needs)
– The uses and gratification model appears to
‘empower’ the audience, but if you check through
the list of audience needs again you’ll notice that
they are primarily about accepting the original
intentions of the producers. Do audiences really
use the media like this?