1. Define 2 media theories on audience
Find examples from your own work which could
illustrate these theories
Explain how an audience might respond to your
own productions, drawing on key media theories
to back up your explanations
2. Years ago, media theorists believed
that an audience could be heavily
influenced by the media through
‘injecting’ points of view, opinions,
beliefs, etc.
3. Stuart Hall theorizes that an audience can read
any media text in a variety of different ways.
They do not just blindly accept media
messages , but instead base their
interpretations on things like cultural
experiences and the contexts in which they
consume the text.
Messages are encoded in a text and decoded
by the audience
4. Dominant
Where the audience decodes the message as the producer
wants them to do and broadly agrees with it. This is usually
because what is portrayed is close to the audience’s cultural
experiences
Negotiated
Where the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the
text in light of previously held views
Oppositional
Where the dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for
cultural, political or ideological reasons
5.
6.
7. He theorized that mythologies are formed to
perpetuate an idea of society that adheres to the
current ideologies of the ruling class and its
media. He argues that an audience looks for
signs to help them interpret what they see.
The signifier- a word, image, symbol, etc that
can be interpreted
The signified- the message behind the signifier
The sign- the meaning, how we interpret the
combination of the signifier and what is signified
(the sum of the signifier and the signified).
8. Identify
The signifier:
the red light
The signified:
that you cannot continue to drive your car any
further
The sign:
you must stop the car because it is dangerous to
continue and you will endanger yourself and
others.
9. The young boy is the signifier.
What is signified is that France
is a great multi-cultural nation.
He argues that ‘the picture does not explicitly
demonstrate 'that France is a great empire’ but
the combination of the signifier and signified
perpetuates the myth of imperial devotion,
success and thus; a property of 'significance' for
the picture (the sign)
11. Find 2 examples from your own work where an
audience could adopt a negotiated or
oppositional reading of the text
Find 2 examples of your work in order to
illustrate how the sign (the interpretation of the
text) is the sum (result) of the signifier and the
signified
Post to your blogs along with an analysis of your
work in relation to audience theory
