1. Audience Responses and Behaviour
The modern generation relies on a variety of media for many different purposes,
including; completing their daily routines, educational and work purposes and most
commonly, for entertainment. It’s safe to say that the media industry has rapidly
become a significant and familiar aspect of the average person in today’s society.
The media has achieved its growth within civilisation by dedicating (and upgrading)
its appeal and functions for all kinds of individuals and purposes, e.g. TV, internet
print based media and radio is the most effective way to reach a global audience
in the fastest manner, electronic tablets have been invented to replace the use of
book, magazines, newspapers and other print based medias for a more efficient
and practical reading and collecting experience, the MP3 download feature has
been invented to replace the expensive and impractical method of having to buy
and collect CD’s from shops, and the internet has now become a source we can
access for a lot more uses than ever.
The media has had a massive effect on the way we produce, publish and listen to
music, especially the visual aspect of media. Video and music have always been a
duo as there was a time video would rely on only music for interest value (like, silent
films), therefore video has increasingly become a key element to selling
music/audio,so it comes to no surprise that music videos are one of the most
effective ways artists market and sell their music. Music videos are beneficial to artists
and audiences in many different ways, as music videos allow artists to sell an image
tell a story and express their music (and help audience understand the song) and
most importantly music videos allow artists to generate revenue at a heftier scale
(e.g. Beyoncé’s music video for single ladies was such a major part of the songs
success that the video has become an iconic video of hers), this is due to the effect
music videos have on audiences.
Music videos combine the use of memorable music with corresponding visuals to
stick into the minds of the public, allowing them to be able to entertain, persuade
and inspire its audience, depending on the artist, music or visuals, this effect could
either be negative or positive, for example, positive effects: the persuasive manner
of music videos have allowed charity organizations to advertise themselves and
generate contributions in a global fashion (like Michael Jackson’s ‘We Are The
World’ and One Directions ‘One Way Or Another teenage Kick’). Negative effects:
music videos these days(especially those within the genre of pop), have increasingly
become noticeably crude and discourteous, as most of them seem to include
themes of violence, sexual innuendo, drugs and alcohol as an attempt to appeal to
adolescent audiences (who are the majority of pop genre listeners), which is now
being said to influence and commend the behaviour and involvement of these
themes (e.g. the debate of weather hip-hop videos that consists of half-naked
women being treated like sexual objects are initiating the derogatory treatment of
women by young men). Nevertheless this proves audiences can interpret music

2. videos in a number of ways, whether it’s influencing their social behaviour or
amusing them with an interesting narrative.
The Media Industry has broken down the way we as an audience interpret it into
three different theories, these include, the hypodermic needle (which refers to the
effect of the media on the on the audience), uses and gratifications (this is, what the
audience undertake in influence of media, what the audience do with the media)
and passive and active consumption (the difference in how involved the audience
is with media). Like any other theories, the negative sides to them are that some
people believe that the way audiences interpret the media is down to each
individuals social or psychological thought process.
Originated in the 1920’s and sometimes referred to as the ‘Magic Bullet’, the
hypodermic needle theory was developed when researchers investigated the
reactions of people after such historical events as Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds
broadcast. The Hypodermic Needle Theory suggests that the mediadirectly
insertsmessages into the brains submissiveaudiences; this theory proposesthat all
individuals are the alike and respond to media in a similar way, for example
(propaganda during World War I, used to make opposing sides look bad, and a
more recent example would be the investigation of Athlete Oscar Pistorius, as the
media started generating false rumours in attempt to make him look guilty to
audiences).
Opposing from the hypodermic needle theory, the uses and gratification theory is
focused more on the audience than the actual media messages. The theory
challenges the hypodermic needle as it assumes that audience are not that passive
and actually analyse and questions the information/product that their receiving
from the media into their existence. The theory suggests that audiences are able
process media messages in different ways, like the ability to recognise which media
material is for what purpose (e.g. to educate: the skill to identify what media
messages are to acquire information, knowledge and awareness and to entertain:
the ability to recognise what has been issued purely for the audiences enjoyment).
Uses and gratification can be shown in audience’s television programme selection,
e.g. people don’t watch television programmes like X-factor for information on
current world events, and neither do they use the show as judgement of the talent
levels within the United Kingdom.
The passive and active consumption theory refers to the difference between the
ways audiences process the media industry. The theory declares that some
audiencesbelieve that the media is constantly right, without questioning which
elements of the media are fabricated or false/rumours, but there are those
audiences that analyse and look into the media and recognize that some media
material is propaganda or invented for entertainment and interest value.

3. Due to the fact that music videos are created mainly for entertainment purposes,
they can be interpreted in different ways by different audience members, for
example, such music videos as, Lady Gaga ‘Alejandro’ caused controversy as some
audiences believed that some scenes of the music video were blasphemous and
satanic, whereas some people disagreed and thought the music video was just
artistic and metaphoric.
Audience’s actively participated with Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ music video, due
to the controversy it caused in its time. As the video was one of the first long length
short film like music video, people were irritated by this fact, as TV broadcasting
channels would not play a short version of the video, and some scenes (like the
graveyard scene) scared some of the audience members. Lana Del Rey’s ‘Blue
Jeans’ music video was vied by some audiences as too vulgar and disturbing, due
to the final scene of the music video that shows the artist being drowned in a
swimming pool by an actor, in this case the hypodermic needle theory shows that
some audiences where effected by this as it glamourized and encourages suicidal
images and thoughts, whereas some audience members understand the use of
such metaphors are purely for artistry and entertainment value.
The above theories prove that the media have an ability to convince audiences of
whatever they want them to believe, yet there are those audience members who
don’t take information from the media at face value and actually understand and
separate the fictional and factual material.