The document discusses the concept of audience in media studies, emphasizing that media texts are created with a specific audience in mind, impacting audience reception and producer success. It covers various theories, including uses and gratifications, encoding/decoding, and representation, highlighting how audiences are active participants and how media representations can influence perceptions based on age, gender, ethnicity, and other factors. Additionally, it addresses the implications of digital technology on audience interaction and the significance of identity construction through media portrayals.

1. AUDIENCE AND REPRESENTATION
CLARA BARROSO

2. AUDIENCE

3. WHAT IS AN AUDIENCE?
 'Audience' is a very important concept throughout media studies. All media texts are made with an
audience in mind, for example; a group of people who will receive it and make some sort of sense out of it.
And usually the producers make some money out of that audience. Therefore it is important to understand
what happens when an audience "meets" a media text. From that specific media text the producer would
have a brief idea of what target audience (specific age) he is trying to meet and achieve.
WHAT ARE THE MAJOR ISSUES IN AUDIECE?
The major issues within audience as a whole are:
 The target audience for accounting software could be people who want to organize their finances to
operate their businesses more efficiently.
 The demographic for your media work or product might have a small demographic or even the wrong type
of audience you we’re trying to achieve to.
 The audience could have different opinions on the product that the demographic is the same, but they
could give positive or negative opinions on the product, which makes questioning on how far and how
much the audience would talk and mention on the internet while sharing with people from similar age which
would allow the product to get more known or not.

4. USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
 Uses and Gratifications Theory is a popular approach to understanding mass communication. The
theory places more focus on the consumer, or audience, instead of the actual message itself by asking
“what people do with media” rather than “what media does to people” (Katz, 1959) . It assumes that
members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media
into their own lives. The theory also holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet
their needs. The approach suggests that people use the media to fulfil specific gratifications. This
theory would then imply that the media compete against other information sources for viewers'
gratification. (Katz, E., Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. 1974)
STUART HALL- ENCODING/DECODING
 The idea that communication is a process involving encoding by producers and decoding by audiences.
 The idea that there are three hypothetical positions from which messages and meanings may be
decoded: - The dominant- hegemonic position: the encoder’s intended meaning (the preferred reading)
is fully understood and accepted.
- The negotiated position: the legitimacy of the encoder’s message is adapted or
acknowledged in general terms, although the message is adapted or negotiated to better fit the decoder’s
own individual experiences or context.
- The oppositional position: the encoder’s message is understood, but the decoder disagrees
with it, reading it in a contrary or oppositional way.

5.  The idea that fans are active participants in the construction and circulation of textual meanings.
 The idea that fans appropriate texts and read them in ways that are not fully authorised by the media
producers (textual poaching).
 The idea that fans construct their social and cultural identities through borrowing and inflecting mass
culture images, and are part of a participatory culture that has a vital social dimension.
HENRY JENKINS- FANDOM
CLAY SHIRKY- ‘END OF AUDIENCE’
 The idea that the internet and digital technologies have had a profound effect on the
relations between media and individuals.
 The idea that the conceptualisation of audience members as passive consumers od
mass media content is no longer tenable in the age of the internet, as media
consumers have now become producers who ‘speak back to’ the media in various
ways, as well as creating and sharing content with one another.

6.  He sees the human personality as an interaction between the environment and a person's
psychological processes.
 Social learning theory is a general theory of human behaviour, but Bandura and people concerned with
mass communication have used it specifically to explain media effects.
 Bandura warned that "children and adults acquire attitudes, emotional responses, and new styles of
conduct through filmed and televised modelling."
ALBERT BANDURA- MEDIA EFFECTS THEORY
GEORGE GERBNER- CULTIVATION THEORY
 Cultivation theory suggests that exposure to television, over time, subtly "cultivates"
viewers' perceptions of reality. Gerbner and Gross assert: "Television is a medium of
the socialization of most people into standardized roles and behaviours. Its function is
in a word, enculturation".
 Heavy viewers are exposed to more violence and therefore are affected by the Mean
World Syndrome, the belief that the world is a far worse and dangerous place then it
actually is.
 Their primary focus falls on the effects of viewing in the attitudes of the viewer as
opposed to created behaviour.

7. REPRESENTATION

8. WHAT IS REPRESENTATION?
 Understanding representation is all about understanding the choices that are made when it comes to portraying something
or someone in a mass media text. It's impossible to portray every aspect of an individual in a photograph, or even in a
feature film, so certain features of their personality and appearance get highlighted, and are often enhanced, when it
comes to constructing the representation that the audience will see. When representing a person, media texts often focus
on their:
WHAT ARE THE MAJOR ISSUES IN REPRESENTATION?
 Age
 Gender
 Race/Ethnicity
 Financial Status
 Job
 Culture/nationality
The major issues within representation as a whole are:
 On the product is released it could have representations that could make the audience and the
demographic not agree with and give bad feedback on. This kind of representation would be on being
racist, sexist, showing discrimination with race, ethnic and background. These issues would make the
representation on the product being shut down or reported depending if these would show up and how it
would make the audience feel.
 The representation could be hard to be noticed on the product which would not get the interest from the
audience and the product would not be known or get attention, which would make the product be a waste
of money.

9. STUART HALL- THEORIES OF REPRESENTATION
 The idea that representation is the production of meaning through language, with language defined in
its broadest sense as a system of signs.
 The idea the relationship between concepts and signs is governed by codes.
 The idea that stereotyping, as a form of representation, reduces people to a few simple characteristics
or traits.
 The idea that stereotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities of power, as subordinate or
excluded groups are constructed as different or ‘other’, for example; through ethnocentrism.
DAVID GAUNTLETT- THEORIES OF IDENTITY
 The idea that the media provide us with ‘tools’ or resources that
we use to construct or identities.
 The idea that whilst in the past the media tended to convey
singular, straightforward messages about ideal types of males and
female identities. The media today offer us a more diverse range
of stars, icons and characters from whom we may pick and mix
different ideas.

10. LIESBET VAN ZOONEN- FEMINIST THEORY
 The idea that gender is constructed through discourse and that its meaning varies
according to cultural and historical context.
 The idea that the display of women’s bodies as objects to be looked at is a core
element of western patriarchal culture.
 The idea that in mainstream culture the visual and narrative codes that are used
to construct the male body as spectacle differ from those used to objectify the
female body.
JUDITH BUTLER- THEORIES OF GENDER PERFORMATIVILY
 The idea that identity is performatively constructed by the very
‘expressions’ that are said to be it’s results (it is manufactured
through a set of acts).
 The idea that there is no gender identity behind the expressions of
gender.
 The idea that performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition
and a ritual.

11. BELL HOOKS- FEMINIST THEORY
 The idea that feminism is a struggle to end sexist/patriarchal oppression and the ideology of domination.
 The idea that feminism is a political commitment rather than a lifestyle choice.
 The idea that race and class as well as sex determine the extent to which individuals are exploited, discriminated
against or oppressed.
PAUL GILROY- THEORIES AROUND ETHNICITY AND POSTCOLONIAL THEORY
 The idea that colonial discourses continue to inform contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the
postcolonial era.
 The idea that civilisations constructs racial hierarchies and sets ups binary oppositions based on
notions of otherness.
ANDREW GOODWIN- MUSIC VIDEO THEORY
Goodwin’s theory states that there are 5 key aspects to a music video.
 Thought through beat (seeing what the lyrics mean in your head) & relationship between the song and Visuals.
 Narrative and performance of the song.
 Technical aspect of a music video.
 Star Image (protagonist), lots of camera shots making him/her the centre of attention.