This document summarizes several theories of audience reception of media: - The hypodermic needle model suggests media directly injects opinions into passive audiences' minds, exemplified by Nazi propaganda. It is now obsolete as audiences are more active. - Uses and gratifications theory proposes audiences seek to fulfill needs like surveillance, identity, and diversion through media consumption. - Encoding/decoding theory describes how institutions encode messages while audiences decode based on their own interpretation, which can differ due to age, culture, etc. - Social and cultural context theory holds that audiences' interpretations vary according to their social position, culture, class, gender, and preexisting knowledge.

1. JAMES BUXTON
AUDIENCE
THEORIES

2. HYPODERMIC NEEDLE MODEL
 This theory was developed in the 1930’s at the Frankfurt School in
Germany by Adorno and Horkheimer.
 The model suggests certain elements of the media injects opinions
and messages directly into the audiences’ mind.
 Nazi Germany is the most known example of where this model
has been used, with propaganda being a very huge part of the
party turning their nation against people of the Jewish religion.
 It is a mass audience model that sees the audience as passive.
 This model is obsolete now, and died out many years ago. Studies
suggest that audiences now have more of their own opinions and
prefer to decode what they choose from products.

3. USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
 Blumler and Katz suggests that the audience always have
something which they expect to happen in a product.
 An example would be in a love story, the audience want it to end
in happiness for the two protagonists.
Audience Needs
 Surveillance – Seeing the world around us.
 Personal Identity – Influences how we see ourselves and our world.
 Personal Relationships – Developing relationships with characters.
 Diversion – Provides escapism from daily life.

4. ENCODING AND DECODING
 This theory was explored and written by Stuart Hall.
 An institution encodes (puts in) their preferred reading of the product and
the audience decodes (takes out) their preferred outcome from the
product.
 It can link in to the hypodermic needle model, if we use Nazi propaganda
as an example: The party encode news that the Jews are ruining the
German economy, the public decode the belief that the party is correct.
 Different audience members will decode different things based on age,
culture etc.
Different Positions
 Dominant reading is when the audience completely agrees with what the
institution encodes.
 Negotiated reading is when the audience agrees with what is encoded, but
modifies it to match their personal media needs.
 Oppositional reading is when the code is understood, but the audience
completely disagrees.

5. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT
 This is a theory written by David Morley
 It is when the audience reading of a text will differ depending on
culture, position in society, age etc.
 People from different social groups will have different opinions,
because that social group may have opinions that you agree with.
 Cultural capital is important here, this is when the audience knows
a lot about the world and an opinion can be changed because of
this advanced knowledge of life and the media.
 Differences based on things like social class, gender, and ethnicity,
may determine an individual’s cultural tastes.

6. THE END