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AUDIENCE THEORIES: RELEVANT THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORKS
There are several theories that have been written about audiences, how
texts appeal to them and how and why they respond in different ways.
You should refer to a range of media theories when answering the MS1 media
exam and demonstrate your understanding of them in relation to your textual
examples.
Media texts are constructed in order to place audiences in a
particular position in relation to that text. Audience positioning concerns
the relationship between the text and the responses an audience may
have to that text. The producers of the texts encode the texts with signs
and messages and the audience decodes these messages.
Different audiences will decode the same texts in different ways and
will therefore have a different response.
Active audience
This describes an audience who responds to and
interprets the media texts in different ways and who actively
engages with the messages provided and created by the
producers.
Passive audience
This describes an audience that does not engage
actively with the text. They are more likely to accept the
preferred meaning of the text without challenge. This also
suggests that passive audiences are more likely to be directly
affected by the messages contained within the text.
Hypodermic needle model: This is now largely outdated
effects theory, which suggests that the audience is a mass that
behave the same way in response to a media text.
The media text injects ideas into the minds of the
assumed passive audience who will respond as one. It is most
usually used to support the idea that violent media texts, for
example video games and films, cause the audience to behave
violently.
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Key Figures - Blumler and Katz
They were media theorists who adapted the basic theory of how audiences
‘use’ media texts. Their key theoretical framework is called the ‘Uses and
Gratification’ theory.This theory was developed as a response to other
outdated theories, for example the hypodermic needle effect. This theory
suggests that active audiences seek out and use different media texts in
order to satisfy a need and to experience different pleasures.
• Reinforce personal identity by comparing our own roles with similar
roles in the media.
• Need for companionship and interaction
• The need to be informed
• The need for entertainment and diversion
(Personal) Relationships
• gaining insight into circumstances of others; social
empathy
• identifying with others and gaining a sense of
belonging
• finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
• having a substitute for real-life companionship
• helping to carry out social roles
• enabling one to connect with family, friends and society
(Personal) Identity
• finding reinforcement for personal values
• finding models of behaviour
• identifying with valued other (in the media)
• gaining insight into one's self
Diversion/Escapism
• escaping, or being diverted, from problems
• relaxing
• getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment
• filling time
• emotional release
• sexual arousal
Surveillance
• finding out about relevant events and conditions in
immediate surroundings, society and the world
• seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices
• satisfying curiosity and general interest
• learning; self-education and gaining a sense of security through knowledge
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Encoding-Decoding theory
This theory created by Stuart Hall in the 1970s
presumes the audience will respond to a text in
different ways.
• Some of the audience will read the text as the producer
(maker of the text) intended, the preferred reading.
• Some of the audience will partly agree with the preferred
reading but may not agree with everything that the producer
wants them to, which is a negotiated reading.
• Some of the audience will understand what the producer
wants them to think, but don’t agree with it at all, an
oppositional reading.
Some of the audience will not understand the meaning of a text,
and will have an aberrant reading.
Reception Theory takes this further and accepts the audience’s
response to a text differs because of their different lifestyles and
upbringing. So gender, religion, politics, age, ethnicity, sexuality,
social class and place of residence can all make us have different
opinions and reactions to a text.
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KEY THEORY: DAVID GAUNTLETT’S ‘PICK AND MIX’
THEORY
This is another theory that understands the autonomy
(uniqueness) of the audience. It counteracts
(goes against) the theory that all audiences are
affected by what they read. Gauntlett focuses
on the way in which magazines and
advertisements attract and represent
audiences. His suggestion is that audiences are sophisticated
and use texts to satisfy their needs. They pick the bits of the text
that are appropriate to them and their lives and ignore the
others.
CASE STUDY – WOMEN’S MAGAZINES
This PICK AND MIX theory challenges the theory that women, for
example, will be adversely affected by the unrealistic images they
see on the front covers of women’s magazines. They may read the
magazine, ignoring the articles related to sex and relationships and
‘pick’ the articles on fashion and beauty.
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KEY THEORY: TWO STEP FLOW AND
OPINION LEADERS
Key Figure - Paul Lazarsfeld.
In 1940 he conducted research into the Presidential
election campaign and discovered that social
influences, rather than the media, had a major effect upon how
voters would respond. This led to the development of the two-step
flow response theory.
The findings of the research conducted by Lazarsfeld and others in
1940 suggested that the ideas and opinions of other people
affected how an audience may respond to the media. This may
be:
• conversations with friends
• the opinions of experts
• their own cultural experiences and upbringing The people
who may affect the way in which an audience responds to a
media text are called opinion leaders.
Their interpretation may be listened to and trusted by the
audience. However, we as an audience may not respond
actively to the opinion leaders - The audience may not have
even seen the actual media text themselves, hence the ‘two-
step flow’, but may be influenced by the opinion leader. For
example the reviews in newspapers by recognized film critics and
similar quotes on film posters will influence an audience who
have yet to see the film in question.
This is particularly true if they value and trust the opinions of
those commentating on the text. Politicians commenting on a
newspaper story may influence an audience’s response to that
story without them having read it themselves. This theory
reinforces the idea that audiences are sophisticated in their
responses, are individuals and are active, not passive.
