Audience theories

1. AUDIENCE THEORY
RESEARCH

2. TYPES OF AUDIENCE
Any individual or group of people who receive and consume any for
of media text (written in magazines or showed in films and social
media) are part of a selected audience. There are three different main
audiences which are:
Mass audience: this is a group consuming commercial TV
programmes.
Niche audience- this is people with a unique interest
Individual audience: th

3. THE CULTIVATION/CULMINATION
THEORY
This theory talks about the effect it may have on someone if they
were to watch something over and over again. For example, if
someone watches something violet continuously over a long period of
time they are more likely to be sensitive once viewing this kind of
material again, we refer to this process as desensitisation.
This theory is hard to prove correct due to people viewing things in
different ways, many different people over the time have tried to
prove this theory as accurate, however, no one has been successful.

4. HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY
This theory implies that mass media had a direct, immediate and
powerful effect on its audiences. And that media messages are
injected directly into the brains of a passive audience, it suggest that
were all the same and we all respond to media messages in the same
way.
Some contributing effects to the hypodermic needle theory are:
- fast rise and popularisation of radio and television
- the increase of persuasion industries, for example a great increase
in advertising

5. USERS AND GRATIFICATIONS
Users and gratifications theory is a popular approach to
understanding mass communication. This theory takes more focus on
the audience, instead of the actual message itself by asking ‘what
people do with media’ rather than ‘what media does to people’.

6. THE TWO STEP FLOW
This theory consists of two steps, firstly,
opinion leaders get information from a media
source then secondly opinion leaders then pass
the information, along with their interpretation
to others.