This document discusses three theories of how audiences interact with media texts: the effects model, uses and gratifications model, and reception theory. The effects model argues that media texts directly influence passive audiences. The uses and gratifications model positions audiences as active users who choose media to fulfill needs. Reception theory, developed by Stuart Hall, recognizes that audiences can interpret meanings in a text differently than intended by producers.

1.  There are three theories that we can apply
to help us understand the relationship
between texts and audience.
1. The Effects Model or the Hypodermic
Model
2. The Uses and Gratifications Model
3. Reception Theory

2.  The consumption of media texts has an
effect or influence upon the audience
 It is normally considered that this effect is
negative
 Audiences are passive and powerless to
prevent the influence
 The power lies with the message of the text

3.  This model is also called: The Hypodermic
Model
 Here, the messages in media texts are injected
into the audience by the powerful, syringe-like,
media
 The audience is powerless to resist
 Therefore, the media works like a drug and the
audience is drugged, addicted, doped or duped.

4.  Key evidence for the Effects Model
1. The Frankfurt School theorised in the 1920s and
30s that the mass media acted to restrict and control
audiences to the benefit of corporate capitalism and
governments
2. The Bobo Doll experiment
This is a very controversial piece of research that
apparently proved that children copy violent
behaviour

5. The Bobo Doll Experiment
 This was conducted in 1961 by Albert Bandura

6.  In the experiment:
 Children watched a video where an adult violently
attacked a clown toy called a Bobo Doll
 The children were then taken to a room with attractive
toys that they were not permitted to touch
 The children were then led to another room with Bobo
Dolls
 88% of the children imitated the violent behaviour
that they had earlier viewed. 8 months later 40% of
the children reproduced the same violent behaviour

7.  The conclusion reached was that children
will imitate violent media content
 The Effects Model (backed up by the Bobo
Doll experiment) is still the dominant
theory used by politicians, some parts of the
media and some religious organisations in
attributing violence to the consumption of
media texts.
 There are many problems with the
experiment.

8.  Key examples sited as causing or being contributory
factors are:
 The film Child’s Play 3 in the murder of James Bulger
in 1993
 The game Manhunt in the murder of Stefan Pakeerah
in 2004 by his friend Warren LeBlanc
 The film A Clockwork Orange (1971) in a number of
rapes and violent attacks
 The film Severance (2006) in the murder of Simon
Everitt

9.  In each case there was a media and political outcry for
the texts to be banned
 In some cases laws were changed, films banned, and
newspapers demanded the burning of films
 Subsequently, in each case it was found that no case
could be proven to demonstrate a link between the
text and the violent acts

10.  The Effects Model contributes to Moral
Panics whereby:
 The media produce inactivity, make us into
students who won’t pass their exams or
‘couch potatoes’ who make no effort to get a
job
 The media produces violent ‘copycat’
behaviour or mindless shopping in response
to advertisements

11.  It is still unclear that there is any link between the
consumption of violent media texts and violent
imitative behaviour
 It is also clear the theory is flawed in that many people
do watch violent texts and appear not to be influenced
 Therefore a new theory is necessary
 This is called the: Uses and Gratifications Model

12.  The Uses and Gratifications Model is the
opposite of the Effects Model
 The audience is active
 The audience uses the text & is NOT used
by it
 The audience uses the text for its own
gratification or pleasure

13.  Here, power lies with the audience NOT the
producers
 This theory emphasises what audiences do with
media texts – how and why they use them
 Far from being duped by the media , the audience is
free to reject, use or play with media meanings as
they see fit

14.  Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs
for:
 Diversion
 Escapism
 Information
 Pleasure
 Comparing relationships and lifestyles with one’s own
 Sexual stimulation

15.  The audience is in control and consumption of the
media helps people with issues such as:
 Learning
 Emotional satisfaction
 Relaxation
 Help with issues of personal identity
 Help with issues of social identity
 Help with issues of aggression and violence

16.  Controversially the theory suggests the
consumption of violent images can be helpful
rather than harmful
 The theory suggests that audiences act out their
violent impulses through the consumption of
media violence
 The audience’s inclination towards violence is
therefore sublimated, and they are less likely to
commit violent acts

17.  Given that the Effects model and the Uses and
Gratifications have their problems and limitations a
different approach to audiences was developed by the
academic Stuart Hall at Birmingham University in
the 1970s
 This considered how texts were encoded with
meaning by producers and then decoded
(understood) by audiences

18.  The theory suggests that:
 When a producer constructs a text it is encoded with
a meaning or message that the producer wishes to
convey to the audience
 In some instances audiences will correctly decode the
message or meaning and understand what the
producer was trying to say
 In some instances the audience will either reject or fail
to correctly understand the message

19.  Stuart Hall identified three types of
audience readings (or decoding) of the
text:
1. Dominant or preferred
2. Negotiated
3. Oppositional

20. 1. Dominant
 Where the audience decodes the
message as the producer wants them
to do and broadly agrees with it
 E.g. Watching a political speech and
agreeing with it

21. 2. Negotiated
 Where the audience accepts, rejects or
refines elements of the text in light of
previously held views
 E.g. Neither agreeing or disagreeing
with the political speech or being
disinterested

22. 3. Oppositional
 Where the dominant meaning is
recognised but rejected for cultural,
political or ideological reasons
 E.g. Total rejection of the political
speech and active opposition