This theory represents a shift toward viewing audiences as active participants rather than passive receivers of media. It focuses on understanding the social and psychological needs and motives that drive what audiences choose to consume. Specifically, it identifies four key needs: surveillance to stay informed, personal identity, relationships, and diversion or escapism. The theory argues that audiences make their own choices about what media to engage with based on gratifying these underlying needs.

1. Audience Theory

2. This theory represents a change in thinking as researchers began to describe the effects of the media from the point of view of
audiences. It looks at the motives of the people who use the media, asking why we watch the television programmes that we do.
This makes the audience active as they choose what they want to consume, they are not forced into consumption. The theory argues
that audience needs have social and psychological needs which generate certain expectations about the mass media and what they
are exposed to. This means that active audiences make their own choices, what they watch, read. They are in control of their own
consumption.
Blumler and Katz's theory has four needs which consist of the following:
Surveillance
This is based around the idea that people feel better having the feeling that they know what is going on in the world. The surveillance
model is all about awareness. We use the mass media to be more aware of the world, gratifying a desire for knowledge and security.
Personal Identity
This need explains how being a subject of the media allows us to confirm the identity and positioning of ourselves within society.
Forming identity can be seen in music videos and films where pop stars become role models, inspiring young children everywhere.
Personal Relationships
Many people use the television as a form of companionship as the television is often quite an intimate experience. We can sometimes
use the media as a springboard to form and build upon relationships with real people.
Diversion
This need describes what's commonly termed as escapism -watching the television so we can forget about our own lives and
problems for a while and think about something else.
Blumler and Katz:
Uses and Gratifications Theory

3. Stuart Hall's theory suggests that media texts are encoded by the producer meaning that whoever produces the product fills it with
values and messages.
This theory has three ways in which the audience can read the text which include the following:
Dominant Reading
•The audience view the media text in the way the producer intended.
•The audience agree with the ideology and message behind the text.
•The audience will view the message in the way the producer wanted them to.
Negotiated Reading
•This is a compromise between the dominant and oppositional readings.
•The audience accepts the views of the producer but you also have your own opinion.
•Audience do not agree or disagree but can see the point being made in relation to the reading yet have their own opinion.
Oppositional Reading
•The audience rejects the preferred reading and creates their own reading of the text.
•The audience rejects the meaning fully as they do not agree with the message created for the audience.
Stuart Hall: Reception Theory

4. The Hypodermic Needle theory was first developed in the 1920s and 1930s. This theory states that the media inject messages into
audiences and implies mass media have a direct, immediate and powerful effects on its audiences. This theory states there are
several factors that contribute to this "strong effects" theory of communication including the fast rise and popularisation of radio and
television. Also, the emergence of the persuasion industries such as advertising and propaganda. It suggests the mass media could
influence a very large group of people directly and uniformly by 'shooting' or 'injecting' a passive audience with appropriate messages
designed to trigger a desired response.
An example of this theory would be a radio broadcast in 1930s called 'War of the Worlds'. This broadcast was performed like a real
news broadcast to heighten the effect of the story. The people listening thought it was real and assumed mars had come to invade
the world. This proves the theory correct as the audience that listened to the broadcast believed what the broadcast was telling them.
Some cons of this theory include that it is very out of date so is therefore invalid. Another is that not all people consume media in the
same way as not everyone watches the news or other types of media.
Hypodermic Needle Theory