An understanding of Audience Theory.

1. Audience Theory

2. Audience construction firstly comes from the division of people into
groups. Audience segmentation is the emphasis placed on similarities
which allow groups of people to be shaped and defined into one category.
These segments of people may be distinguished between by their:
age, gender, sexuality, social class, income, ethnicity, educational
background, cultural/ religious background and rural/ urban background.
The Construction of Audience

3. Furthermore, the way we view these values has differed over time. For example, Karl Marx, known to be the father of the
understanding of social status classification, once defined society into groups, firstly he said there were the ‘Bourgeoisies’ –
otherwise known as the ‘Elite/ Upper Class’ and the ‘Middle Class’. These were the people with the wealth and power who had the
platform to generate more money. Below them were the ‘Proletariat’ – or the ‘Mass/Working Classes’. These people had to sell their
skills and hard labour to earn a living.
A similar power structure is in place today. A modern class breakdown looks something more like this table, taken from a Great
British Class survey in 2011. This shows that there are some of the similar categories used today, including the ‘Elite’, however we
begin to see new titles such as the ‘Precariats’ who cover a group in society who are on the brink of poverty and the ‘Emergent
Service Workers’ who we see in low income, urban areas – typically in the roles of cleaners, etc.
The distribution of these classes can be expected to be found in clusters in area and education:
Class Breakdown

4. David Morley suggested that there are three positions audiences can be in when we view a piece of media. Either we have a:
 Dominant/Hegemonic Reading – where we fully accept the programme’s intended meaning and we don’t argue against what we
are being told.
 Negotiated Reading – where we moderately accept the programme’s intended meaning, however we conflict aspects and
modify the meaning to fit in with our own morals and intentions.
 Oppositional/Non-Hegemonic Reading – where the intended meaning of the media is completely rejected and the audience hold
an alternative view, abandoning every piece of information presented in the media text.
To trial this reception theory, David Morley collected qualitative research by interviewing all aspects of people through age, gender,
educational and occupational backgrounds on their reception of the BBC current affairs programme ‘Nationwide’. He concluded that
the dominant readings came from management groups, negotiated readings from teacher training students and university students,
whilst the oppositional readings were mostly from trade union groups.
Similarly, there is the physical way in which different audiences view texts. Audiences can either have a passive or active reading of a
media text. To put this idea simply, we can look at a reality TV programme, such as ITV’s ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’:
A passive reading of this text would be someone who isn’t fully paying attention, possibly only uses it for background noise whilst
they are focussing on something else. A person whom doesn’t really care who ends up with the title of ‘King/Queen Of The Jungle.’
On the other hand, there are audiences with an active reception of the programme. These are the people who dedicate their
attention to the show and vote for whom they want to save on the show.
The Way Audiences View Texts

5. The theory of Blumer and Katz suggests that different audiences use media texts to benefit in different ways. The ‘Uses and
Gratification Theory’ says that there are four different gratifications in which audiences look to acquire in media texts.
Identity
This is the suggestion that audiences use media like films, magazines and news articles to secure and determine their identities. This
works in the way that people look for recognisable people and products to corroborate your own values in theirs.
Education
This is the basic idea that people use media to acquire information, knowledge and understanding.
Entertainment
This says that people use media to provide themselves with enjoyment and an element of ‘escapism’ to let them forget about their
own worries and take a rest from the pressures of daily life.
Social Interaction
Some people watch media texts as it will provide them with topics of conversation to discuss socially and therefore build up
relationships.
Audience Motivation

6. Each piece of media has a desired effect upon the media, whether it is to engage an audience in their sales and make more money
from the same audience buying the film’s merchandise, however sometimes the desired effect on the audience is much stronger.
‘Intended reactions’ are mostly used in news broadcasts. For example, this
News clip, of an English Defence League march in Birmingham, uses busy,
handheld footage of marchers acting disorderly with their tops taken off. The
news broadcasting company have used this footage because it is meant to be
seen as ‘off putting’ and ‘uncivilized’. This is the way in which the news try to
control the public’s views on certain topics. Although the news are supposed
to provide a balanced and unbiased account of events, techniques like this are
used frequently to manipulate the watcher’s views on the subject. Therefore,
in this example, the intended audience reaction is to view the EDL in a negative
light.
Effect on the Audience