This document discusses different theories around media audiences. It begins by outlining Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and how it can apply to media usage. Lower level needs like safety must be met before higher level needs for things like belongingness that media can provide. Earlier theories viewed audiences as passive and heavily influenced, but more recent models see audiences as active, interpreting media through their own experiences and for their own purposes. The two-step flow theory and uses and gratifications model present more active audience roles. Reception analysis also looks at how social factors shape how audiences read media.

1. MEDIA AUDIENCES
By Charlie Clements

2. Hierarchy of Needs
■ Abraham Maslow, suggested that we all have different
layers of needs.
■ We have to achieve certain needs before moving to the
next layer.
■ Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied
before individuals can attend to needs huger up.
■ This can apply to media usage, as people do not look to
the different types of media to satisfy their needs until
lower order needs are met, such as safety and basic
needs.
■ After that, movies, TV shows and advertising offer the
chance for audiences to meet higher order needs such
as self improvement, love and belonging.

3. Passive Audiences
■ Researchers investigation the effect of media
on audiences have considered that it could
affect them to different extents.
■ Earlier approaches argued that mass audiences
were passive and inactive: this means that
members of the audiences are just consuming
and ‘passively’ taking in what they saw and
heard, and could therefore be heavily
influenced.

4. History of the Hypodermic model
■ This appeared to be the case in Nazi Germany in
the 1930s, leading up to the war. The Nazis
produced a flood of posters depicting the allied
forces as evil, and they also skewed media such
as newspapers and movies to say and show the
positive things about Nazi party.
■ Newspapers degraded Jews and movies
represented the Nazis ‘Arian race’ as better than
the average person.
■ Propaganda such as this was not the preserve of
one culture but it shows the belief in the impact
of the mass media to shape opinion and
entrench certain ideologies.

5. Cultivation
Theory■ This theory also treats the audience as passive. It
suggests that repeated exposure to the same message,
such as advertisements, will have an effect on the
audience’s attitudes and values. A similar idea is known
as desensitisation suggests that long-term exposure to
violent media makes the audiences less likely to be
shocked by violence. Being less shocked by violence,
means that the audiences may be more likely to accept
violence as the norm.
■ Psychographics is a qualitative methodology used to
describe consumers by psychological attributes.
Psychographics have been applied to the study of
personality, values, attitudes and lifestyles.
■ People can have their opinions reinforced over a long
amount of time by the media. If the media is telling
someone that they should like oranges even more than
they initially do, then they will, but over a period of time.
■ Confirmation bias

6. Two Step Flow Theory■ Katz and Lazarfield’s model assumes a slightly more
active audience than the hypodermic needle theory
does. They did this by studying how voters made their
decisions about who they are voting for. They theorised
that the mass media communicated with people, but
influenced them most at second hand, through
influential people whom they trust.
■ Influencers on social media can prove this two step flow
theory: people listen to them and trust their opinions, so
they follow their style and make similar purchases.
Opinion leaders decipher the news and pass it on to the
masses (their readers, their followers), who then believe
and trust what they are saying.
■ These influencers – critics, media pundits, journalists,
editors - are more connected and better informed than
the person following them. They are trusted because
they can filter out and understand the most useful and
needed news.
■ This model presents Audiences as partly passive, partly
active, being influenced in a ‘two step flow’ of
communication.

7. Active audiences
More recent models see the audiences not as passive but as
individuals who are active and interact with the communication
process to use media texts for their own purpose.
■ These models position all audiences as being different from
each other and taking different meanings from texts: we
behave differently because we are from different backgrounds
with many different attitudes, values, experiences and ideas.
■ This is the active audiences model, and is now generally
considered to be a more realistic way to talk about audiences.

8. Uses and Gratifications model:
Blumler and Katz
■ This looks at audiences as active: it is about how audiences react to the mass media, such as the
film that they are watching. For Blumler and Katz, there are four different ways people use
media.
■ One of them is surveillance – our need to know what is going on in the world. This relates to
Maslow’s need for security, by keeping up to date with news about local and international events,
we feel we have the knowledge to avoid or deal with dangers.
■ Personal relationships – our need for interaction with different people. This is provided by
forming virtual relationships with characters in soaps, films and all kinds of drama.
■ Personal identify- our need to define our identity and sense of self. Part of our sense of self is
informed by making judgements about all sorts.
■ Diversion – The need for escape, entertainment and relaxation. All types of television
programmes can be used to wind down and offer diversion, as well as satisfying some of the
other needs at the same time.

9. Reception Analysis
■ Reception Analysis is an active audience theory that looks at how audiences
interact with media in their daily live
■ This theory was first put forward by Professor Stuart Hall in the ‘Television
Discourse’ in 1974. Tthis theory suggests that social and daily experiences can
affect the way an audiences reads or interprets media.
■ Hall had three ways of looking at this.
■ The first was Negotiated Reading, which was when the audiences partly shares the
code of the text and broadly accepts the proffered meaning by can change the
meaning in some way to adapt to their own experiences.
■ The second is oppositional reading, which is when the audiences understands the
preferred meaning but does not share the text’s code and rejects their intended
meaning.