The document discusses several theories of audience reception and interpretation of media: 1) The Hypodermic Needle Theory suggests audiences passively accept media messages without individual thought. Examples that supposedly supported this theory are cited. 2) The Uses and Gratifications Theory proposes audiences are active and seek diversion, social interaction, identity, and information from media to meet personal needs and desires. 3) Reception Theory argues audiences play an active role in interpreting media and different people can interpret the same media in different ways based on their own experiences and perspectives.

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UNIT 6 – CRITICAL APPROACHES
Audience theory is an aspect of thinking of developed way of why an audience watches a
production or interprets a text in a certain way.
The hypodermic needle theory suggests that audiences passively receive messages through
all forms of media. It also suggests that we have no individual thoughts and that we all
accept the same information and we are easily manipulated. The hypodermic needle relies
on us all to swallow up the information without any questions asked. When you look back
through any era of history there has been some form of conspiracy theory about what forms
of media can influence us, for example; in the 1950s people believed that if you let children
read comic books then they will be violent, in the 1980s if you let people of a certain age
watch horror films it influenced them to copy what they have seen, and finally in the
Noughties (2000s) it was believed that if you listened to too much rap music it will lead you
to participate in gang culture.
One of the older cases and most popular examples that support the Hypodermic Needle
theory was the War of the Worlds from the 1930s. The War of the Worlds was a radio
broadcast that told people from America that there were aliens kidnapping people all over
the country and invading the planet. When the radio broadcast was aired it was believed
mostly by people in small villages who might not have been educated unlike the people in
the cities who were more cynical. I have chosen to use this because it even manipulated
many adults. Another reason why I chose this as an example is because it has highlighted
how much we have evolved and maybe the audience isn’t as easy manipulated as we are
now. I think that if the story that aliens was attacking earth and that they were abducting
people came out nowadays it would be less believed than it was when it originally came out.
I think it wouldn’t be believed because we have more forms of media that we can easily see
if there is a more believable story that either supports the story or that disregards it.
Personally, I think that the Hypodermic Needle Theory is out of date because the theory was
made in a different time and there have been a lot of changes made; such as more things
being accepted and people being more educated. Another major change is that there are a
variety of forms of media that we have access to.
There are cases that support the Hypodermic Needle theory. One of the
cases that shook Britain when two 10 year olds brutally murdered a three
year old because they were supposedly influenced by a horror film. In
1993 Jon Venables and Robert Thompson brutally tortured and murdered
a toddler called James Bulger, when the case was brought to court it was
heard that one of the fathers of the two boys had Childs Play 3 (Jack
Bender, 1992). When the court heard this they automatically pinned the
blame on the film for influencing the boys. The judge in the case of Jon
Venables and Robert Thompson said “It is not for me to pass judgment on their upbringing,

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but I suspect exposure to violent video films may in part be an explanation.” By saying this
quote the judge is saying that he supports the Hypodermic Needle theory.
Another case that supports the Hypodermic Needle theory, the
other case is about Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1972).
When the film was released the rate of violence driven crimes.
One of the more famous cases from the “Clockwork cult” was the
first case reported. The case was involving a 16 year old boy who
was called James Palmer who had brutally battered a homeless
person to death in Oxfordshire. As Edward Laxton reported in the
Daily Mirror that “the terrifying violence of the film A Clockwork
Orange fascinated the quiet boy from a Grammar School and it
turned him into a brutal murderer. The boy viciously battered to
death a harmless old tramp as he acted out in real life a scene
straight from the movie A Clockwork Orange.” With many more cases shortly following this
tragedy it led to Stanley Kubrick removing the film from cinemas and all stores that sold it.
In contrast to the Hypodermic Model is the Uses and Gratifications theory. The uses and
gratifications theory includes active spectatorship which means that we are not easily
influenced and everyone in the audience is extremely different. The theory was suggested
by Katz and Blumler and it suggests that there are four pleasures audiences gain from
watching films. These four are; Diversion, Personal Relationships, Personal Identity, and
Surveillance.
Diversion is the most common reason why people watch films. It means that audiences will
watch films to escape from their own problems and the reality of their own lives. An
example of this is that if you were upset with something you would put a comedy on so it
makes you laugh and make you happier. The majority of the big
Hollywood films rely on people wanting an escape from their lives;
they usually meet the needs by telling the audience a story where
good triumphs over evil and as a result of this people finish the film
feeling more positive about everything. Another reason why people
might want to watch a film is to take their minds of everyday things
and give themselves a different emotion to feel during the duration
of the film. Quite a lot of films take the audiences minds of reality
by transporting us to a fantasy world like Hogwarts in the Harry
Potter (Chris Columbus, 2001) franchise or different planets like
Asgard in popular hero film Thor (Kenneth Branagh, 2011).

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The second reason why people watch films is for personal
relationships which means when people use forms of media for
emotional connections and other interaction. Certain audiences
might use films as a substitute for personal relationships. A
classic example of this is when someone chooses to see a
romantic film because they are either single or are just feeling
alone. A common view on the perfect relationship is having
unconditional love and willing to die to save the other this feeling
is portrayed in the film Titanic (James Cameron, 1997), this can
provide people some hope that they can find it and that they will
be happy. Another example of a film that people could watch for
emotional connections or other interactions is The Blind Side
(John Lee Hancock, 2009) people will watch this film because it
has a strong, positive message about family and not everyone
has the perfect family or has a positive outlook on what a family
should be, watching a film that spreads this message could be
seen as being comforting to the people who don’t have the
same outlook on families. Personally when I’m sad I like to
watch other sad films just to feel some comfort that I’m not
alone and it also helps because sometimes you feel like you
can’t talk to anyone and if you do you will be a burden or that
they won’t understand.
The third reason why people watch films is for personal identity which means that people
use forms of media to find themselves reflected in the film whether it is in a character or in
the lifestyle. A popular example of this are stoner comedies so people who smoke marijuana
relate to them and relate to characters like Jay and Silent Bob. I know someone whose
favourite film is Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) because they see themselves in the character
Rizzo. I think that people watch films where they relate to the character because it might be
comforting to see how they react to certain situations.
The last reason why people watch films is surveillance which means finding different films
that contain information that is useful for living or that educates you on different thing. An
example of this is Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2009) because even though it is a
mainstream film it shows audiences how it is in shanty towns and different situations that
could occur in these areas.
Like other theories the uses and gratifications theory has received a lot of praise and a lot of
criticism. One of the more common criticisms that people mention when speaking about the
theory is that it is a form of audience analysis instead of a theory, the evidence critics use to
back up this is that it does not meet the standards which qualify certain things into a theory.
Another criticism is that audiences of different ages will most likely have different motives

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for watching films. Another criticism of the theory is that because of the individuality of the
uses and gratifications it is difficult to write about the audiences for various other studies.
The reception theory is an audience theory where it sees different audiences being actively
engaged in the interpretation of different media texts. The whole concept of the reception
theory is that everyone is different and they interpret different types of media differently
such as film, music or photos. It shows us that even though one message is sent out not
everyone interprets the text in that way. The theory was created by Stuart Hall and he
claimed that every piece of media text goes through stages of encoding and decoding.
Decoding is when the audience sees the text and interprets their own ideas into it, the most
important thing about this theory is that not everyone will react and interpret the text in the
same way and in many cases not how the producer intended. I think an example would be
the film version of popular trilogy 50 Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015) the
producer of the film wanted it to show the world of BDSM but most of the audience saw the
film as romanticising a sadistic way of having sex.
A lot of the time a producer creates a form of media with encoding a meaning or message
that they would want to convey to a wide audience, this is called preferred reading. Stuart
Hall includes three different kinds of audiences decoding of text:
 Dominant/Preferred – this is where the producer wants the audience to agree with
something in the film. An example will be from The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012)
I have chosen this film as an example because the producer wants us all to like
Katniss and not like President Snow or anyone in the Capital.
 Negotiated – a negotiated audience is a compromise between the
dominant/preferred and the oppositional readings. This is where the audience can
agree with most/some of the film but in some areas they already have their own
opinions on. An example of this will be The Inbetweeners Movie (Ben Palmer, 2011) I
have chosen this example because not every teenage guy is going to have a holiday
like that and they are not going to be sex mad or lust after everything with a pulse.
 Oppositional – an oppositional audience is when the audience rejects the encoded
message and makes their own meaning in the text and there is no way or telling that
the message submitted is right.
Contextual factors are mentioned quite a lot when researching the reception theory and it
means that there are characteristics of the environment that are related to the
effectiveness of the message encoded in the films. The contextual factors include; Gender,
Sexuality, Religion, Age, Ethnicity, Income, Education.
One of the two films I am watching for this assignment is Funny
Games from 1998 which was directed by Michael Haneke. In the UK
the film was awarded an 18 certificate. It covers themes such as;
freedom, family and power. The film is about two disturbed men take

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a family hostage in an idyllic lakeside home and subjects them to humiliation and abuse.
After watching the film Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 1998) I was a preferred reading
because even though it confused me abit I preferred the killers to the family. Even though I
liked the killers I couldn’t really understand the motive on killing the family as far as the
audience could tell there was no reward they could receive. As the film went on I started to
realise that I didn’t really identify with any of the characters I think that this affected my
reading of the film because if I identified with the two killers then I would be a preferred
reading and if I identified with the family I would be a oppositional reading. I enjoyed the
film because I found some of it quite funny because the acting was so bad I think the film
would have been better if you saw the little boy get shot and if you saw the dog die. I can
understand why some people wouldn’t like the film because it is a subtitled film so it can
seem
To hear other people’s views I conducted a questionnaire on Survey Monkey for funny
games. The results came back with 25% having a preferred reading, 50% having a negotiated
reading and 25% having an oppositional reading. Some of the reasons for these readings
include; “because of the censored violence it was easier to watch”, “because I understand
the main characters actions” and finally “the director wanted us to be disturbed and I was.”
Michael Haneke made the film because he wanted to irritate, manipulate and disturb the
audience into noticing and reconsidering their consumption of violence as entertainment.
He has made the purpose well known in the film because he gave the character Paul two
lines which say; “we want to offer the audience something”, and in response to Anna saying
“why don’t you kill us now” Paul responded “What about the entertainment value? We’d all
be deprived of our pleasure”. By involving these quotes in the film the director has made
the audience think about how much we rely
The second film I watched for this assignment is Fight Club which was released in 1999 and
was directed by David Fincher. The film Fight Club was given an 18 certificate in the UK after
it had to make a few cut. The theme Fight Club covers is loneliness, lust, self-identity and
violence. The film follows the journey of a man suffering from insomnia and depression who
takes comfort from going to self-help groups, when on a plane he meets a soap maker and
they start an underground Fight Club.
I didn’t think the film Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999) was
that good and couldn’t really see why anyone would enjoy
watching this film; I didn’t like the film because every male
character was either masculine or loved fighting and I think
this is a false representation of men. Another reason I didn’t
like the film was because the plot was idiotic and it just
didn’t make sense, when I speak about the film with other
people they all say that the ending cleared all the questions

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they had but for me it made more questions. The last reason on why I didn’t like the film is
because I feel like it was sending out a message that men shouldn’t be feminine and they
should be the stereotypical man where you fight and have this sort of an emotional barrier
up round everyone, this message goes against everything that I believe. I didn’t identify with
the characters because all the male characters had traits that I couldn’t, for example Edward
Norton’s character was pathetic and I couldn’t understand why he craved the approval of
Brad Pitt’s character. This is one of the things that even after the ending everyone said it
solved questions but for me it created more questions in my head. I didn’t like Brad Pitts
character because personally I don’t see the benefit of fighting people and I don’t really see
the benefit of putting two strangers fighting each other. One of the factors that I think
contributed to me disliking the film is because of the environment I was in when I was
watching it and maybe if I watched at my house with my friends I might have viewed it
differently. Another reason I don’t think I liked it is because being a 17 year old gay male I
thought I would have seen some feminine or openly gay characters either inside the fight
club or just featured in the plot in some way, when we finished watching the film and none
were featured I found it quite offensive because to me its saying that gay men can’t fight or
they shouldn’t be friends with heterosexual men.
To get other people’s views on the two films I sent out a questionnaire on survey monkey.
Some of the opinions that I received was very different to my own. Everyone I asked was in
my age group. The reading on fight club was split 50-50 between a negotiated reading and
oppositional reading some of the reasons why they had these readings include; “because
there was some parts where it was entertaining and some parts was too violent”, the other
response I got said “I disagree with the message the message put across. Males shouldn’t
have to masculine if they don’t want to be.”
In terms of the hypodermic needle theory there were some news reports in the US where
young men reportedly started their own fight club because of the things they saw in the
movie. I think people would want to start their own fight club because the film glamorises it
all by saying that you’ll get a beautiful girl, it will get rid of all your emotional and
psychological problems and you don’t have to work. In the BBFC report there is a quote
from London film critic, Alexander Walker, which says “a toxic experience ... an
inadmissible assault on personal decency ... and on society itself. It resurrects the Führer
principle. It promotes pain and suffering as the virtues of the strongest. It tramples every
democratic decency underfoot." I think Alexander Walker would view the film differently to
some people because of his job and how he would have had to see the film because work
told him to and not because he chose too.
When asked what their views on the violence in the films was some of the views included; “I
disagreed with it”, “funny games needed more violence, because it was boring, but I
enjoyed the violence in fight club” and finally “funny games was easier to watch because it
was censored, fight club was unnecessary and gory.”

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Out of all the audience theories I agree most with the uses and gratifications theory because
when you look deep enough into why you like a film it falls under one of the pleasures listed
by Katz and Bulmer.