2. AUDIENCE DEFINITION
• An individual or a collective group of people who read or consume any media text.
• The assembled spectators or listeners at a public event (can still be TV, radio, newspaper etc).
• Some examples are: TV audiences, radio audiences, newspaper and magazine audiences and audiences
online on websites for example.
4. WHY ARE AUDIENCES IMPORTANT?
• Without an audience there would be no media.
• Media organisations produce media text to make profit, without an audience there would be no profit.
• Media texts are constructed with an audience in mind.
• The mass media is becoming more competitive than ever to attract more and more audiences in
different ways and stay profitable.
5. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AUDIENCE AND
AUDIENCE THEORY
• Audience theory describes the different ways of thinking about the audience.
• Audience research tries to produce evidence between the relationship between audience and media; it
is always linked closely to an audience theory.
• Audience research doesn’t necessarily produce facts about the audience; instead it is usually informed
by strong assumptions about the audience.
6. It is a theory made my Abraham Maslow which
suggests there are 5 stages people go through in life.
The theory says that there are different motivations
that drive us.
When applied to media we can use them
to try and understand the motivations
behind our target audience.
Pro’s and cons?
7. FOLK DEVILS AND MORAL PANIC 1972
• Theorist Stanley Cohen suggested in his book, that a moral panic occurs when a “condition, episode, a
person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.”
• Instigating that the media can play a massive role in enforcing moral panic.
• It works by the media overreacting to an aspect of behaviour which may be seen as a challenge to the
existing social norms.
• So the moral panic by society represented in the media fuels further socially unacceptable behaviour.
8. Audiences are passive.
The audiences are also easily manipulated and
led.
They can be seen as gullible followers.
Media consumption influences the attitudes
and behaviours of audiences.
Sometimes called ‘magic bullet theory.’
Linked to propaganda and advertising.
Audiences are active In choosing media for their own
‘gratifications’ – pleasure.
Links to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Their main reasons for using media:
• Personal identity – to define who we are.
• Information
• Entertainment – includes their escape.
• Social interaction – to help socialise with like
minded people
12. RECEPTION THEORY
• Jamaican Sociologist Stuart Hall introduced the idea that all media texts contain meaning which are
encoded by the producer (placed in the text) and decoded by the audience (understood within the
text.)
• The audience decodes messages in different ways.
