The Effects Model suggests that audiences are passive and powerless against the influence of media messages. It is also known as the Hypodermic Model, where messages are injected into passive audiences like a drug. However, the Uses and Gratifications Model argues that audiences are active and use media to fulfill needs like escapism, diversion, and social comparison. Reception Theory developed by Stuart Hall recognizes that audiences can have dominant, negotiated, or oppositional readings of media texts based on their own experiences.

1. Audience Theory
Maddie Chapman

2. The Effects Model
o The consumption of media texts has an effect or
influence upon the audience
o This effect is considered negative
o Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent
the influence
o The power lies with the message of the text

3. Also known as…
The Hypodermic Model
o This theory suggests that messages are injected
into the audience by the powerful syringe-like
media.
o Again, the audience are powerless
o The theory suggests that the media works like a
drug, and the audience of particular media texts are
drugged and addicted.

4. Evidence of the Effects Model
• The Frankfurt School theorised in the 1920’s that
the mass media acted to restrict and control
audiences to benefit of corporate capitalism and
governments
• The Bobo Doll experiment
This is controversial research that apparently proves
that children copy violent behaviour

5. The Bobo Doll Experiment
o The experiment was conducted in 1961 by Albert
Bandura
o During the experiment, children watched a video where
an adult violently attacked a clown called a Bobo Doll.
They were then taken to a room with attractive toys that
they were not permitted to touch. The children were
then led to another room with Bobo Dolls.
o Statistics show that 88% of the children imitated the
violent behaviour they had viewed. 8 months later 40%
of the children reproduced the same violent behaviour

6. The Effects Model
o There are key examples that support the theory
‘The Bobo Doll experiment’
o The film ‘The Clockwork Orange’ 1971 in a number
of sex attacks and other violent attacks
o The film ‘Child’s Play 3’ in the murder of James
Bulger in 1993
o The film ‘Severance’ in 2006 in the murder of Simon
Everitt

7. The Effects Model contributes to
Moral Panic…
o The media produces violent ‘copycat’ behaviour
o The media produces mindless shopping in
response to TV advertisements
o The media produces inactivity and laziness
resulting in students failing exams and
unemployment

8. Audience Positioning
o Stuart Hall (1973) suggested texts were encoded by the
producers of texts to contain certain meanings related
to social and cultural background of the creator of the
text. However, once the viewer of the text ‘decoded’
that text then the meanings intended by the producer
may change
o He went on to suggest three main perspectives
involved in the way in which an audience responds to a
particular text. This involves how the audience is
positioned by the text and its subsequent response

9. 1) Preferred or dominant readings
o This is where the audience interprets the text
closely to the way in which the producer of the text
intended. If the social and cultural experience of the
reader of the text is close to that of the producer
then there is little for the audience to challenge.

10. 2) Negotiated readings
o This is where the audience goes through some sort
of negotiation with themselves to allow them to
accept the way in which the text is presented. You
may agree with some elements of the text and
disagree with others. You may need to adjust your
viewpoint in order to get the most out of your
viewing

11. 3) Oppositional or resistant readings
o This is where the user of the text finds themselves
in conflict with the text itself due to their beliefs or
experiences. For example, a narrative in a soap
opera that views a woman who is having an affair
sympathetically will encourage a resistant reading in
a person whose culture is against adultery

12. The Uses and Gratifications Model
o It is opposite to the Effects Model
o The audience is active
o The audience uses the text and is not used by it
o The audience uses the text for its own gratification or
pleasure
o The power lies with the audience not the producers
o The theory emphasises what audiences do with media
texts, how and why they use them
o The audience is free to reject, use, or play with media
meanings as they see fit

13. The Uses and Gratifications Model
Audiences
therefore use
media texts to
gratify needs
for…
Escapism
Diversion
Information
Sexual
stimulation
Pleasure
Comparing
relationships
and lifestyles
with one’s
own

14. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
(1943)

15. The Uses and Gratifications Model
o The audience is in control and consumption of the
media it helps people with issues such as
o Emotional satisfaction
o Relaxation
o Learning
o Help with issues of personal identity, social identity
and aggression and violence

16. The Uses and Gratifications Model
o Controversially, the theory suggests the
consumption of violent images can be helpful rather
than harmful
o The theory suggests that audiences act out their
violent impulses through the consumption of media
violence
o The audiences inclination towards violence is
therefore sublimated, and they are less likely to
commit violent acts

17. Reception Theory
o Given that the Effects Model and the Uses and
Gratifications Model have their problems and
limitations a different approach to audiences was
developed by Stuart Hall in the 1970’s
o This considered how texts were encoded with the
meaning by producers and then decoded
(understood) by audiences

18. Reception Theory
o Stuart Hall developed three types of audience
readings (decoding) of a media text..
o Dominant or preferred
o Negotiated
o Oppositional

19. 1) Dominant or preferred
o Where the audience decodes the message as the
producer wants them to do and broadly agrees with
it
o For example, watching a political speech and
agreeing with it

20. 2) Negotiated
o Where the audience accepts, rejects or refines
elements of the text in light of previously held views
o For example, neither agreeing or disagreeing with
the political speech or being disinterested

21. 3) Oppositional
o Where the dominant meaning is recognised but
rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons
o For example, a total rejection of the political speech
and active opposition