2. Audience
Can be described by the following factors
Location - where they consume it, ,home,
cinema etc
Consumption – by what they consume, eg
genre
Size – mass or niche
Subjectivity – what membership of pre-
existing groups will have e.g gender ethnicity,
age, sexuality ,religion etc
3. Why is audience important?
Metz (1975) brings to our attention that no
one is forced to go to the cinema and pay for
a ticket.Yet without that money the
institutions would not have the money to
make other films. So what has to be set up is
a system where the spectator has a desire to
visit the cinema and pay for his ticket.
4. TV
Has the same issues around audience
Ien Ang “ It is not surprising then that a
constant need is felt within the institution to
‘catch’, ‘ capture’ or ‘lay hold of an audience’.
Audiences must be constantly seduced,
attracted , lured”
Raymond Williams (1974) there is a ‘deep
contradiction between centralised
transmission and privatised reception’
5. Audience theory – overview
There are 3 main theories
The Effects Model
Uses and Gratifications Model
Reception Model
6. Effects Model
The consumption of media texts has an effect
or influence upon the audience.
Normally considered to be negative.
This models considers the audience to be
passive and powerless to resist media
message.
That messages are injected into the audience
and that’s why also called the Hypodermic
Model
7. Evidence
Comes form two sources
The Frankfurt School who theorised in the
1920s and 30s that media acted to control
audience for benefits of capitalism and
governments. Marxist approach.
The Bobo Doll experiment- apparently
showed children copying violent behaviour
that they had seen in media
8. The Frankfurt School
Herbert Marcuse thought that the mass media defined the
terms in which we may think about the world ( Bennett
1982)
The means of... communication..., the irresistible output of
the entertainment and information industry carry with
them prescribed attitudes and habits, certain intellectual
and emotional reactions which bind the consumers... to the
producers and, through the latter to the whole [social
system].The products indoctrinate and manipulate; they
promote a false consciousness which is immune against its
falsehood...Thus emerges a pattern of one-dimensional
thought and behaviour. (Marcuse, cited in Bennett 1982:
43).
9. Marcuse in a nutshell
The media, the advertisers and institutions
work together to quieten any opposition to
the dominant system, to the way things are.
So there is no intellectual debate on the big
issues which then leads to a very one
dimensional society.
10. Frankfurt School - critique
I think it is hard to contradict this idea of
agenda setting back in the day but now with
so many means of expression it becomes
weaker, but not completely discreditied.
Many critics of this school feel that this
represented a reintroduction of Marx’s ideas
about mediation, or media as purveyors of a
dominant ideology that destroyed the
possibility that audiences for mass media
were able to work against these ruling ideas.
11. Effects Model blamed
The film Childs Play 3- murder of James Bulger
1993
The film Clockwork Orange 1971 for a series of
rapes and violent attacks
The film Severance ( 2006) in the murder of
Simon Everitt
Turning us into couch potatoes mindlessly
consuming its output
Producing ‘copycat’ behaviour eg violence,
shopping
12. Uses and Gratifications Model
This is in contradiction to Effect Model
A term coined by Blumler and Katz in the 1970s
Considers the audience to be active
The audience uses the text and not the other
way round
The audience uses the text for its own needs and
will gain gratification or pleasure from it
The audience is free to reject ,use or play with
the texts meaning
13. Denis McQuail(1987) in Mass
Communication Theory- Uses
Information – finding out about the world, seeking
advice and opinion, general interest, learning,
gaining security through knowledge
Personal Identity – reinforcement for personal
values , models of behaviour, identifying with valued
other, gaining personal insight
Integration – social empathy, identifying with others
sense of belonging, basis for conversation, enabling
one to connect with family, friends and society
Entertainment – diversion, ,relaxing, cultural or
aesthetic enjoyment, time filler, emotional release,
sexual arousal
14. Denis McQuail
Argues that a persons social circumstances
and psychological disposition together
influence a persons general habits of media
use…beliefs and expectations about the
benefits offered by media, will shape
consumption followed by an assessment of
the value of the experience with
consequences for further media consumption
15. Ien Ang
Argues that the dominant ideology can
organise social debate and individual
evaluation of popular culture even though it
can not determine the U&G the audience puts
it to.
17. implication
Audience use it to help with
Learning
Emotional satisfaction
Relaxation
Help with issues around personal identity
Help with issues around social identity
18. U&G Model - violence
This model suggests that rather than cause
copycat violence, the media can help
audience act out their violent impulses
through consumption of media violence and
are therefore less likely to act out their urges.
Controversial!!
19. Reception Model
Developed by Stuart Hall in the 1970s
Considered how texts were encoded with a
meaning or message by producers and then
decoded ( understood) by audience which
will sometimes be what the produced
intended, or sometimes be misunderstood.
20. Classic Communication model
A message
Encoded for medium - interference
Transmitted over medium
Decoded ready for receiving – interference
Message received
21. Three different readings
According to Stuart Hall there are three ways a
media text can be decoded
Dominant or preferred reading – audience
decode message as producer intended and
broadly agrees with it
Negotiated reading – audience accepts, rejects
or refines elements in light of held views
Oppositional reading – dominant meaning
recognised but rejected for cultural, ideological
or political reasons
22. News Values – a slight diversion
London Riots
To understand the dominant reading you
should understand the ideology
BBC – national station with large audience
Selected these as one of the most important
stories of the day
The dominant reading therefore constructs
youth as out of control
23. Outdated
All of these models are old and constructed
at least thirty years ago when
TV 4 free to air channels
Analogue radio
Press and magazines
Cinemas andVHS
Home video games consoles
24. Reception
Where and how do you receive media texts?
Are there times when you receive more than one
at a time?
What are the different platforms you use to
receive media?
Does the emphasis on interactive technology
make the audience more or less likely to be
passive?
Do the new media technologies provide
alternative uses and gratifications?
25. Putting it all together
What reasons do the audience have to
consume your product?
Who is intended audience? How do you
know?
What did you do to attract an audience?
How did you take into account the views of
your potential audience?
Include your management of the micro
elements in your answer.