Audience Theory - Revision

1. Audience Theory - Revision

2. Uses and Gratifications Blumler and Katz: • Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine. • Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life • Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts • Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains

3. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

4. Mass Audience Theory – The Hypodermic Syringe Model- mass audience theory • According to the theory the media is like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience who as a powerless mass have little choice but to be influenced- in other words, you watch something violent, you may go and do something violent, you see a woman washing up on T.V. and you will want to do the same yourself if you are a woman and if you are a man you will expect women to do the washing up for you. • The audience in this case would be seen as passive audiences.

5. Two-Step Flow Theory The ideology is FILTERED by ‘opinion leaders’ and passed on to less active associates.

6. Stuart Hall’s Reading the Media – Active Audience Theory • Dominant, or Preferred Reading • How the director/creator wants the audience to view the media text • Opposition Reading • When the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own meaning of the text • Negotiated Reading • a compromise between the dominant and opposition readings, where the audience accepts parts of the director's views, but has their own views on parts as well.