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Audience Theory
An Introduction
There are three important questions:
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Does the media affect our behaviour or beliefs?
If it does produce an effect how can this be explained and measured?
To what extent do we ignore or subvert media messages?
In general there seem to be two main approaches to the study of audiences.
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What does the media do to us?(The passive audience)
What do we do with the media?(The active audience)
Passive audience models (Effects models)
1. The hypodermic syringe
This the earliest model of media effects has two main features:
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The effect is fairly immediate
It is a simple stimulus-response model of human behaviour.
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. Consequently:
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It is a transmission model of communication.
The message encoded by the sender is the message received by the audience, unless there are
obstacles that corrupt the message.
There seem to be two areas of concern here: violence and political attitudes.
Problems with the theory
The assumptions that mass audience theory makes about the members of the audience.
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The audience has no role in the creation of meaning-there is textual determinism.
Elitism- in other words that it suggests a value judgement about these masses- that they are easily
led and not so perceptive and self- aware as the theorists who are analysing them.
The media are often experienced by people alone.
Wherever they are in the world, the audience for a media text are all receiving exactly the same
thing. That is the text is understood in the same way by anyone watching.
These assumptions lead to certain methodological conclusions-if the media has an effect then it can be
measured. These measurements can then be displayed numerically. A development of the direct effect
approach is to argue that media effects are mediated and that the texts themselves only provide the
potential for certain types of behaviour.
2. Two-step flow theory
This theory brings the social into media effects analysis. The audience is not viewed as consisting of
isolated individuals. We share our experiences and ideas with others. The theory is called two step because
the first step is the media text reaching an individual and the second step is the way that the initial
message is interpreted in a social setting.
Thus the impact of the media is not direct but mediated by the influence of other people, in particular the
influence of people whose opinions we respect. (The theory calls these people opinion leaders.)
Problems with theory
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People are presented as conditioned by their environment and unable to transcend it.
The extent to which opinions are foisted on people by those with power.
Active audience models (Effects models)
These models are based on a simple idea-that no text has one meaning. The meaning has to be
extracted(decoded) by the receiver. In other words the transmission model of communication is rejected
and is replaced with the idea that reality is socially constructed. As receivers we are constantly trying to
make sense of information we receive-the media message does not have a monopoly on meaning. Texts are
viewed as polysemic(have multiple meanings). A text may have a preferred reading-the meaning intended by
the person producing it but that meaning can be undermined when decoded by the audience. The earliest
attempt to try and account for an active audience is uses and gratifications theory.
3. Uses and Gratifications
This theory emphasizes the different ways in which people use media products. In other words we use the
media to achieve some personal purpose. Even the same piece of media product can be used by different
people to obtain differing satisfactions.
McQuail(1972) suggests four broad types of use:
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Diversion: an entertainment, something to do, a relaxation.
Personal relationships: We can become involved in the social lives of the people presented in media
texts. We obtain knowledge of the range of behaviours possible and probable in relationships with
others. We can learn about the dynamics of interaction with others. We can learn empathy.
Personal Identity: We can identify with characters presented by the media. We can receive
confirmation of the sort of person we see ourselves as being. We can see ourselves in others and
know what sort of person we are.
Surveillance: Simply feeling informed, knowing what’s happening.
Problems with the theory
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Some media products are. ‘in your face’, we cannot always choose not to receive them-posters, loud
music.
We don’t have free choice. We can only choose from what is available.
The potential to use and enjoy the media products depends to some extent on access and this can
depend upon how affluent you are.
Minorities may feel that the media excludes them by not providing texts in which they are
interested.
The media can create rather than respond to needs.
It ignores the cultural and social factors than structure audience responses.
4. Reception analysis
Moving beyond the idea that audiences use the media in different ways. Reception analysis takes a closer
look at what is actually going on. Reception analysis concentrates on the audience themselves and how they
come to a particular understanding view of a text.
To some extent it is obvious that each of us will decode texts in ways that reflect our personal
biographies-our own histories. So gender, class, occupation and personal circumstance may all be important
in determining how we decode a text.
Once it is accepted that audiences are active, that they construct meanings, there are obvious implications
for research methodology. Quantitative research is not suited to investigating the construction of
meaning. To understand the meanings that people take from a text it is necessary to get closer to individual
audience members and engage with them at a personal level-qualitative research becomes a necessity. Once
this research technique is employed simple answers become impossible, complexity takes over.
Problems with the theory
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An audience may be able to extract their own meaning from a text but someone constructed that
particular text in the first place.
The suggestion that the audience possesses the potential to read any meaning from a given text.
The neglect of forces-economic, political and ideological, that limit the possible decoding of a text.
Reception analysis ignores the context of everyday life
Authors of texts are able to frame and anchor texts. Audiences evaluate a text rather than give a
preferred reading.
The potential for subversion of a text is limited by the audiences knowledge of the issues
considered.
5. Media Themes model (the ‘now’ theory 2006)
One response to the two previous themes is to combine them. Thus the media themes model recognizes
that audiences are active but that the range of their likely responses is conditioned by the media
representation of them. This is the approach fostered by the Glasgow University Media Group, and in
particular Greg Philo.
Problems with the theory
What problems could you see with this model?
Cultural Effects
It has proved remarkably difficult to establish any casual relationship between media texts and peoples
behaviour. One approach has been to argue that effects, if any, will be more subtle and long term. Instead
of the direct effect of the hypodermic model there is I some cases the ‘drip drip’ effect of constant
exposure to certain messages, in others the audience will accept media messages rather uncritically and in
other cases resist media texts. Clearly this suggests not only different types of media text but also the
idea of different audiences.