Audience Theories Research

Audience theories:


The Effects Theory-



The consumption of media texts has an effect upon the audience.
The effect is normally considered negatively.
The audience is passive and powerless to prevent the influence.
This model is also known as the Hypodermic needle.


The Hypodermic Needle-



The messages in the media texts are injected into the audience by the powerful media, known as syringe like.
The audience is passive and have no power to question the media.
Therefore, the media works like a drug and the audience is being injected and in drugged by the media


Evidence:

The Bobo doll experiment- This is a controversial piece of research that proved children will copy violent behaviour.

In the experiment;




Children watched a video where an adult violently attacked a clown toy called a Bobo doll.

The Children were then put into room with Bobo doll, which 88% of children imitated the violent behaviour that they viewed before. 8 months later, 40% of the children reproduced the same violent behaviour.




2. The film Child's Play 3 in the murder of James Bugler in 1993

3. The game Manhunt in the murder of Stefan Pakeerah in 2004 by his friend Warren LeBlanc.




In conclusion for the Effects Model (supported by the Bobo doll experiment) is still the dominant theory used by politicians, some media and religious organisations in attributing to the consumption of media texts.




Uses and Gratifications model-



Opposite to Effects Model, due to the audience being active.
The audience uses the text and is not used by it.
The text is used by the audience for its own gratification or pleasure.


The different ways the media is gratified are:

Diversion
Escapism
Information
Pleasure
Comparing relationships and lifestyles with their own.
Sexual stimulation.






Stuart Hall- Reception Theory

This considers how texts are encoded by the producers and the decoded by the audience.


The three ways the audience will decode the media is by:

Dominant, where the audience agrees with the text.
Negotiated, where they question media and agree with some of the media and disagree with other parts of the media.
Oppositional, where the audience rejects the media and completely disagrees.


WHY IS THIS RESEARCH IMPORTANT?

This research on audience theory is important as it makes us think about our main brief when planning ideas. Being in charge of my group it's vital for me to understand how audiences understand and interpret different forms of media, and how we want are audience to interpret our media.

Applying this to our main brief, I brought forward this information to my group and stated that it would be ideal if we can create our main brief so that the audience just takes in the media and is passive, relating to the hypodermic needle theory. However, this usually but not always is negatively affected, which most horror films actually do. So in some ways we want to aim in doing this as it means we are reaching the same levels as successful horror films, but we do not want to damage our audience.

Although, we discussed that our media could also be gratified as escapism. So we decided if we could make our media so that it allows the audience to gratify our media, which would be great.

We will use this research and it is very important in making our main brief so that the audience interprets our media positively.