Audience Theories

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  • Created by: liliamber
  • Created on: 11-04-14 10:30

Hypodermic Syringe Model

  • audience passively accepts the message 'injected' into them
  • the model believes t here is a direct correlation between violence on TV, computer games etc and the anti-social and criminal behaviour in real life
  • Example to support - Jamie Bulger Case (death was similar to the death in the Child's Play 3 film)
  • Model could be criticised - Venables and Thompson grew up in a violent  environment so media might not have influenced them.
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Inoculation Model

  • audiences who are exposed to extreme media messages will become 'immune' to them
  • long term exposure can lead to 'desensitisation'
  • Audiences can be influenced and could go on to copy
  • An example to support - 2012 Aurora Shootings - Holmes copied the behaviour from the film, police found a batman mask in his home
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Narcostising Dysfunction

  • the mass media render the audience incapable of action
  • prolonged media exposure can act like a narcotic drug on the brain, causing apathy
  • those afflicted may be termed a 'couch potato' (Homer Simpson)
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Two Step Flow Model

  • audiences are more likely to be effected by other people than the media
  • these people are termed 'opinion leaders' e.g. celebrities, political leaders
  • 'opinion leaders' close attention to the media and pass on their interpretation to the audience
  • An example to support - Kony 2012, celebrities tweeted about it, fans retweet, the video became a viral success
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Uses and Gratification Theory

  • how the audience USE the media
  • Diversion - use media to escape from everyday problems
  • Personal Identity - audience identify with characters or situations
  • Personal Relationships - audience relate to others by discussing what they've seen
  • Surveillance - audience want to obtain news and info about the world
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Reception Theory

  • communication cycle between media and audience
  • categories of media consumption or reception include:
  • Primary - consumed by a specific media text
  • Secondary - occupied in another task
  • Tertiary - unaware of purpose
  • types of media audiences include:
  • Passive - sponges absorbing everything
  • Semi-active - some action on the part of the audience will facilitate some interpretation of media messages
  •  Active - audiences capable of selecting and rejecting media messages
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Encoding and Decoding Model

  • audience vary in their response to media messages
  • media texts are usually encoded to target audience's preferred reading
  • audience doesn't always accept the preferred reading, therefore having an 'oppositional' or 'negotiated' reading
  • Preffered - reading media hope audiences will take from the text
  • Oppositional - audience members from outside the target audience may reject the preffered reading, receiving their own alternative message
  • Negotiated - audiences acknowledge preffered reading, but modify it to suit there own values and opinions
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