Audience Theory in

Media
The effects

Audience theory
These 3 questions can help figure out
how to best respond to a target
audience

Why ? would our audience

choose to consume texts
How ? they consume the text
What ? happens after text is
consumed

Audience theory
There are 3 main theories that allow
us to better understand the link and
relationship between the audience
and the text.

Effects model
Hypodermic model
Mass media

Individuals are injected with powerful ideas and

influences that they soon find themselves addicted to and
become reliant on. Mass media is used to create an
overwhelming social perception which the audience buys into
becoming powerless to reject.

Effects model
Research
There are many experiments and theories that have been
produced to support this theory over the decades such as:

Bobo the doll experiment (Albert Bandura 1961). This

theory tested if children are shown violence towards a
doll by an adult via a video. They were then placed in a
room with the same doll unaware they were being filmed.
88% of children imitated the violent behaviour towards
the doll, this seemed to prove that by viewing violence
this behaviour, they would then go on to rein act that
violence themselves.

Effects model
This idea of people and children being influenced by the media
to promote violence and harm has led to an outcry from
politicians and religious organisations to ban films, change laws
and even burn certain media. It is looked on as a negative
means to promote inactivity in young people who would
persuaded to spend their time consumed by meaningless media
influences or worse copycat acts of violence that would
brake up communities and society as a whole.
Although NO case has subsequently been found to directly link
texts and acts of violence, people would agree the effect of
media is definitely a

powerful one.

Effects model
There is no solid evidence if there is in
fact a link between:
Consumption of violent media
imitative violent behaviour

As people who watch violent text appear

to not be influenced by violent behaviour a
new theory is necessary

The uses and gratification

model
So what is the basis of this theory ?
A. The uses and gratification model is the
opposite of the effects model
B. The audience is seen as active and
therefore uses the texts and is not used
by the texts
C. The audience uses the texts to gain a
sense of their own gratification or
pleasure

The uses and gratification

model
This theory infers that the audience has
the power and not the producers
It emphasises what that the audience do
with the with the media texts and how
they use it
The audience are free to decided whether
they choose to accept, reject or challenge
the media as they wish

The uses and gratification

model
The audience are free to use the
media to gratify their needs for a
range of reasons such as:
Escapism
Information
Sexual stimulation
Insight into a comparison of lifestyle
Division

The uses and gratification

model
This idea of audience empowerment
provides its viewers with:

The uses and gratification

model
The theory suggests that the consumption of
violent images and media maybe helpful as
apposed to harmful

Reception theory
The effect model as well as The
uses and gratification model
show the theories to have its
boundaries and problems.
An alternative approach to the
audience was later developed by
Stuart Hall at the Birmingham
university in 1970s.

Reception theory
Stuart Halls theory was based on the idea the
producer of the media content encoding a text with
a message or meaning the producer wants to
convey and how the audience then decodes that
text or message.
In some cases the audience decode the message
as intended, understanding what the producer
wanted to say
Other cases may show that the audience will fail to
understand the intended message or even reject
the message completely.

Reception theory
Stuart Halls studies showed that there are
3 main outcomes from the audience
consuming the text

By Zak Kadri