audience theory

The audience is the people who consume a media product.
 A mainstream audience means the text is attempting to appeal to a very wide range of people.
A niche audience, which means they appeal only to a small group of people.
 Crossover audience, which means when a media text has been aimed at a target audience but can still be appealing to people outside of this demographic. They are audiences other than the main targeted audience that watch/buy/listen to the product as well.
Demographics are one way of dividing up the audience into certain groups. Each group is assumed to have similar ideas and interests. Media institutions use this idea of demographic groups to target their media products.
GEARS = Audiences can be defined by their Gender, Ethnicity, Age (stage), Region/Nationality and Socio-economic group (occupation).
Psychographic segmentation divides the market into groups based on social class, attitudes, values, interests, lifestyle and personality characteristics. It is based on the assumption that the types of products and brands an individual purchases will reflect that person’s characteristics and patterns of living.





Cultivation theory examines the long-term effects of television. "The primary proposition of cultivation theory states that the more time people spend 'living' in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality aligns with reality portrayed on television." -George Gerber

Reception theory as developed by Stuart Hall asserts that media texts are encoded and decoded. The producer encodes messages and values into their media which are then decoded by the audience. However, different audience members will decode the media in different ways and possibly not in the way the producer originally intended.

Stuart Hall states that audience members adopt one of the following three positions when they decode the text:

Dominant, or Preferred Reading - how the producer wants the audience to view the media text. Audience members will take this position if the messages are clear and if the audience member is the same age and culture; if it has an easy to follow narrative and if it deals with themes that are relevant to the audience.

Oppositional Reading - when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own meaning for the text. This can happen if the media contains controversial themes that the audience member disagrees with. It can also arise when the media has a complex narrative structure perhaps not dealing with themes in modern society. Oppositional reading can also occur if the audience member has different beliefs or is of a different age or a different culture.

Negotiated Reading - a compromise between the dominant and oppositional readings, where the audience accepts parts of the producer's views, but has their own views on parts as well. This can occur if there is a combination of some of the above e.g. audience member likes the media, is of the same age as you and understands some of the messages, but the narrative is complex and this inhibits full understanding.

Many factors could affect whether the audience take the dominant, oppositional or negotiated reading.

• Age
• Beliefs
• Culture
• Gender
• Life experience
• Mood at the time of viewing    

The Hypodermic needle theory is a linear communication theory that suggests that media messages are injected directly into the brains of passive audiences.

he Hypodermic theory comes from a fear of the mass media, and gives the media much more power than it can ever have in a democracy. The concept ignores the idea that not everyone in an audience behaves in the same way. How can an audience be passive –there will be many times when you have disagreed with something you have seen on television or failed to laugh at a comedy show or just thought a TV programme was terrible.

Uses and Gratifications theory as developed by Bulmer and Katz suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media. Bulmer and Katz believed that the user seeks out the media source that best fulfils their needs.

The uses and gratifications theory assumes the audience chooses what it wants to watch for five different reasons.

Information and Education – the viewer wants to acquire information, knowledge and understanding by watching programmes like The News or Documentaries.

Entertainment – Viewers watch programmes for enjoyment.

Personal Identity - Viewers can recognise a person or product, role models that reflect similar values to themselves and mimic or copy some of their characteristics.

Integration and social interaction – the ability for media products to produce a topic of conversation between people. For example who is the best contestant on The X-factor who which was the best goal shown on Match of the day.

Escapism – Computer games and action films let viewers escape their real lives and imagine themselves in those situations

Two - Step Flow Theory was developed by Katz and Lazarsfeld. The theory consists of two steps:

Firstly - opinion leaders get information from a media source.

Secondly – opinion leaders then pass their own interpretation along to others such as friends and family members (the influenced).

Opinion leaders pay close attention to the media and its message. They are influential among their peer group as they are usually more informed then their friends or family.

The influenced are not as well informed and so look up to the opinion leaders and crucially trust their opinion and interpretation of the media.

Examples of Two – Step flow theory include elections for example in the 2017 UK general Prime Minister Teresa May did not take part in an election debate with six other party leaders. An opinion leader may have watched the debate and then told their friends who did not watch the debate that the Prime Minister bottled out as she was scared to debate with the other leaders.

Fashion magazines also offer a good example of Two – Step flow theory where they act as the opinion leader telling their readers what next seasons trends are.