Audience Theory

We had a lesson today looking at audience theory and the different perceptions of the media's influence on audience.

We began by discussing that when we listen to music or go to the cinema, we are part of a mass audience. However, we are physically distanced by this. From this, we went on to talk about differnt media products and whether they are consumed by the audience alone or as a group. This was interesting as we agreed that television is accpeted as a medium for independent viewing or as part of a group, depending on the situation. Similarly, listening to music. However, using your mobile phone or surfing the internet is a more personal connection with media. This interested me as it was something I had not previously considered.

Target audeiences of certain media products was our next task. Miss Street asked us to discuss different programmes and what audience they were aimed at. Channel 4 news was the first point of discussion which sparked up quite a debate concerning the type of the audience, many people argued that the news should be accessible to everyone. However, it became obvious as we thought more deeply about the content of the programme that the it's target audience is young proffessional males within the 20-50 age bracket, this was on account of the predominantly male cast of news readers and the serious format. The next programme we discussed was Hollyoaks, we agreed that the young charcters and risque subject matter made it most appealing to females aged 14-24. This was a good recap on target audiences which is imortant to be fully aware of when entering into directing your own media product.

Various Different audience theories were then discussed:

Hypodermic Syringe:
My understanding of this theory is that the media injects ideoloies into their mass audience, and as a powerless consumer we sit back and accept this. Very much like the James Bulger murder case in which Jon Venables and Robert Thompson who claimed to have murdered the two year old after watching the violent horror film 'Child's Play 2'. The flaw in this theory however, is that you can argue not everyone is affected by films or computer games in such a way as to carry out the violene they have witnessed, and only mentally unstable people would have the potential to do so.

The Culmination Theory:
This theory explores the belief that one media text alone does not have a great effect on the consumer. However, years and years of watching violence will make you less sensitive to the horror of it. For example. after seeing wonen being beaten up in the media for several years will de-sensitise to and and less bothered by it in real life.

Two Step Flow:
Masses will experience the media individually and in different ways but will come together and discuss what they have seen. It is ultimately the discussion that can influence the consumer.

Uses and Gratifications Theory:
While we make choices about what we watch, we also have certain expectations; we expect to be gratified by what we watch.

The Three Is and the Two Es:
- I nformation - to be informed/educated.
- I dentification - to identify with characters/situations.
- I nteraction - for social interaction.
- E ntertainment - to be entertained.
- E scapism - to escape from daily troubles.

Encoding/Decoding:
Will everybody watching the same programme react in the same way? Expect the audience to decode the way we as a director encodes it but understand everyone reads a media text in a certain way.