Today’s lectorial was useful in my research of institutions as we work towards our final project brief four. We looked at audience, with analytical approaches as Hal Hartley says in Simple Men (1991) – what about the audience?
AUDIENCE
Being able to understand and evaluate the audience successfully we must first establish which parties hold the audience to the greatest esteem. So we began by asking ourselves the question: who cares about the audience? We are the audience, so in media production, who cares about us? Number one is the advertiser. Ever since the commercialisation of media in its capitalist industry the advertiser has had the trying task of attempting to correlate viewership with the purchasing of a product. Media holds great power in that it is able to reach mass target audiences in a rapid and effective manner. Therefore the most effective way for perhaps a sports shop would be to advertise their product during a sports broadcast. That way the majority of the audience’s values would match that of those who shop at the sports shop. As such commercial broadcasters care about audience. The advertisers are where they earn their profit. A show reaching a larger audience would attract a larger price for advertising and broadcast rights. Other interest in audiences is seen through cultural theorist and media scholars, with the intent of trying to find meaning behind certain trends.
In year 12 media we looked extensively at theories of audience. We have to passive and the active audience member.
- Active audience: theory of audience who is engaged, dynamically participating in the creation of meaning and interpreting a text
- Passive audience: theory of audience who does not interact with the text, accepting the message, thereby being more susceptible to media influence
Children as an audience:
Generally large consumers
Claimed the media can have both positive and negative
Assumed unable to decipher between reality and fantasy
‘Vulnerable’ minds
| Positive Influence | Negative Influence |
| Arguably develops social interaction and inclusion | Arguably socially isolates children |
| Arguably used as an educational tool | Arguably lower levels of literacy |
With such we explored the following communication theories and models that are used in relation to audience. Some we explored in The Media Students Handbook reading from a few weeks ago when we looked at approaching media texts. To rekindle my memory in studying them I have briefly summed them up in the following:
COMMUNICATION THEORIES AND MODELS
Agenda Setting Function Theory
Explanation: 1970s, Move away from liner, top – down theory, audiences are passive, texts are open
Arguments: The media cant tell us what to think but it can tell us what to think about, set on the belief that the media can set agendas about what is discussed (select/omit)
Weaknesses: Studies look at the attempt the media shapes, not conclusive
Evidence: Kyle Effect – found a correlation between media reports of Kylie Minogue’s breast cancer scare and an increase in the number of bookings for breast cancer screening tests
Cultivation Theory
Explanation: George Gerbner, Audiences are passive, texts are closed to personal interpretation, media has powerful influence over audience
Arguments: Exposing audiences to particular attitudes or representation of reality, the media can bring change in the nature and pattern of response
Weaknesses: Difficult to prove, too reliant on statistics, audience are seen as mindless – does not acknowledge the role audience plays, doesn’t define violence – (can be funny)
Evidence: Prof Gerbner found that there was 5 traumatic incidents on TV per hour and on children’s TV, there was 20, Gerbner researched that “by the time the child graduated from high school they would have watched 13,000 violent deaths on television”
Reinforcement Theory
Explanation: Joseph Klapper and Attitude Change 1960, Amount of power the media has to change attitudes, audiences are active, texts are still open to personal interpretation, but the media can have a degree of influence in a certain situation
Arguments: If a person believes something, it is usually because of their family, peer group, religion, school, job, media can only shape or influence public opinion, media only influences people until other sources of influence un society become aware of the issue
Evidence: In ‘The effects of mass communication’, Klapper cites the 1948 study where Larzarsfeld, Bereelson and Guadet revealed that voters were predisposed to opinions and beliefs held by their families, saying ‘vote Democratic because my father would skin me if I did it’ and ‘my families are all republicans so I have to vote that way’
Uses and Gratification Model
Explanation: Audience are active, texts are open to interpretation, the media has very little power, audiences uses their media to gratify their needs
Arguments: Although the receivers of any mass communication message might all receive the same message, they will not all respond to it in the same way, focuses on the message it receives, rather that makers
Weaknesses: Although the receivers of any mass communication message might all receive the same message, they will not all respond to it in the same way, focuses on the message it receives, rather that makers
Evidence: McQuail saw that in the TV quiz ‘excitement’ was most commonly reported as a gratification by working class views – not social. Conversely those having many acquaintances in their neighborhood tended to see their quizzes as a basis of social interaction
Cultural Studies Models
Semitic Constructivist Theory
Explanation: based on the study of signs, meaning arises from the interaction of a text with a reader, denotations and connotations
Weaknesses: it is extremely hard to prove
Evidence: swastika – nazi ideology, hatred or sacred force, empowerment, good
Political Effects Models
Explanation: suggest that the media is controlled by cooperation’s who pay, such as Herman and Chomsky’s ‘propaganda model’ – a five editorially distorting filters applied to new reporting in mass media
Arguments: ‘flak’, media outlets try to avoid flak or criticism
Evidence: 1992 US studying of 150 editors, found 90% of advertising try to interfere with newspaper content
Whites Simple Gatekeeping Model
Explanation: Political effects model (same as agenda setting), not telling audiences what to think, but what to thinks about, passive as they can not choose what is bought, active because they get to make their mind up
Arguments: to put every story would be too much, have to make a selection
Weaknesses: citizen journalism, audiences can go and source media from elsewhere