Research on Audience Theories

"Audience Theory" is the starting point for many Media Studies Tasks. Whether one is constructing a text or analysing one, you will need to consider the target audience and how they will respond to that text. Over the course of the past century or so, media analysts have developed several effects models of how audiences take-in information which they are receiving via the media and how/ in what way this may influence their behaviour. Some audience theories call for more censorship, whilst others for less control. The theory is developed in order to find out to what extent it is that the media influences the audience's behaviour and moreover how the audience take-in what information they are receiving from the media.

10 Key Words which link to "Audience Theory" include :
- Hyperdermic Needle Model; early attempt in the 1930's and 1940's to explain the effects media texts have on audiences.

-Two Step Flow; a passive audience theory that sees media messages as reaching a mass audience in two stages.

- Use of gratifications theory; an active audience theory, developed by Jay Blumler and Elihu Katz (1975), that focuses on 'what people do with the media', rather than what the media does to people, arguing that audiences are free to pick and choose from a wide range of media products to satisfy their own needs

- Reception Theory; also known as 'audience studies' is an active audience theory, associated with the work of John Fiske, Michel de Certeau and researcher David Morley, which sees the audience as being actively engaged in the interpretation of media texts rather than as passive consumers.

- Active Audience Theory; any various theories of audience behaviour that sees the audience as active participants in the process of decoding and making sense of media texts.

- Audience; the groups or individuals targeted by producers as the intended consumers of media texts. Owing to the wide availability of media texts, the actual viewers, readers or listeners may not be those originally targeted.

- Audience Flow; in television scheduling, the extension of an audience by, for example, placing a new comedy after an established one, or by clustering similar programmes together.

- Audience Participation; the practice of involving the audience in television and radio productions by inviting their votes or opinions or their direct participation in activities that form the basis of the programme.

- Audience Profile; an advertising and marketing term for the demographic and personal characteristics of members of the target audience for a media product.

- Audience Theory; any various theories about behaviour of audiences with regard to media texts.

Red Herrings;

Misogyny – Hatred or contempt of women or girls

Patriarchy – An influence structure of practices and ideologies which favour the masculine over the feminine

Self Objectification – Powerful, independent artists who are sexually provocative and ‘in control of’ or ‘inviting’ a sexual gaze

Feminism – A movement in which women questioned their position within patriarchal society and the ‘private sphere’ of ‘home/children/domestic bliss’

Post-Feminism – Does not strive for ‘equality’ as this assumes men are ‘the best’ – they wish to surpass male achievements