Audience Theory

Audiences can respond to, use and interpret texts in different ways. This relationship between the audience and the media text is fluid and will change at different times. The idea that the meaning in the media text is unchanging and interpreted in the same way by the whole audience is wrong, as it depends on the audiences cultural and social experiences as to how the ideas are received and interpreted in different ways.

Stuart Hall suggests that there are three ways in which the audience can respond to a media text;

• PREFERED READING - understanding and decoding the meaning the way the producer meant it to be
• NEGOTIATED - the audience understands the meaning the producer intended, and may agree with some parts and not others
• OPPOSITIONAL - the meaning is seen as the opposite or different to what the producer intended

If this theory is correct, then media text cannot have a static meaning and the producer cannot predict how the text will be received.

 There are four main effect theories which deal with how media effects the audience that uses them, these are; HYPODERMIC NEEDLE, TWO STEP FLOW, USES AND GRATIFICATIONS, RECEPTION THEORY. 

HYPODERMIC NEEDLE

States the audience is passive and just accepts what the media tells and/or gives them. Although it can be seen as outdated, it is still the basis of the government wanting to control the media in order to control the public.  Although this theory was never held by theorists, the idea that the media is so powerful that it can inject ideas into the audience comes into discussing frequently. 

TWO STEP FLOW

USES AND GRATIFICATIONS

Blumler and Katz (1974) theory states that media is used in order for the audience to gain something, in turn giving the power to the audience instead of the producer as they can refer to a media text in whatever way they want to gain something from it. The main points of this theory are; 

• NEED FOR INFORMATION RELATING TO THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND OR SOCIAL WORLD
• NEED FOR IDENTITY BY RELATING TO CHARACTERS, AND CELEBRITIES OR TO LEARN FROM THEM
• NEED FOR SOCIAL INTERACTION OR EXPERIENCE DIFFERENT RELATIONSHIPS
• NEED FOR DIVERSION

This can also be linked into Abraham Maslow's (1954) hierarchy of needs theory which states different needs that people have, starting from the basic needs to survive, working up to acceptance, these are ; 

RECEPTION THEORY

This theory recognises the audience as an essential element in the creative process. The meaning is part of the relationship between text and and audience.