Audience theory

As well as studying target audience demographics and psychographics, we also need to explore WHY audiences use the media.

Audience theory: key notes and terminology

Passive & Active

Passive: This is the view that audiences passively take in information from the media and that these messages have the same effect on everyone.

Active: This is the more modern and generally accepted view that audiences interact with and make conscious choices regarding the media they consume.

Hypodermic Needle Theory

This is the suggestion that audiences are always passive and therefore take the intended message from the producer as if it was injected into their minds. This assumes no individual difference in audience members. 

Uses and Gratifications - Blumler & Katz

INFORMATION/SURVEILLANCE: learning information that you did not already know or that is useful for living (e.g. documentaries; weather or traffic). 

IDENTITY: personally relating to something - seeing your lifestyle on screen.

DIVERSION/ENTERTAINMENT: escapism and being entertained away from your normal life.

RELATIONSHIPS: social interaction, caring about characters or celebrities, forming relationships e.g watching a soap opera for a long time because you care about what happens to long-standing characters.

Audience theory: blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called ‘Audience Theory’ and complete the following tasks:

1) Write a definition of a passive audience: 

2) Write a definition of an active audience: 

3) Write a definition of the hypodermic needle theory: 

4) Write down a media text for each category of Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory and WHY it fits that particular audience use/gratification: 

INFORMATION/SURVEILLANCE:  
 > Why:

IDENTITY:
 > Why:  

DIVERSION/ENTERTAINMENT: 
 > Why:

RELATIONSHIPS:
 > Why: 

5) Re-watch the clip from Blue Planet above and write a paragraph analysing how elements of the clip offer the audience pleasures (use media terminology from Uses and Gratifications theory - notes outlined above). 

Extension: To take this further, select a media text of your own choice, embed it in your blog and write another detailed paragraph analysing the audience pleasures in that product.

Finish for homework if you don't complete it in the lesson - due next Thursday.