Audience: Effects Theory

As well as studying target audience and Reception Theory, we also need to explore WHY audiences enjoy using and interacting with the media and what effect the media has on them.

This means learning a range of audience theories to add to our work on Stuart Hall's Reception theory. 

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. 

Two-step flow theory

This is the theory that consumers form their opinions based on opinion leaders like newspapers, politicians and, nowadays, celebrities.

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.

The 3 Vs

VISCERAL PLEASURE: Physical thrill of watching something e.g hairs on the back of your neck in a horror film, sport, big explosions. 

VICARIOUS PLEASURE: Experiencing something through the characters. 

VOYEURISTIC PLEASURE: Watching people e.g hidden camera shows / elements of reality TV like Big Brother.

Audience effects theory: Blog Tasks

Create a new blogpost called ‘Audience Effects 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 product (e.g. TV show, newspaper or videogame) for each category of Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory and WHY it fits that particular audience use/gratification. The first one is done for you: 

INFORMATION/SURVEILLANCE: Media text - The Times newspaper
 > Why: It tells audiences important information about politics, the world and more.

PERSONAL 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 or gratifications (use media terminology from Uses and Gratifications theory and the 3 Vs - notes outlined above). 

Grade 8/9 extension tasks

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.

You can read more about media effects theories on BBC Bitesize here.

Finally, think about the hypodermic needle theory. Do you think most audiences believe everything they see in the media? Why? Explain your answer and try to argue both sides.

Finish for homework if you don't complete it in the lesson - due date on Google Classroom.

Audience: Reception Theory

Reception theory is an important media theory exploring how audiences respond to media texts.

Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist who looked at the relationship between the text and the audience. He suggested that meanings are fluid and open to interpretation depending on context and the consumer’s experiences as individuals as well as communities.

Hall states there are three readings to any media text:

Preferred reading

The meaning the producers intend to communicate. This builds on the idea that producers can position the audience in a certain way and influence their reading so they accept the intended message by using recognised codes and conventions (such as stereotypes).

Negotiated reading

Somewhere between the preferred and oppositional reading. The message is modified (partly accepted and partly rejected) depending on the individual experiences of the audience (e.g their age, gender or social class).

Oppositional reading

The oppositional reading goes against the meaning the producers are trying to create. The audience reject the intended message and construct an opposite reading instead. This can be due to their own social, political or moral beliefs and values. 

Reception Theory: Blog Task

Create a new blogpost called 'Reception theory'.

1) What is the preferred reading of a media text?

2) What is the oppositional reading of a media text?

Re-watch the trailer for the film Harry Brown:

3) How does the Harry Brown trailer position the audience to respond to the teenage characters in the film?

4) Why might young people reject this reading and construct an oppositional reading of the trailer?

Look at this McDonald's advert:

5) Write a 150+ word analysis of the McDonald's advert using preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings.

Grade 8/9 Extension tasks: 

Find your own advertisement and write a 150+ word analysis using preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings.

Watch the rest of the Plan B TEDx lecture about his plan to help disadvantaged young people through film and music. Do you agree that he presents a positive view of young people?

Finish for homework if you don't complete this during this week's lessons - Due date on SatchelOne.

Audience classification: Demographics and Psychographics

The first aspect of the Audience key concept we need to study is how media companies target and classify audiences.

In order to do this, we need to learn about audience demographics and psychographics. These are two crucial aspects of how audiences are classified and identified by media companies. 

Notes from today's lesson on Audience

Demographic classification:

• Age
• Gender
• Education
• Social class
• Race/ethnicity
• Job/profession/earnings
• Home (city/village/countryside)

Social class classification

Advertisers have traditionally classified people into the following groups:

• AB – Managerial and professional 
• C1 – Supervisory and clerical 
• C2 – Skilled manual 
• DE – Unskilled manual and unemployed

Audience profiling

Advertisers these days are interested in more than just a social class classification. Now they try to sell a brand or lifestyle and therefore need to know more about their audience than simply age, gender or where they live.

So we also need to think about the kind of brands audiences are interested in and what this says about their lifestyle and interests. Is this product aimed at people who buy Armani and Porsche? Banana Republic and Apple? John Lewis and The Times? Lush and the Vegan Store? Peppa Pig and Haribo? The brands we buy or like say a lot about our personality and attitudes in life.

Psychographics

Media companies use audience profiling to create a more detailed picture of their audience. This means looking at the audience's personality, interests and the brands and lifestyle they enjoy. Young and Rubicam identified a range of different groups that became known as Psychographics. You can revise the different psychographic groups here.

Demographics and Psychographics: blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called 'Demographics and Psychographics'.

1) What information do media companies use to create a demographic profile of their audience?

2) Why are media companies and advertisers increasingly using audience profiling and not just demographics?

3) What are the seven different Pychographic groups? 

4) Write a brief summary of what each Psychographic group is seeking or motivated by.

5) What psychographic group or groups do YOU belong in? Think about your own interests and lifestyle and explain your decision. Remember, you may fit into two or three different groups! 

Extension tasks

This is a more detailed A Level explanation of the different Psychographic groups so revise the psychographic groups here.

You can read more about audience targeting on BBC Bitesize here.

Due date: on Google Classroom

Introduction to Media: Blog Index

We have almost completed our first half-term of GCSE Media Studies and have our first assessment approaching.  

You've already covered lots of excellent content and have started developing the analytical writing skills you will need in the exams next year.

Introduction to Media - index so far

We now need to create an index of all our blogposts so far. This process is an excellent start to our ongoing revision and will also highlight if you've missed anything through absence. Your index should include the following:

1) First blog task - 10 questions

2) Poster Analysis
3) Denotation and Connotation

4) Introduction to Photoshop
5) Mise-en-scene: Stranger Things
6) Camerawork - Doctor Who: Shots and angles

7) Camera Movement and Editing

8) Blog feedback and learner response

For your index, the text should link to YOUR corresponding blogpost so you can access your work quickly and easily for checking and revision. This also means if you have missed anything you can catch up with the work and notes and won't underperform in assessments and exams due to gaps in your knowledge.

Creating your index

To create your index, first copy the list of work above and paste it as plain text into a new blogpost called 'GCSE Media Autumn term index'. Then, open your Media blog in another tab and use your blog archive to open up all your work from last term. For each post, copy the URL - this is the web address that will end .blogspot.com/name of the post. For example: 

https://mediamacguffingcseyear1.blogspot.com/2020/01/representation-introduction.html

Once you've got the hang of it, you should find the index only takes 10 minutes to produce. 

First Media assessment

Your first Media assessment is coming up shortly - exact date specified by your teacher. You will need to revise everything in this index for the assessment.

Good luck!