Theory - Audience theories

1 - Hypodermic needle model, 1920's
- first attempt to explain how mass audience reacts to mass media
- audiences passively receive information via media text, without realising or making effort to
- radio and cinema were new at the time
- government had discovered power of advertising to communicate messages, produced propaganda to sway thinking
- popular during 1st world war in Europe and aftermath
This suggests that information is passed into the mass consciousness of the audience unmediated. The experience, intelligence and option of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text. As an audience we are the creators of media texts, our behavior and thinking may easily be changed by media makers. This theory assumes audiences are passive and heterogeneous. This theory was also quoted during moral panic.

2 - Two step flow
- Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Bevelson and Hazel Gaudet analysed voters decision making processes during the 1940's presidential election campaign.
- information does not flow directly into minds of its audience unmediated, it is filtered through opinion leaders
- opinion leaders communicate to less active associates proving influence
- audience then mediate information received direct from media with ideas and thoughts expressed by opinion leaders.

In conclusion people are influenced by the two step flow and not directly this is referred to as limited effects paradigm.

3 - Uses and Gratifications, 1960's - 1974
- audiences were made up of activity consumed texts for different reasons, in different ways.
- 1948 Laswell suggested media texts had the following functions for individuals and society; surveillance
correlation
entertainment
culture transmission
- 1974 Blulmer and Katz stated individuals might chose a text for the following purpose;
diversion - escape from everyday problem
personal relationships - use media for emotion and other interactions
personal identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts
surveillance - information which could be useful for living (weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains)

- since 1974 uses and gratifications have been extended due to new media form such as music videos, video games and the Internet.

Reception theory, 1980's and 1990's
- Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model of relationships between audience and text
text encoded by producer
decoded by the viewer
- possible differences between reading of code due to peoples circumstances, for example gender, class, age and ethnicity
- by using recognised codes and conventions and drawing upon audience expectations relating to aspects such as stars and genre, produducers can position the audience and create a certain amount of agreement to what the code means (preffered reading)