Audience Theory Analysis

Hypodermic Needle Theory

• The Frankfurt school (a group of media theorists in the 1920's and 1930's) were concerned about the possible effects of mass media.
• They proposed the effects model, which considered society to be composed of isolated individuals who were susceptible to media messages.
• They developed the media like a hypodermic needle. They said that there was no one that is not passive with media.  This is one of the earliest ways of which the media impacts mass audiences. There is no individual differences between people. 

The Two Step Flow

• Developed by Lazarsfeld and katz in the 1940's and the 1950's.

Two steps:

• The opinion leaders get information from media sources.
• The opinion leaders then pass the information, along with the interpretation to others.

In this theory, audiences are not passive. But active.  This means they will question the news sources.

During the 1960's, as the first generation gew up with television became grown ups, it became increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they were watching.

Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974: Uses and Gratification: 

• Diversion- Escape from everyday problem and routine.
• Personal Relationships- Using the media for emotional and other interaction.
• Personal identity- Finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from text.
• Surveillance- Information which could be useful for living.

David Morley- Television studies

• Dominant reading: The reader shares the programme's code and fully accepts the programme's preferred reading.
• Negotiated reading: The reader partly shares the programme's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but modifies it in which a way which reflects their position and interests.
• Oppositional: When you watch it and you completely reject the preferred reading, bring to bear an alternative frame of interpretational.

Using uses and gratification, i will now analysis B-Story's Back Then.

Uses and Gratification	Example	How does it appeal to the reader?
Diversion: Entertainment and escapism	The idea of escapism is shown in this video with the relation of time travel, and the notion of undoing/changing the past.	This will draw the audience into the video with a hint of nostalgia and an understanding that this is not reality.
Personal relationship	Emotional Connection to the main character.	The Video creates emotions for the audience as they relate the feelings that the character is experiencing. They also feel sympathy for the character as they empathise with him.
Personal Identity	Relations to the characters.	Anyone watching the video that's experiened loss will relate to the video.
Survellance and information	N/A	N/A