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html Different media Theories: UNDERSTANDING MEDIA AUDIENCES

Researchers investigating the effect of media on audiences have considered the audience in two distinct ways. Passive Audiences The earliest idea was that a mass audience is passive and inactive. The members of the audience are seen as couch potatoes just sitting there consuming media texts particularly commercial television programmes. It was thought that this did not require the active use of the brain. The audience accepts and believes all messages in any media text that they receive. This is the passive audience model. The Hypodermic Model In this model the media is seen as powerful and able to inject ideas into an audience who are seen as weak and passive. It was thought that a mass audience could be influenced by the same message. This appeared to be the case in Nazi Germany in the 1930s leading up to WWII. Powerful German films such as Triumph of the Will seemed to use propaganda methods to inject ideas promoting the Nazi cause into the German audience. That is why this theory is known as the Hypodermic model. It suggests that a media text can inject ideas, values and attitudes into a passive audience who might then act upon them. This theory also suggests that a media text has only one message which the audience must pick up. In 1957 an American theorist called Vance Packard working in advertising wrote an influential book called The Hidden Persuaders. This book suggested that advertisers were able to manipulate audiences, and persuade them to buy things they may not want to buy. This suggested advertisers had power over audiences. In fact this has since proved to be an unreliable model, as modern audiences are too sophisticated.

Basically this theory stems from a fear of the mass media, and gives the media much more power than it can ever have in a democracy. Also it ignores the obvious fact that not everyone in an audience behaves in the same way. How can an audience be passive think of all the times you have disagreed with something on television or just not laughed at a new so called comedy, or thought a programme was awful. Active Audiences This newer model sees the audience not as couch potatoes, but as individuals who are active and interact with the communication process and use media texts for their own purposes. We behave differently because we are different people from different backgrounds with many different attitudes, values, experiences and ideas. This is the active audience model, and is now generally considered to be a better and more realistic way to talk about audiences. Uses and Gratifications Model This model stems from the idea that audiences are a complex mixture of individuals who select media texts that best suits their needs this goes back to Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. The users and gratifications model suggests that media audiences are active and make active decisions about what they consume in relation to their social and cultural setting and their needs. This was summed up by theorists Blumier and Katz in 1974; Media usage can be explained in that it provides gratifications (meaning it satisfies needs) related to the satisfaction of social and psychological needs. Put simply this means that audiences choose to watch programmes that make them feel good (gratifications) e.g. soaps and sitcoms, or that give them information that they can use (uses) e.g. news or information about new products or the world about them. Blumier and Katz (1975) went into greater detail and identified four main uses: Surveillance our need to know what is going on in the world. This relates to Maslows need for security. By keeping up to date with news about local and international events we feel we have the knowledge to avoid or deal with dangers.

Personal relationships our need for to interact with other people. This is provided by forming virtual relationships with characters in soaps, films and all kinds of drama, and other programmes and other media texts. Personal identity our need to define our identity and sense of self. Part of our sense of self is informed by making judgments about all sorts of people and things. This is also true of judgments we make about TV and film characters, and celebrities. Our choice of music, the shows we watch, the stars we like can be an expression of our identities. One aspect of this type of gratification is known as value reinforcement. This is where we choose television programmes or newspapers that have similar beliefs to those we hold. Diversion the need for escape, entertainment and relaxation. All types of television programmes can be used to wind down and offer diversion, as well as satisfying some of the other needs at the same time. The Male Gaze Laura Mulvey Feminist Theory Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema Written in 1975 The cinema apparatus of Hollywood cinema puts the audience in a masculine subject position with the woman on the screen seen as an object of desire. Film and cinematography are structures upon ideas. Protagonists tended to be men. Mulvey suggests two distinct modes of male gaze voyeuristic (women as whores) and fetishistic women as unreachable madonnas. (Also narcissistic women watching film see themselves reflected on the screen). (Film texts: Alien, Jackie Brown). People who criticise her ideas say that she is ignoring the fact that all genders male and female want to feel dominated and overwhelmed by the cinema experience. Also, she ignores the fact that men are capable of metaphoric transvestism whereby they are able to view the film from the perspective of a woman. (Thelma and Louise, The Piano, Knocked Up, Brick Lane). CONNOTATION AND DENOTATION The word connotation comes from the Latin connotare, to mark along with, and refers to the cultural meanings that become attached to words (and other forms of communication). A words connotations involve the symbolic, historic, and emotional matters connected to it. In his book Mythologies (1972), Roland Barthes, a distinguished French semiotician, addresses the cultural connotations of many aspects of French daily life, such as steak and frites, detergents, Citroen automobiles, and wrestling. Barthess purpose, he says, is to take the

world of what-goes-without-saying and show this worlds connotations and, by extension, its ideological foundations. Denotation, on the other hand, refers to the literal or explicit meanings of words and other phenomena. For example, Barbie Doll denotes a toy doll, first marketed in 1959, that was originally 11.5 inches high, had measurements of 5.25 inches at the bust, 3.0 inches at the waist, and 4.25 inches at the hips. The connotations of Barbie Doll, in contrast, are the subject of some controversy. Some scholars have suggested that the arrival of the Barbie Doll signified the end of motherhood as a dominant role for women and the importance of consumer culture, because Barbie is a consumer who spends her time buying clothes and having relationships with Ken and other dolls. The Barbie Doll doesnt prepare little girls for the traditional role of motherhood in the way other kinds of dolls doallowing them to imitate their mothers in caring for their children. Comparison of Connotation and Denotation Connotation Figurative Signified(s) Inferred Suggests meanings Realm of myth Denotation Literal Signifier(s) Obvious Describes Realm of existence A great deal of media analysis involves discovering the connotations of objects and symbolic phenomena and of the actions and dialogue of the characters in textsthat is, the meanings these may have for audiences and tying these meanings to social, cultural, ideological, and other concerns.

Uses and Gratifications Theory

The argument underpinning this approach is that audiences use the media- not vice versa. Uses and gratifications theory moves away from fears of effects to fulfillment of needs. The theory goes like this. Human beings are deemed to have various social and physiological needs these needs generate certain expectations of the media (as well as the food we eat, the car we dive etc) that are then sort out and selected in order to rely those expectations, resulting in needs gratifications. An obviously analogy would be the act of eating a meal when we need to satisfy our hunger, and the subsequent gratification we experience if the meal meets our expectations. Likewise, we play video games and watch stand-up comedy on TV in order to gratify our need for excitement or laughter. The need always precedes the effect, meaning that media effects are self regulated, wholly beneficial and tailored to temporal moods and whims.

So uses and gratifications theory treats audiences as active and intelligent in their media choices and uses. It also reverses the assumption made by effects studies that audiences are held captive by the media. Instead, the media are like a set of tools that consumers freely utilise at any time to fix any necessity. Media technologies may even fulfill consumer needs in relatively superficial ways, when say; we turn on the radio as soundtrack to ironing our clothes. In this case, the radio helps to reduce boredom by gratifying the need for something interesting to which we may listen. It seems the media and its consumers can do no wrong! Dyer Fandom and Utopianism While some have suggested that fandom is a pointless pursuit of escapism, Richard Dyer suggests otherwise. Fandom is not merely a celebration of fascistic utopia, but rather an active pursuit of utopianism. Fans are creative. They form social communities; they share ideas and common values and produce political statements.