Flashcards
Audience Essay
Cards in this deck (9)
- 1What is an audience?Traditionally refers to a gathering of people in one place at one time to witness some public spectacle. However, in relation to mass media audiences: Assumption that the audience is public needs to be refined. Early researchers and theorists considered the media audience to be a collection of private individuals and small groups;
- 2Growth of audiencesPublic sphere in industrialised societies in Europe and US in 18th and 19th century => the growth of particular audiences for a set of ideas and practices centered around the increasing distribution of the printed word (especially in the form of pamphlets and journals debating public affairs)
- 3Communication between mass mediaCommunication between mass media and mass audience was said to be nonlinear, one-directional - i.e. the audience could not talk back directly, publicly or spontaneously. Thus audience approval or disapproval became a matter that could not easily be judged.
- 4Researching the audienceCurrently, 2 types of approach to audience research:
Industry research (market research, audience ratings etc. Tastes, behaviors and demographics of the audience)
Critical audience research – social scientific / cultural study of audience practices: Symbolic approach to study of media + reception studies - 5Hypodermic modelAll Powerful Effects (aka the ‘Magic Bullet’ model). They hypodermic model assumed that the audience were in effect simple couch potatoes, cultural dopes with no ability to understand media messages in any terms other than those intended by the (manipulative) creators of those messages. This model suggested that a media stimulus effected a direct response among audience members. Heavily influenced by social psychology, and the perceived successes of Nazi and Soviet propaganda. Also inspired by a wish to use media for pro-democratic / pro-social ends
Behaviourist approach - 6'Two-step flow'The ‘two-step flow’ model pointed to the fact that people do actively make meaning from the messages the receive from the mass media TSF inspired by political scientists search for how to develop effective information campaigns opinion leaders in families, communities, small social groups, etc., played a key role in translating and interpreting the news and mass media messages for their less interested, articulate and knowledgeable contacts
The meaning of mass media messages was to some extent, discussed, or negotiated, by audience members. This in itself also promotes the idea that the consumption of mass media is not simply an individual, atomized process - but that it can often be a social process - 7Rise of TelevisionThe spread of television throughout US (and UK) society in the 50s and 60s led media researchers back to the idea that the media can and do have important effects. TV now viewed as affecting audiences ‘belief systems’ - viewed as a meaning carrying technology. Much of the research in this phase sought to establish a link between 'exposure' to media messages and measured changes in attitude, opinion, belief and behaviour, in the context of other intervening variables or mediating factors. A key shift in research in this phase was to change the timeframe from short term effects to long terms effects
- 8Decoding and encodinghe Encoding/decoding model of communication was first developed by cultural studies scholar Stuart Hall in 1973. Titled 'Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse,' Hall's essay offers a theoretical approach of how media messages are produced, disseminated, and interpreted
- 9Cultural background and codingHis model claims that TV and other media audiences are presented with messages that are decoded, or interpreted in different ways depending on an individual's cultural background, economic standing, and personal experiences. In contrast to other media theories that disempower audiences, Hall advanced the idea that audience members can play an active role in decoding messages as they rely on their own social contexts, and might be capable of changing messages themselves through collective action.
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- Flashcards on Audience Essay, created by Craig Grant on 15/05/2015.
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- Craig Grant
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