Audience Theories

Audience Theories

1. Hegemony vs Pluralism

   • Hegemony is political or cultural dominance or authority over others. The hegemony of the popular kids over the other students means that they determine what is and is not cool. (www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/hegemony)
   • pluralism definition. A conviction that various religious, ethnic, racial, and political groups should be allowed to thrive in a single society. (dictionary.reference.com/browse/pluralism)

2. Hypodermic syringe theory

   • The "hypodermic needle theory" implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences.

3. Passive audience theory

   • Audience member receiving information, nothing else

4. Active audience theory

   • Active audience theory argues that media audiences do not just receive information passively but are actively involved, often unconsciously, in making sense of the message within their personal and social contexts. (http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095348680)

5. postmodernism

   • A late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power. (http://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy)

6. pluralism

   • a situation in which people of different social classes, religions, races, etc., are together in a society but continue to have their different traditions and interests

7. prosumers (Tapscott and Williams)

   • Wikinomics is based on four ideas: Openness, Peering, Sharing, and Acting Globally. People are taking things from other media and publishing it themselves e.g. games on youtube. (http://wikinomics-book-study.blogspot.com/2009/01/chapter-5-prosumers-hack-this-product.html)

8. Clarks view of media audiences

   • He states that it is vital to carry out regular audience research, in order to keep up with the changing audience

9. John Hartly

   • The Hartley ClassificationThere are 7 socially grouped categories when it comes to identifying audience: Self – ambitions or interests of the audience, Gender, Age Group, Class – different social classes e.g. working, upper etc., Ethnicity, Family, Nation

10. Julian McDoughll

    • 'in the online age its harder to conceive a media audience as stable'