Audience Theory

Uses and Gratification Theory 

Blumler and Katz (1959) 

"what people do with media" rather than what "media does to people" Katz 1959

• Entertainment and Diversion - Escapism, a feeling to be able to forget your worries momentarily - what you are watching you should be enjoying
• Personal Companion - Media is a friend, caring about the cast or pop star - also creates a topic of discussion between viewers
• Personal Identity - How do I fit in? Who am I? Seeing role models that have similar values to yourself
• Surveillance - Finding out what is happening in the world, what is influencing the wider world

Cultivation Theory

Gerbner and Gross (1975)

Examines the long term effects of TV

• Audiences consume media and gradually develop views about the world, some of which are false
• People who watch TV regularly are 'cultivated' to believe that the world created by the media is real and the only true depiction of what's going on in the world.
• Impacts on the audience understanding of representation - genders, sexuality, young people and ethnic groups
• Theorists break down the effects of cultivation into two levels. The first - general belief about the world and the second level - specific beliefs, strong feelings towards politics, law and justice etc
• In conclusion. the more media consumed the more influenced that person is.

Reception Analysis

Hall (1980)

• Audiences make sense of media texts according to their social position (gender, age, class, ethnic background)
• Essay 'Encoding/Decoding' revealed that audiences interepret media instead of just reading or watching they make their decisions about what they're seeing means.
• Depending on the persons socail background and hos wealthy they are in cultural capital depends how they interpret media. For example, someone from a ruling class background is more likely to have a large amount of cultural capital and will therefore have more of a connection when interpreting art in galleries and artifacts in museums. Whereas someone from a working class backgound won't have had an enriched education so they have less cultural capital and maybe reject even bothering to interpret art. Each persons background will mean each persons view of a media text will differ.

Copycat or Modelling Theory

Coleman (2004)

• Audiences are influenced by the media texts that they consume - Wikipedia suggests the very popular TV programme Breaking Bad has influenced a number of crime with the example of a 55-year old man in Alabama calling himself 'Walter White' like the mai character of the programme and dealing drugs.
• However this theory could be seen as more of an assumption used by journalist to explain an individuals negative behaviour. Some media outlets such as the Daily Mail like to use minority groups as scapegoats.

Long Tail Theory

Anderson (2006)

• This theory describes how the internet has influenced audience consumption
• Since broadband was introduced, these impacts have been most prominent

• The Head is ONE shop that has 50 customers and The Long Tail is 50 websites that each have 1 customer
• Niche audiences are no longer economically viable