Audience

Starter ActivityWho is the target audience for your music video? (how would you classify them?)Brainstorm on A3 PaperGenderAge rangeEthnicityUK Tribes CategorySocial Economic Class

How did you try to appeal to your target audience in your video?

The Big Audience Debate

Passive Audience Vs Active Audience

Active Audience Theories

Theories that support the idea of audiences being active.

John Fiske (1997) Semiotic Democracy

Fiske rejects that audiences are ‘cultural dopes’ and passive

Also rejects the idea that any one text conveys the same message to all people.

Audiences are required to analyse texts in order to expose their meaning and these meanings are often POLYSEMIC (more than one)

Stuart HallLooked at the role of

audience positioning in the interpretation of mass media texts by different social groups.

People react to a media text in different ways which can be determined by their cultural background/values and ideologies.

Reception Theory Stuart Hall – (1993)

Stuart Hall described three main ways spectators tend to

respond to the way they are positioned:

1. A dominant (preferred) reading

2. A negotiated reading

3. An oppositional reading

Encoding and Decoding

Dominant Reading: audience fully accepts the preferred reading so that the code seems natural. The preferred reading is often one that reinforces dominant ideologies.

Negotiated Reading: audience largely believes the code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experience, and interests.

Oppositional Reading: audiences’ social position places them in oppositional relation to the dominant code. They reject the reading.

Uses and Gratification Theory - Denis McQuail (2000)

The basic theme is the idea that people use the media to get specific gratifications

People are not helpless victims of the powerful media, but use media to fulfil their various needs

Denis Mcquail (2000)

EscapismSocial InteractionIdentificationInform and EducateEntertainment

David Gauntlett (2008)– Role Models

A ‘role model’ seems to be popularly understood as ‘someone to

look up to,’ and someone to base your character, values or aspirations upon:

Six Types of Role Models

The ‘straightforward success’ role modelThe ‘triumph over difficult circumstances’

role modelThe ‘challenging stereotypes’ role modelThe ‘wholesome’ role modelThe ‘outsider’ role modelThe family role model:

Apply theories of Audience to ONE of your media productions

1. Who was your target audience?2. What was the dominant (preferred reading)? How

did you position your audience to get the dominant reading? (did you promote any dominant ideologies?)

3. How might people from other groups view your representations?

4. What uses and gratifications might the audience get from your video?

5. How did you construct your artists as role models and how should the audience respond to them?

Key Terms

Dominant IdeologyPassive AudienceActive AudienceDominant Reading/Negotiated

Reading/Oppositional ReadingRole ModelsPolysemic (more than one meaning)Target audience

Refer to at least two theorists…

Stuart Hall: Reception theoryJohn Fiske: Semiotic SubversionBlumler & Katz:Uses & Gratifications

modelDavid Gauntlett: Role Models