A2 G325: Critical Perspectives

in Media Theoretical Evaluation

Of Production1b) Audiences

Question 1b• This question asks you to write about one of

your media productions – in this case your SOAP OPERA TRAILER and ancillary tasks can also be referenced.

• You will be asked to write about the production by applying ONE media concept

AUDIENCEWhat should be done in terms of your coursework is three things:

1. You must detail the target audience for your product.

2. Detail what the audience might identify with in your product

3. What meanings/uses they might make from consuming/interacting with the product.

TARGET AUDIENCE• For your production you had to create a

‘Target audience profile’ – refer to this along with concepts and relevant theory

• Audiences can be defined by their

GenderEthnicityAgeRegion, Nationality

Socio-economic group

TARGET AUDIENCE

• Primary and Secondary Audience• Fanatics / Ironics / Non-commited / Dismissives• The traditional segmentation model (ABC)• (Young & Rubicam’s 4Cs model) cross cultural

consumer characterization model

TARGET AUDIENCE

The traditional segmentation model

(Young & Rubicam’s 4Cs model) cross cultural consumer characterization model

Young & Rubicam 4 Cs model Cross-Cultural Consumer Characterisation model

A more useful audience segmentation model than the traditional ABC1 categorization.

It acknowledges the global nature of media audiences

Divides audiences into 7 types of consumer

4 main categories are (MARS)MAINSTREAMERS, ASPIRERS, REFORMERS, SUCCEEDERS

The other categories to be added to this are (ERS) EXPLORER RESIGNED STRUGGLER

It takes the following as consumer motivations: SECURITY, CONTROL, STATUS, INDIVIDUALITY, FREEDOM, SURVIVAL and ESCAPE

Clear links with Maslow

AUDIENCE• Over the course of the past century or so, media analysts

have developed several “effects models”, which are explanations of how humans ingest the information transmitted by media texts and how this might influence (or not) their behaviour.

• Some people see media audiences as being easily manipulated masses of people There have also been fears that the contents of media texts can make audiences behave in different ways. On the other hand there have been other critics who have seen the media as having much less influence and working in more subtle ways.

AUDIENCE THEORY • Audience theory falls into two camps

EFFECTS THEORY/MODELS

PASSIVE

ACTIVE

RECEPTION THEORY

Emphasizes the audiences reception or interpretation in making meaning

from media text.

What the media does to us

What we do with the media

THE EFFECTS MODEL• The consumption of media texts has an effect

or influence upon the audience• It is normally considered that this effect is

negative• Audiences are passive and powerless to

prevent the influence• The power lies with the message of the text

Hypodermic Needle Model Uses & Gratifications Model

Audiences are passiveEasily led, influenced & manipulated

Gullible, sheep-like fashion-followers

Media consumption influences the attitudes and behaviour of audiences

Sometimes called ‘magic bullet’ theoryLinked to propaganda & advertising

Behaviourist models of human behaviour

Audiences are active in choosing media for their own ‘gratifications’ (pleasure)

Links to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Developed by Blumler & Katz

PASSIVE

ACTIVE

This approach focuses on why people use particular media rather than on content.

RECEPTION THEORY

o Dating from the 1920s and being one of the most simple theory's to understand the hypodermic needle theory was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media. According to the theory the media is like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience who as a powerless mass have little choice but to be influenced

o But remember that this theory was developed in an age when the mass media were still fairly new - radio and cinema were less than two decades old. Governments had just discovered the power of advertising to communicate a message, and produced propaganda to try and sway people to their way of thinking.

o So this theory suggests that, as an audience, we are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by media-makers. It assumes that the audience are passive and heterogenous. It is used to explain why certain groups in society should not be exposed to certain media texts for fear that they will watch or read sexual or violent behaviour and will then act them out themselves.

The Hypodermic Needle Theory

o The Frankfurt School, a group of German Marxists, who in the 1930s witnessed first hand how Hitler used propaganda to influence a nation.

o The Bobo Doll experiment This is a very controversial piece of research that apparently proved that children copy violent behaviour.

o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHdovKHDNU

Evidence for the Hypodermic Needle Theory

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

You will pick or be attracted to media that satisfies these needs

o According to uses and gratification theory, we all have different uses for the media and we make choices over what we want to watch.

o In this model the individual has the power and they are able to select the media texts that best suits their needs and their attempts to satisfy those needs. The psychological basis for this model is the Hierarchy of Needs identified by Maslow.

o The theory suggests that we as an audience may use the media for the four following purposes:

o Diversion – Escaping from everyday problems and routine.o Personal Relationships – Using the media for emotional and other interaction (substituting soap

operas for family life.o Personal Identity – Finding yourself reflected in the media, learning behaviour and values.o Surveillance – Information which could be useful for living (weather reports, financial news, holiday

bargains)

Uses and Gratification Theory

In contrast to the concern of the 'media effects' tradition with 'what media do to people' (which assumes a homogeneous mass audience and a

'hypodermic' view of media), U & G can be seen as part of a broader trend amongst media researchers which is more concerned with 'what people do

with media', allowing for a variety of responses and interpretations*

U & G BREAKDOWN

• Information/Surveillance • finding out about relevant events and

conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world

• seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices

• satisfying curiosity and general interest• learning; self-education• gaining a sense of security through

knowledge

• Personal Identity • finding reinforcement for personal values• finding models of behaviour• identifying with valued other (in the

media) • gaining insight into one's self

• Integration and Social Interaction/ Personal Relationships

• gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy

• identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging

• finding a basis for conversation and social interaction

• having a substitute for real-life companionship• helping to carry out social roles• enabling one to connect with family, friends and

society

• Entertainment / Diversion• escaping, or being diverted, from problems• relaxing• getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment• filling time• emotional release• sexual arousal

U&G applied to Soap Operas• Watching TV Soap OperasA major focus for research into why and how

people watch TV has been the genre of soap opera. Adopting a U & G perspective, Richard Kilborn (1992: 75-84) offers the following common reasons for watching soaps:

• regular part of domestic routine and entertaining reward for work• Launch pad for social and personal interaction• fulfilling individual needs: a way of choosing to be alone or of enduring

enforced loneliness• identification and involvement with characters (perhaps cathartic)• escapist fantasy (American supersoaps more fantastical)• focus of debate on topical issues• a kind of critical game involving knowledge of the rules and conventions

of the genre

RECEPTION THEORY• Given that the Effects model and the Uses and

Gratifications have their problems and limitations a different approach to audiences was developed by the academic Stuart Hall at Birmingham University in the 1970s

• This considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded (understood) by audiences

RECEPTION THEORY• The theory suggests that:• When a producer constructs a text it is encoded

with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to convey to the audience

• In some instances audiences will correctly decode the message or meaning and understand what the producer was trying to say

• In some instances the audience will either reject or fail to correctly understand the message

ENCODING/DECODING• the moment of encoding: 'the institutional practices and

organizational conditions and practices of production' (Corner 1983, 266);

• the moment of the text: 'the... symbolic construction, arrangement and perhaps performance... The form and content of what is published or broadcast' (ibid., 267); and

• the moment of decoding: 'the moment of reception [or] consumption... by... the reader/hearer/viewer' which is regarded by most theorists as 'closer to a form of "construction"' than to 'the passivity... suggested by the term "reception"'

ENCODING/DECODING• Stuart Hall stressed the role of social positioning in the

interpretation of mass media texts by different social groups. Hall suggested three hypothetical interpretative codes or positions for the reader of a text

• Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings (or decoding) of the text:

1. Dominant or preferred2. Negotiated 3. Oppositional

ENCODING/DECODING1. Dominant• dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully

shares the text's code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading (a reading which may not have been the result of any conscious intention on the part of the author(s)) - in such a stance the code seems 'natural' and 'transparent';

• Where the audience decodes the message as the producer wants them to do and broadly agrees with it

• E.g. Watching a political speech and agreeing with it

ENCODING/DECODING2. Negotiated• negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text's code

and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests (local and personal conditions may be seen as exceptions to the general rule) - this position involves contradictions;

• Where the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in light of previously held views

• E.g. Neither agreeing or disagreeing with the political speech or being disinterested

ENCODING/DECODING3. Oppositional• oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader,

whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the text's code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference

• Where the dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons

• E.g. Total rejection of the political speech and active opposition

QUOTES• Clarke (2007) states that in media industries it

is important to carry out ‘regular audience research’ using methods such as rating collection, questionnaires, surveys and screen tests. By doing this you are able to find the most recent interests of an audience and develop a film that they will enjoy and that will engage them.

QUOTES• John Hartley’s audience theory talked about the idea

that media institutions need to communicate with audiences more to gain the ability to create a film that can strongly target an audience, this being shown through quotes John Hartley has said such as:

• ‘The media institutions must know their audiences if they are able to effectively target them.’

• ‘Invisible fictions of the audience which allow the institutions to get a sense of who they must enter into relations with.’

• ‘Institutions are obliged not only to speak about an audience, but – crucially for them – to talk to one as well; they need not only to represent audiences but to enter into relations with them.’

• These quotes basically suggest the idea that interactions with audiences are strongly required to create a strong film that has the ability to effectively target an audience.

• Ien Ang detailed that media producers have an imaginary entity in mind before the construction of a media product. "Audiences only exist as an imaginary entity, an abstraction, constructed from the vantage point of institution, in the interest of the institution.”

• Ien Ang states that 'audience-hood is becoming an even more multifaceted, fragmented and diversified repertoire of practices and experiences'There is a lot more to audience –

it’s not just about their demographics such as gender, age and social class but rather it’s about the psychographics such as

the audiences hobbies, habits and interests. Audience is not a big

lump of the same people – it’s made up of different individuals

SOAP OPERA STUDIES• Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of

Audience Interpretation – Sonia Livingstone (1988)• “…the generic conventions of particular media forms

establish a framework within which audience interpretation occurs. For the continuous serial or soap opera, the meanings negotiated between text and reader are not bounded by any single episode, and hence, second, the soap opera may offer considerable opportunity for an interpretative role for the long-term reader/viewer.”

SOAP OPERA STUDIES• Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of

Audience Interpretation – Sonia Livingstone (1988)

• The way in which an audience member comes to an interpretation of meaning “…involves their understanding of the genre, their motivation for viewing and their sociogonitive resources for making sense of character and narrative.”

SOCIAL COGNITION• an individual's knowledge acquisition can be

directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences. The theory states that when people observe a model performing a behavior and the consequences of that behavior, they remember the sequence of events and use this information to guide subsequent behaviors.

SOAP OPERA STUDIES• Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of

Audience Interpretation – Sonia Livingstone (1988)• “Soap opera, peculiar among television drama

genres, has no heroes but a multiplicity of equivalently important characters. Hence it invites not an exclusive or passive identification with a central figure but rather an active and participatory involvement based on ‘parasocial interaction’ (Horton and Wohl, 1956) with a community of characters.”

PARASOCIAL INTERACTION• as originally hypothesized by Horton and Wohl (1956),

offers an explanation of the ways in which audience members develop their one-sided relationships with the media being consumed. PSI is described as an illusionary experience, such that media audiences interact with personas (e.g., talk show host, celebrities, characters) as if they are engaged in a reciprocal relationship with them, and feel as though a mediated other is talking directly to them (Rubin, Perse, & Powell, 1985). PSI can be developed to the point where media audiences begin to view the mediated others as “real friends” (Stern, Russell, & Russell, 2007).

SOAP OPERA STUDIES• Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of

Audience Interpretation – Sonia Livingstone (1988)

• “Cultivation research (Gerber et al, 1986) examines the hypothesis that exposure to television is positively correlated with endorsement of beliefs which are more representation of the world .”

SOAP OPERA STUDIES• Women and Soap Opera: A Cultural Feminist

Perspective – Dannielle Blumenthal (1997)• “In a very real sense, then, the better one “knows” a

soap opera, the greater reason one has for wanting to watch… Conversely, the less involved one is in a given soap opera’s textual network, the more that soap opera appears to be merely a series of plot lines that unfold so slowly that virtually “nothing happens” in any given episode (Allen 1987:86).”

SOAP OPERA STUDIES• Women and Soap Opera: A Cultural Feminist

Perspective – Dannielle Blumenthal (1997)• “Sonia Livingstone has also found that

audience members ascribe different meanings to the same soap narrative depending on their feelings about the characters (1990:72)”