Media theories

LO3

Uses and gratification

This is the theory that the audience controls what they watch with a passive look
on it, they will seek out the media that fulfils their question or goal.it is the
assumption that the audience will have an alternate opinion on the message that
the media is putting across. The audience may watch a tv show and look at a
character and cherry pick some characteristics and it will influence them to take
them into their own personalities and it will become so ingrained on their
personalities that when they watch the show again they will relate to the
characters a lot more. Like with friends, each friendship group has a character
from friends in their group. This makes it a lot easier to deal with surreal
situations in our own lives because we have seen them being played out before.
The second type of gratification is information. When the audience seeks out
news from the world and cultures so in the media this would fall under the news,
documentaries and give the audience a sense of pride that they have gone out
of their way to learn something which makes them more willing to watch more
t.v and be subject to other theories. Other reasons for people watching and
playing is for pure enjoyment. this is equally split over a passive and an active
audience member, people watch to escape normal life by relaxing and enjoying
just to fill time.

The opposite of uses and gratification theory is The hypodermic needle/bullet

theory comes from the idea that the media can control the audience, and both
images (needle and bullet) have quite a shocking and violent effective on the
audience. The metaphor come from the fact the media can inject ideas and
beliefs into a powerless, unexcpecting viewer.the theory thrives from the fact
that the mass media can control and influence a very large group of people
directly so long as they are passively watching and doing, this is where the idea
of shooting/injecting comes from which is ironic as it is associated with
influencing people to commit murder. The theory arises from the 1930s and 40s
with propaganda, the theory became know due to the growth of tv and radio in
the 40s and 50s,the need for people to have an opinion so they can socialise
and the way childrens film are portrayed and shown to children at a young age
which can influence. For example if you play GTA5 at the age of 8 (an
undeveloped mind) they are going to have very little understanding that having
sex with hookers and beating random strangers up because they are accepting
that this is what the world is like and its what you should do. There is a study
which has proven children who play violent age rated games while they are still
learning adapt the violence from the game into their own lives. Not has dramatic
but say some accidentally bumps into them in the corridor then the child who
has been playing the game is more likely to take it personally and retaliate. The
theory was first established after world war 2,just after propaganda had fallen.
People were walking round their villages; seeing your country needs you

posters ten times in five meters it eventually soaked into peoples minds that it
was the right thing to do. They were made to believe that risking their life for
their country was the right thing to do but if we were to be subjected to war
propaganda in the 21st century it would have to be subliminal via the media
because we question our wellbeing and we live in a more evolved world where
direct hypodermic needle theory makes us think and we find it insulting as a
society. It works best on a passive, un educated viewers who doesnt think for
themselves. Take the Adam lanza sandy hook shootings where he killed 20
children and 6 members of staff then shot his mother and himself. When the
police started investigating the case, the first thing they did was go into his room
and the first cause of blame was call of duty. They did this all because he had
been playing for a long time and there have been incidents and experiments in
the past which lead to the influence of gaming being the biggest offender of
violence so the police and press could have a scape goat and not have the
community personally targeting people.
The reception theory. The curator of this theory was a man called David Morley,
he saw that there were 3 different ways for the audience to read a text or follow
a narrative. The preferred reading says that the media controls the message that
the audience receives. The second is negotiated reading, this is where one
audience member (usually passively viewing) accepts the message that the
media is conveying and the other (actively viewing) question the message that
the audience is putting across. For example, the violence in games. Horizon gave
us facts to believe that games are influencing our children to be more violent.
They put the message across that they were and having analysed media theories
I was able to see that they were, horizon showed us studies and stories which
prove this but another person could say that the situations which occur because
of video games being so rare and not having witnessed violence for games first
hand they will argue that it wasnt the video games fault but the type of person
who they are which commit the crimes. The last is oppositional theory which is
when the viewer has a complete disregard for the message and finds a different
one tucked in beneath it. Theorists who study media through the reception
theory, look at how a film or show is being portrayed with the environment, i.e
cinema ,at home or on the bus watching the film on your phone. The meaning of
the text relies on how the audience perceives it to look like and not the meaning
that the film is putting across. Many factors contribute to the audiences intake of
the film or show, the environment, company, their age or news from the real
world.theorists who study the media with reception theory see that the key part
of the theory is that the movie or show its self has absolutely nothing to do with
how the audience reads it but the meaning of the message is based on the
viewers life and personality. Things that can change the reception theory is the
viewers preconceived opinions of the subject matter of the film,this could be due
to recent events in the world,genre of the film,historical and political issues in
the film/show or in the real world. To summarise reception theory is the study of
factors that change the message of the film or show.

The last theory is that there are two types of audience, one passive and one
active. A passive audience will accept the message or belief that is put in front of
them and let that become apart of their opinion while an active audience will

question or contradict the message or belief. Whereas an active audience is one

who questions what they are watching .
http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-RoadMovies/Reception-Theory.html
https://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20Clusters/Mass
%20Media/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory/
http://www.uky.edu/~drlane/capstone/mass/uses.htm