Passive/Active Audience Idea

• A passive audience will accept the messages encoded in the media text
without challenge and more likely to be directly affected by the messages.
• An active audience engages, interprets and responds to a media text in
different ways and is capable of challenging the ideas encoded by it.
• Encoding is the process in which a text is constructed by its producers and
Decoding is the process in which the audience reads and understands a text.
• There are texts that are called Polysemic which means that the messages
can be read differently by different people depending on identity, cultural
knowledge and opinions.
Hypodermic Needle Theory
• This theory suggests that the medias messages are injected directly
into the brains of the passive audiences and they believe the
ideologies in all the media texts.
• The audience are seen as empty vessels.
• The theory is a linear communication theory.
Reception Theory
• This theory suggests that media texts are coded and decoded.
• Producers encodes messages and values into their media which is
then decoded by the audience.
• It can be decoded in different ways.
Uses and Gratifications Theory
• This theory is an approach to understanding why and how people
actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs.
• The audience has power over their media consumption and assumes
an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own
lives.
• People choose from their own choices and moods.
• The needs of the particular person are met through the media used.
The Simpsons
• There are 4.08 million viewers that watch The Simpsons.
• There are many people that can view this specific TV shows differently
such as children and adults. There are many hidden jokes within the
programme.
• Children can view this show as a cartoon where the main characters
are hurting themselves on accident which is humorous to kids
whereas there are adult jokes within the programme which the kids
wouldn’t understand but the adults do.
• The Simpsons uses the reception theory.
Examples
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n_t03bQodI – in this video it is
a montage of clips from throughout the Simpsons and it shows signs
in the background of the programme in which people would not have
seen without pausing the screen. It shows that there are hidden
messages and that it can be interoperated differently due to kids not
reading the signs as they are more interested in the characters and
not watching everything whereas adults would immediately see this
and think its funny. In this case it could be similar to the hypodermic
needle theory.