Audience Theories

GROUP 1 PRESENTATION
 Audience Theories
• Audience is a highly valued concept in media and information production.
From the side of the creation and producers, they are the perceived receiver,
the viewer, and the end - user of the media and information texts that will
come out the production cycle. Media corporations spend a huge amount of
corporate funds trying to learn about their target audiences. Top-notch
executive prioritize audience research as a prerequisite before embarking on
any media project. Politicians on the campaign trail conduct poll studies to
fine-tune their campaign messages to amass a bigger share of the voting
population. Advertising companies are way ahead in the use of state-of-the-art
technology to render their media campaigns more attractive to the target
audiences of the products they sell.
Social institutions keep warning parents about the dangers
of extended television viewing carrying the thought that too
much sex and violence will bear on their consciousness.

We need to tackle audience theories to better understand ourselves

and our communities as media audience.

There are two main school of thought about audiences. On one end
stands the assertion that media and information messages emanate
from powerful structures and the audiences are passive recipients.
On the other end stands the belief that audiences access power
because they create or generate their own meanings from the media
and information texts. In between the two ends of this spectrum is
a give-and-take situation, where audiences exercise their ability to
interpret meanings enable or constrained by their personal
circumstances and the context surrounding communities.
 Passive Audience Theories
• The hypodermic needle theory
emerged in the late 1920s and gained
prominence until after World War II. It
asserts that media and information
messages, like a hypodermic needle,
inject their messages and audiences as
passive recipients of the messages. It
also suggests that audiences will believe
anything told to them by the media. It
views audiences as largely homogeneous
and undifferentiated.
• It must be noted that this was developed in
the 1920s and the 1930s when communication
research observed how propaganda messages were
utilized to serve the ends of war in the recently
concluded World War I and in the following
years leading up to World War II. It’s origins are
unknown but Harold Lasswell introduced
Hypodermic Needle Theory in 1927 in his book
entitled Propaganda Techniques in the World War
I, The emergence of this theory should also be
appreciated along with the very pioneering
invention of the era surrounding the two world
wars - the television.

SUMMARY
Between the late 1920s and the late
1930s, the Payne Fund conducted
research about the effects of media on
children which concluded that movies
had a great impact to children, therefore
creating panic and made a governing
code to address the problem on movie
industries.
Though in the 1950s the theory started
to crumble, because of the discourse of
what a person is: liberal, intelligent and
can critically think.
• THE TWO-STEP FLOW OF
COMMUNICATION
• Thus, the theory has been called a two-step
flow with media as the first step and the
opinion leaders as the second step. In the
two-step flow, the importance of the media
was diminished in favor of the mediating
role of the opinion leaders.
• THE USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
APPROACH
• Argued that the audience access media and
information bringing with them their own
needs and desires, which in turn structures
the way how the media is received.
 INFORMATION
SUMMARY We want to know about the society we live in. We want to sense
the world. Human beings are naturally curious and we want to
satisfy our curiousness.
PERSONAL INDENTITY
We watch the television to validate our understanding and
appreciate of our identities. Women which characters they see in a
romantic comedy. Men may identify with characters in a action
flick.
INTEGRATION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
But what does it actually Because we turn to the media for information, it become a means
of providing us with the information we need so we can integrate
mean ? What kinds of and interact with social group.
gratification can we be ENTERTAINMENT
getting? Researchers have Sometimes we simply use the media for enjoyment, relaxation or
just to fill time. This explains our attraction for television programs
identified at least four. that provide us with the simple pleasures of song and music or
stories that engage us with plot twist and dramatic conflict.
 SUMMARY
• However there are criticisms made against the uses and gratifications approach. One criticism says that
we have a complete choice of what we receive or consume from the media, although there are some
cases when we are unconscious audiences as our everyday life is saturated with by media messages.
• It focuses on individuals not on a group of people and does not include social activity

• CULTURAL EFFECTS THEORY

• In 1976, George Gerber introduced the cultural affects theory. He argued that television
cultivates a way of sensing and seeing the world. Without judging television viewing as good or
bad, Gerber intuited that regular usage of television over extended periods of time can shape
people’s opinions, views, and behavior.