Audience's theories

Any media text has to go through 3 different levels:

Producer - Text - Audience

There are a number of theories which further define the connection between these three terms:

HYPERDERMIC THEORY:

In this particular theory the media directly injects the message to the audience. The audience is weak and vulnerable.

Over the years, a lot of researches have taken birth in regard to the behavior and preferences of audiences of different media texts. The media products are made for the audience to see and so a lot of emphasis and importance is given to the target audience before creating a product.

Passive i.e. there is no interaction with the media texts in consideration. All the people hold the same view about a particular media text. They accept what is provided to them and embrace it without any questions. There is only one way communication, which is from the producer's side in terms of the product it produces and the audience does not disagree with the message provided to them.

The roots of this theory lies in the study that questioned the impact media would have on the people, such as, the most vulnerable ones. It reflected the effects media would have on the ideas that people share about the media and audience as a whole, the middle class and the fear of masses i.e. the working class and the way it will hit the status quo already developed in a society.  

However, over the years, the new developments found a number of problems with this theory. Many theorists suggest that as this theory has been developed a long time ago, it has become out of date and does not accurately fits to the changed preferences and thinking of people with time. So, the active audience, new theories were invented to explain the way they consume and comprehend different media texts. These theories suggest that it is unclear that people act in ways they watch in media text, such as, people who are violent are not because they watched it on a media text and acted accordingly. And it is clear that not every person who watches a media text is influenced by it. Therefore, a new theory was created called, ‘THE USES AND GRATFICATION THEORY’.

USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY:

This theory has been created in opposition to the Hypodermic theory. In this theory the audience is active and it uses the media texts for the purpose of enjoyment and pleasure rather being used by it. They have the freedom of using, playing and rejecting the products sent by different producers. The audience uses it as means of diversion, escapism from their daily affairs, for information in reference to different topics, pleasure, for learning and emotional satisfaction etc. Furthermore, this theory suggests that the consumption could actually turn out to be helpful rather than causing dilemmas, e.g. the violent images could in different textc could prevent people from doing the same thing in real life and also act out their inner stress by its consumption.

ENCODING-DECODING MODEL: This theories refers to the active audience which is produced by Stuart Hall, who examines the link between the media texts and the audience.

The term encoding defines the process with which a producer constructs his media text and send it to the audience. Whereas, the decoding is the next stage to encoding in which the process with which the audiences reads and perceives these media texts.

According to Stuart Hall, all the media texts are interpreted by different people in different ways. They do not share perceptions in a uniform method rather they perceive things differently from each other. This is because people belonging from different cultures, races, countries and communities will differ thinking wise.

THE CULTRUAL EFFECT MODEL:

This concept puts emphasis on the diversity in the way people identify and interpret different media texts due to the varying background and cultures etc., they share.

THE RECEPTION THEORY: This theory puts in consideration the way people interpret different media texts instead of the media texts themselves, i.e. every person has the ability to interpret a particular text differently from others and create various meanings out of it. This theory explains that a producer encodes a media text with a particular concept or message that it tries to deliver to the audience. After the text is received to the audience, it either understands the true meaning on which it is based on or does not understand it or rejects it. Hall wrapped these differences in opinions in three terms:

• The preferred reading: This is where the audience understand the message the producer tries to convey to the audience and agree with it.
• The negotiated reading: In this the audience accepts and rejects the texts put in consideration the views they previously had.
• The oppositional theory: In this the media text is rejected by the audience even when the meaning is recognized.