MEDIA AND ITS AUDIENCE

THE MEDIA AND AUDIENCE

AUDIENCE

• Individual or collective group of people who read or consume any media text

• According to Lusted, D. (2006) understanding of audience for media exists between two extreme attitudes:

The idea of the all-powerful message

The idea of the all- powerful viewer

SIGNIFICANCE OF AUDIENCE

•Without audiences there would be no media

• Media organizations produce media texts to make profit

•In 2013/14, BBC Worldwide generated headline profits

of £157.4m (BBC Worldwide Media Centre)

MEDIA & ITS AUDIENCE: TECHNOLOGY

• Audiences are now ‘fragmented’

• Mass Media audience can get their news a thousand different ways

• Bergstrom, G. (2015) “If you want to reach more than a slice of the population, you have to get into not only newspapers, but radio, television and the internet.”

VIDEO: FRAGMENTATIONCHALLENGE OR OPPORTUNITY?

Simulmedia is the first NYC-based advertising technology company to bring web-like ad targeting and measurement to TV.

AUDIENCE FRAGMENTATION

• The division of audiences into smaller groups due to the variety of media outlets.

• In the U.S. research conducted by the Pew Research center (2015) reveals that more than half the population relies on the Internet to to

get their news on a typical day

COMMUNICATION THEORIES

ALL-POWERFUL MESSAGE

HYPODERMIC NEEDLE MODEL•Katz & Lazarsfeld (1955)

•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

•Here, the messages in media texts are injected into the audience by the powerful, syringe-like, media •The audience is powerless to resist

•Therefore, the media works like a drug and the audience is drugged, addicted, doped or duped

HYPODERMIC NEEDLE MODEL

• Contributes to Moral Panics whereby:

• The media produce inactivity, make us into students who won’t pass their exams or ‘couch potatoes’ who make no effort to get a job

• The media produces violent ‘copycat’ behaviour or mindless shopping in response to advertisements

ALL POWERFUL RECIEVER

USES AND GRATIFICATION MODEL

Blumler and Katz’s (1974)

•The Uses and Gratifications Model is the opposite of the Hypodermic Needle Theory•The audience is active•The audience uses the text and is NOT used by it•The audience uses the text for its own gratification or pleasure

USES AND GRATIFICATION MODEL

• Here, power lies with the audience NOT the producers

• This theory emphasises what audiences do with media texts – how and why they use them

• Far from being duped by the media , the audience is free to reject, use or play with media meanings as they see fit

USES AND GRATIFICATION MODEL

• Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs for:

- Cognitive Needs- Affective Needs- Personal Integrative Needs- Social Integrative Needs- Tension free Needs

USES AND GRATIFICATION MODEL

• The audience is in control and consumption of the media helps people with issues such as:

• Learning• Emotional satisfaction• Relaxation• Help with issues of personal identity• Help with issues of social identity• Help with issues of aggression and violence