The audience receives the creative work done and perceives its content in either similar or different. The meaning of the message can change in the way they see it fit according to their social context. The encoded messages usually contain shared rules and symbols common with other people. So the encoder, sender, has to think how the receiver will perceive the message. Then, decoding would be a successful delivery only if the message sent by the encoder is understood completely to its content as it was intended.
The messages sent with verbal/non-verbal cues and gestures don’t bring the same result always as intended by the sender, bringing an altogether different meaning an insight to the concept sent. Thus, the distortion occurs when the audience cannot understand the concept of having a different take on the conclusion itself. Such distortion can be because of the age, gender, religion, race, political views, ethnicity, class, culture and the mood in which the audience receives the message etc..
Everyone has been in an audience. So the audience is part of the media equation – a product is produced and an audience receives it. Researchers investigating the effect of media on audiences have considered the audience in different distinct ways.
The cultural theorist, Stuart Hall, explored how people make sense of media texts and claimed audiences were active not passive. An active audience engages, interprets and responds to a media text in different ways and is capable of challenging the ideas encoded in it. While a passive audience is more likely to accept the messages encoded in a media text without challenge and are therefore more likely to be directly affected by the messages.
The earliest idea was that a mass audience is passive and inactive. The members of the audience are seen as couch potatoes just sitting there consuming media texts – particularly commercial television programmes. It was thought that this did not require the active use of the brain. The audience accepts and believes all messages in any media text that they receive. This is the passive audience model.
Here appeared The Hypodermic Model. In this model the media is seen as powerful and able to inject ideas into an audience who are seen as weak and passive. It was thought that a mass audience could be influenced by the same message. This appeared to be the case in Nazi Germany in the 1930s leading up to the second world war. Powerful German films such as Triumph of the Will seemed to use propaganda methods to ‘inject’ ideas promoting the Nazi cause into the German audience. That is why this theory is known as the Hypodermic model.
It suggests that a media text can ‘inject’ ideas, values and attitudes into a passive audience who might then act upon them. This theory also suggests that a media text has only one message which the audience must pick up. And basically, this theory stems from a fear of the mass media, and gives the media much more power than it can ever have in a democracy. Also it ignores the obvious fact that not everyone in an audience behaves in the same way. It’s impossible for an audience to be passive! For instance, I disagree with most political shows’ content and don’t like Marvel’s movies.ذ
This model owes much to the supposed power of the mass media – in particular film – to inject their audiences with ideas and meanings. It is worth noting that totalitarian states and dictatorships are similar in their desire to have complete control over the media, usually in the belief that strict regulation of the media will help in controlling entire populations. The effects model has several variants and despite the fact that it is an outdated model it continues to exert influence in present debates about censorship and control in the media.
The Frankfurt School developed concerns about the power which modern mass media had to propagandise on behalf of fascism. They articulated criticisms of a capitalist system in America which controlled media output, creating a stupefying mass culture that eliminated or marginalised opposition or alternatives.
Most of the classical film theories developed in the 1960s and 1970s, including structuralist, auteurist, formalist, Marxist, and psychoanalytic theories, argue that the text is the site of meaning. These theories are concerned with how viewers are affected by films, but the audiences they describe are comprised of idealised, homogeneous spectators who all react to films in the same way, regardless of differences in race, gender, and other identifying factors. ISAs, on the other hand, function through ideology and work by enticing individuals to accept subject positions which benefit the dominant classes and perpetuate capitalism.
Althusser’s theory of the media as an ideological state apparatus was embraced by classical film theorists, who examine the ways that the cinema influences spectators by analysing the cinematic texts. A major criticism of classical theories, then, is that the spectator is a historical and idealised, and plays no role in the creation of a film’s meaning. Reception theory rejects this classical construction of the spectator, and instead focuses on viewers in the material world, and how they have actually read and understood media texts.
Because of their interest in film as a medium for ideology, classical film theories are overwhelmingly text activated, operating from the assumption that meaning is created in the text and that the text determines the viewer’s response. An alternate theoretical viewpoint is reader activated, which examines the features of readers and how those features affect the reading experience. While reader activated theories account for varying interpretations among readers, however, they still tend to make generalisations about individual interactions with texts and not to contextualise the reading experience.
Janet Staiger proposes a third approach, a context-activated model which looks at the historical circumstances surrounding reception to place the reader/spectator in context. Context-activated theories examine everything from the individual’s subject position to the text’s mode of production and the circumstances of exhibition. The sum of these events gives meaning to the viewing or reading experience.
The audience, then, is not uniform as in classical film theory, but rather heterogeneous and capable of interpreting a text’s messages in a multitude of ways based on contextual factors.
Inoculation or Culmination Model, a theory suggests that long-term exposure to repeated media messages makes audiences “immune” to them. Thus for example, prolonged exposure to media violence would desensitise the audience so that they would no longer be shocked by it and therefore might be more likely to commit a violent act.
The problems with the effects model, in whatever form, have to do with its roots in behaviourist psychology. The behaviourist explanation of human behaviour is looking increasingly hard to justify as we have come to develop a fuller understanding of the complexities of human behaviour, which is not predictable nor is it controllable. There are also the difficulties of linking cause and effect in terms of how we engage with media texts. The large number of studies that have been done do not prove the case conclusively either way.
This model, it seems, is something of an anachronism but it is constantly revived by politicians and social commentators when moral panics are generated around issues such as ‘video nasties’ and their influence on children (eg the Bulger case) or computer games allegedly damaging literacy skills or contributing to violent behaviour (eg the Doom-computer game).
Katz and Lazarsfeld assume a slightly more active audience, which is Flow Theory. It suggests messages from the media move in two distinct ways. First, individuals who are opinion leaders, receive messages from the media and pass on their own interpretations in addition to the actual media content. The information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience, but is filtered through the opinion leaders who then pass it on to a more passive audience. The audience then mediates the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow.
The idea of this theory is that whatever our experience of the media we will be likely to discuss it with others and if we respect their opinion, the chances are that we will be more likely to be affected by it. This theory appeared to reduce the power of the media, and some researchers concluded that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpret texts. This led to the idea of active audiences.
Active Audiences, a newer model sees the audience not as couch potatoes, but as individuals who are active and interact with the communication process and use media texts for their own purposes. We behave differently because we are different people from different backgrounds with many different attitudes, values, experiences and ideas. This model is now generally considered to be a better and more realistic way to talk about audiences.
A more recent model of audience is that of The Uses and Gratifications. It suggests there are certain reasons why an audience responds to different media texts. In this model the individual has the power and she selects the media texts that best suit her needs and her attempts to satisfy those needs. The psychological basis for this model is the hierarchy of needs identified by Maslow. Among the chief exponents of this model are McQuail and Katz.
The assumption of this model is that audiences are always active. It does not take account of the fact that a viewer may watch a TV programme or a movie because they can’t be bothered to turn it off. Similarly they might look at an advertising poster because there is no other around. They do not have the choice of a poster that satisfies their desire for a particular representation. However, Blumier and Katz (1975) went into greater detail and identified four main uses.
Firstly, diversion, which is the need for escape, entertainment and relaxation. All types of television programmes can be ‘used’ to wind down and offer diversion, as well as satisfying some of the other needs at the same time. Audiences consume media texts to escape from their everyday lives. They choose entertaining texts that allow them to divert their attention from the real world, perhaps by watching a fantasy film like Harry Potter or reading a fashion magazine like Vogue. Secondly, information and education when some media texts are consumed by audiences when they want to be informed and educated. Newspapers, news programmes and current affairs documentaries educate and inform. They help the audience to find out what is happening in the world. By keeping up to date with news about local and international events people feel they have the knowledge to avoid or deal with dangers.
Thirdly, social interaction or personal relationships when some media texts like The X Factor or I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here provoke interaction with the audience. It’s the need to interact with other people. This is provided by forming virtual relationships with characters in soaps, films and all kinds of drama, and other programmes and other media texts. Social media can now spark an immediate reaction and get people talking while the action is still happening. Finally, personal identity when some audiences like to watch or read media texts because they can compare their life experiences with those represented in it. It’s the need to define their identity and sense of self. Part of their sense of self is informed by making judgements about all sorts of people and things. This is also true of judgements they make about TV and film characters, and celebrities. Their choice of music, the shows they watch, the stars they like can be an expression of their identities. One aspect of this type of gratification is known as value reinforcement. This is where they choose television programmes or newspapers that have similar beliefs to those they hold. Audience pleasure comes from empathising and identifying with characters or content represented in them. Soap operas or lifestyle magazines can offer audiences this kind of enjoyment.
Reception analysis is an active audience theory that looks at how audiences interact with a media text taking into account their ‘situated culture’, this is their daily life. A further development about how audiences read a text was put forward by Professor Stuart Hall in ‘encoding/decoding’ in 1980. Social and daily experiences can affect the way an audience reads a media text and reacts to it. Hall suggests that an audience has a significant role in the process of reading a text, and this can be discussed in three different ways:
The dominantor preferred reading, it can be seen as a hegemonic reading. The audience shares the code of the text and fully accepts its preferred meaning as intended by the producers. when the audience responds to the ideas in the way the media producer wants them to. For a programme like The Voice UK or The X Factor this could be large scale audience voting and the purchase of the winning singer’s single. The audience takes in the work as given by the director with no extra notes attached. Example, in the Harry Potter Series, Lord Voldemort is a bad guy, and how have the media producers have conveyed it with a bald head, black cloak, sunken eyes, cold and cruel voice, and threatening presence to his surroundings.
The negotiated reading, when the audience responds by accepting and rejecting certain elements. Perhaps voting for the underdog in a talent competition or questioning the programme via social media platforms. The audience partly shares the code of the text and broadly accepts the preferred meaning, but will change the meaning in some way according to their own experiences, culture and values. For instance, these audience members might argue that some representations, ethnic minorities perhaps, appear to them to be inaccurate. So the audiences who thought they know and are aware of the acts made in the film are bad and not right but get on to accept that it is fine because there is a reason behind it. Thus accepting the author’s message even though it goes against the audiences’ personal convictions. For example, many episodes in The Simpsons series have contents that are against my personal views but I still watch, enjoy and accept the content given.
And finally the oppositional reading, when the audience understands the preferred meaning but does not share the text’s code and rejects this intended meaning and constructs an alternative meaning. They have no acceptance for the author’s takes on the concept of the film or the subject it handled.For instance, the campaign to stop the winner of The X Factor getting to Christmas number one in the charts. This can be called a radical reading that may be, say Marxist or feminist or right wing who rejects the values and ideology of the preferred reading. It can be morally wrong, emotionally disturbing, unnecessary adult contents of violence and blood gore, religious belief, political outlooks etc., which will make the audience reject the idea. A final example, in 1970-1980 was an era in Indian Films they showed smoking as a sign of prestige, image, wealth, power and flourishing happiness whereas, the reality states otherwise, for it causes cancer.
More recent developments still suggest that there is a decoding process going on among the active audience who are not simply using the media for gratification purposes. All readings of texts is a semiological approach because it recognises the importance of the analysis of signs, particularly visual signs, that shape so much of modern media output.
Overall the shift in the models for the audience has gone from mass audience to individual viewer with stress on the active audience rather than the passive model. The level of activity in the implied audience is related to the uses, pleasures, cultural competence, situation and available technology for the particular audience.
Additionally, there are the interactive audiences. The interactive role of audiences in programmes where audience participation is asked is increasing. Audiences are asked to be a voter (X factor and Big Brother) or as an on screen member of an audience (Children in Need) or as a participant (Who wants to be a millionaire). This can be seen as audience power, but I don’t think that this is real. Sometimes the power of the audience seems to lie in being able to take part in a media text.
More and more documentary style programmes are made about so-called ‘real’ people doing things that in the past would have been done by professional presenters, such as the Faking it series. The audience is even more active than ever before. It is becoming part of the production. Audiences seem to like seeing themselves on any genre of programme from daytime confrontational help programmes (Trisha, Oprah) to Diet Doctors.
Reception Theory can be seen as an extension of the Uses and Gratifications Model. It concentrates on the audience themselves and how they come to a text. The idea is that the audience themselves help to create the meaning of text and this depends on their social values, gender, age, class, context of time in which we are living.
Another important point that came from this research is that there are clear differences in the uses that people made of the media in their everyday lives depending on gender. He found that men prefer factual programmes, while women prefer fiction. Also, men prefer watching the programmes extensively whereas women tend to be doing something else at the same time. Finally he found that if someone had control over what the family was watching it tended to be the man – often with the remote control in his hand. However, I don’t agree with this point as I choose what we watch most of the time, not my husband.
Still in line with the active audience idea is the concept of Mode of Address. This refers to the way that a text speaks to the audience in a style that encourages them to identify with the text because it is ‘their’ kind of text. For example, Friends is intended for a young audience because of the way it uses music and the opening credits to develop a sense of fun, energy and enthusiasm that the perceived audience can identify with. This does not mean that other groups are excluded, merely that the dominant mode of address is targeted at the young.
The framework of dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings is not without problems, however. Because viewers can hold multiple positions towards a film text at once, most every reading becomes negotiated; in fact, the tripartite framework has since been replaced by a continuum ranging from dominant to oppositional.
Although the use of reception analysis for the purposes of censorship and marketing has contributed to film theorists’ distrust of reception theory, reception theory has recently gained acceptance and is now acknowledged to be an important method of analysing how audiences experience and interpret films. Audiences watching M*A*S*H (1972) at the height of the Vietnam War, or those viewing Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) during the buildup to that year’s US presidential election, would understand these films based on the current social and political climates; audiences who watch these films at other historical moments would most likely have different reactions to them. Reception theory attempts to account for all of these factors in determining how audiences experience motion pictures.
These frameworks have proven useful for reception studies as a means of theorising the wide variety of interpretations and meanings that viewers take from texts. Both British cultural studies and reception theory agree that the spectator’s interaction with the text is complex, and that, unlike the passive, idealised spectator found in classical film theory, viewers can and do question and oppose the ideology presented to them by media institutions.
“It is unnecessary that the audience will decode the message encoded by the author just the same”. – Stuart Hall
In conclusion, reception theory is far more complex in understanding as each mind perceives in its own way. A single person can have a mixed reaction of being a dominant, oppositional, and negotiated reader when they are going through the process of receiving the message. The content producer cannot take/judge for every single individual perspective. The conclusion taken by the audience which was/is/will be right for and their perspectives will change as when the time goes by and will feel just right for the conclusion derived at that moment.
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- Media Studies. Understanding Audience. Available: https://brianair.wordpress.com/film-theory/understanding-audience/. Last accessed 01/04/20.
- Media Studies. Audience Theory. Available: http://media-studies.mrshollyenglish.com/theory/audiences-institutions/audience-theory. Last accessed 01/04/20.
- Media Studies. AUDIENCE THEORY. Available: http://gsmedia.weebly.com/audience-theory.html. Last accessed 01/04/20.
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Deeper Thoughts in Films 