A quick history of audience research used for a college visit

1. Audiences |Effects |
Research
robert.jewitt@sunderland.ac.uk
1

2. Social conditioning
Ivan Pavlov (1901)
Dogs, bells & whistles = salivation

4. Hypodermic syringe
! AKA Magic Bullet
! After Schramm
(1961/1982)
! Mass media are so
powerful they can 'inject'
their messages into the
audience
! AKA propaganda around
WW1

5. Social Cognitive Theory
! Albert Bandura (1959-77)
! ‘Bobo’ doll tests
! Many variations
! 3 groups of children (aged
3-6)
! Rooms with toys
! Adult attacking bobo doll

6. Social Cognitive Theory
! Children exposed to the
aggressive model were
more likely to show
imitative aggressive
behaviour themselves.
! Subjects exposed to the
non-aggressive model, or
no model at all, showed
little imitative aggressive
behaviour

7. Social Cognitive Theory
! Problems
! Rather simple experiments
! Isolate variables and test response
! Establish the (artificial) conditions to test the response
! Draw conclusions about society?
! Audience as too PASSIVE

8. Uses & Gratifications
! “Even the most potent of the mass media content
cannot ordinarily influence an individual who has 'no
use' for it in the social and psychological context in
which he lives.
! The 'uses' approach assumes that people's values, their
interests, their associations, their social rôles, are pre-
potent, and that people selectively 'fashion' what they
see and hear to these interests”
(Katz, 1959 in McQuail, 1971)

9. Gratifying needs
1. Surveillance
• the need for knowledge
2. Personal identity
• our dis/likes and comparisons
3. Personal relationships
• TV facilitates discussion; acts as a ‘friend’
4. Diversion
• escapism, entertainment, relaxing (emotional release &
sexual arousal)

10. Gratifying needs
! Problems:
! Highly individualistic
! Little attention paid to media form and content
! Ignores meanings attached to media
! Presumes the media are always functional
! Audience as too ACTIVE

11. Reception Studies
Stuart Hall (1973)
Encoding/Decoding model

12. Encoding/Decoding model
Media professionals Media audiences
Technical skills Viewing skills
Established practices Diverse interests
Constructed Deconstruct

13. Texts ‘mean’ different things
! Texts are polysemic (can be read multiple ways)
! There exists a ‘preferred reading’

14. Real audiences?
David Morley (1980)
Nationwide Audience
Tested Encoding/Decoding model with real
people

16. Schoolboys
Black FE
Bank managers
students
Apprentices
Shop
stewards
Trade
union
officials
Trainee
Teachers
HE Arts
Students

17. Recent investigations
Tanya Byron (2008)
Concerned about safety of young people online

18. Media effects?
Negative claims still made
Often based on ‘dodgy’ claims

20. Questions
! Do we agree or disagree with the claim that the media
‘effects’ us?
! What kind of form do these ‘effects’ take?
! Is it possible to measure these ‘effects’? How would we
do it?
! What kind of variables or approaches need to be taken
into account if we want to explore audience research
fully?

21. Further Reading
! Daniel Chandler has a series of useful essays summarising the major
arguments
! Cultivation Theory: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/cultiv.html
! Encoding/Decoding: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c.html
! Nationwide Audience:
! http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/TF33120/morleynw.html
! David Gauntlett also summarises many of the problems with claims
around media effects
! 10 Things Wrong With The Effects Model: http://www.theory.org.uk/david/effects.htm
! Also, Tanya Bryon’s report into children and new technology has a useful
appendix by Prof David Buckingham:
! http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/byronreview/pdfs/Buckingham%20Impact%20of%20Media%20Literature
%20Review%20for%20the%20Byron%20Review.pdf