2. Aim: to explore audience theory and apply to
coursework in preparation for exam question
Starter:
Look at the images. What do you see?
3. Aim: to explore audience theory and apply to
coursework in preparation for exam question
Do the producers influence the audience?
or
Does the audience influence the producers?
4. Aim: to explore audience theory and apply to
coursework in preparation for exam question
TEXT
PRODUCER AUDIENCE
5. Hypodermic Needle Theory
TEXT MESSAGE PASSIVE AUDIENCE
Audiences passively receive the ideology
transmitted via a media text, without any attempt
on their part to process or challenge the data.
Any problems with this theory?
6. Two-Step Flow Theory
The ideology is FILTERED
by ‘opinion leaders’ and
passed on to less active
associates.
7. Uses and Gratifications
Blumler and Katz:
• Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.
• Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and
other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family
life
• Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in
texts, learning behaviour and values from texts
• Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living
eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains
9. Stuart Hall’s Reading the Media
• Dominant, or Preferred Reading
how the director/creator wants the audience to view the
media text;
• Opposition Reading
when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates
their own meaning of the text;
• Negotiated Reading
a compromise between the dominant and opposition
readings, where the audience accepts parts of the
director's views, but has their own views on parts as well.
11. Objectification
Martha Nussbaum:
(1) instrumentality: the treatment of a person as a
tool for the objectifier's purposes;
(2) denial of autonomy: the treatment of a person
as lacking in autonomy and self-determination;
(3) inertness: the treatment of a person as lacking in
agency, and perhaps also in activity;
12. Objectification
(4) fungibility: the treatment of a person as interchangeable
with other objects;
(5) violability: the treatment of a person as lacking in
boundary-integrity;
(6) ownership: the treatment of a person as something that is
owned by another (can be bought or sold);
(7) denial of subjectivity: the treatment of a person as
something whose experiences and feelings (if any) need
not be taken into account.
13. Objectification
Rae Langton:
(8) reduction to body: the treatment of a person as
identified with their body, or body parts;
(9) reduction to appearance: the treatment of a person
primarily in terms of how they look, or how they
appear to the senses;
(10) silencing: the treatment of a person as if they are
silent, lacking the capacity to speak.
14. Aim: to explore audience theory and apply to
coursework in preparation for exam question
Other theories you might want to research:
Marxism
Postmodernism
Structuralism
Abercrombie and Langhurst-Hegemony
Richard Dyer- genre and escapism
Fandom