Monday 7 October 2013

Audience Theory

Audience Theory

Today I have learnt about two types of audience theories: 

The effects model (or Hypodermic Model)
Croteau, Hoynes (1997)
This theory is the idea that messages are injected into the audience. The audience is powerless to the messages received to them, causing them to act differently. For example the audience may mimic fashion and dance moves seen in music videos.

Uses and Gratifications
Blumer and Katz (1974)
This theory states that we choose to seek a media text. We may be able to relate to it or find it funny, Blumer and Katz do not believe it is forced upon us.

Chase and status feat Deliah- Time



In class we analysed the 'Time' music video by Chase and Status and Deliah.
The narrative of the music video was about domestic violence. It showed the father abusing the mother and how it effected all memebers of the family, mainly focusing on the daughter.
The end of the music video then shows the daughter calling the police and the dad getting put into prision.






Refering to the hypodermic model, the audience may mimic the violent actions shown in the video. It may subconsiously cause people to be more violent and they may mimic the way in which the father beat up the mother.
On the other hand, some of the audience may be in a similar situation to the young girl in the video and they may positivily mimic the video by calling the police or a helpline and getting help.

Refering to the uses and gratifictaion theory, the audience may choose to ignore the violence and stay focused on the fact that the young girl was brave enough to get help and the family are now out of the tragic situation.

Miley Cyrus- We can't stop 
The narrative of this video simply shows young people at a party.

Refering to the hypodermic model this music video could have negative effects on young people. It may encourage people who are under age to drink and act in an anti-social manner. For example part of the video shows Miley and another girl fighting and creating a lot of mess in a house. Young girls who may idolise Miley may mimic actions like this and think it is okay to act in this way.
However, the audience may instead pick up on the postive side of the video being that they are having fun while being young and care free. They may mimic having fun with friends rather than mimicing the deviant activities.
Refering to the uses and gratifications theory, the audience can choose to ignore the negative side of the video and choose to not mimic illegal or deviant activities. They can instead choose to just see the video as harmless fun.

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