Lesson Two: Audiences. What I Learnt.

Today, we learned about 5 Audience Theorys.
These are:
Hyperdermic Needle Theory;
Culmination Theory;
Two-Step Flow Model;
Uses and Gratifications;
Reception Analysis.

The Hyperdermic Needle Theory is the theory that the messages from the media are injected directly into the audiences brain and that the audience will only see it in the way in which the media portrays it. The flaw in this theory is that it is seen as bad, as it can cause panic within the audiences.

The Culmination Theory is the theory that if you see an action; such as violence, happening all the time in the media without any consequences, you yourself are going to eventually be desensitised towards the idea of violence, and in fact, accept it if you see it happening. The major flaw with this theory is that it has yet to be proven/disproven because it is getting increasingly more difficult to prove/disprove it.

The Two-Step Flow Model is the theory that the mass media goes through an opinion leader before it actually reaches the mass audience, and those opinion leaders tell certain groups of audiences how to feel about what the media has published audiences believe them unquestioningly. The one major flaw in this theory is that we no longer need opinion leaders to tell us how to feel as we are all independant and we can find ways of getting to media on our own terms.

The Uses and Gratifications theory is the theory that The active audience consumes media for these reasons:
Diversion,
Personal relationships,
Personal identity,
Surveillance,
and Entertainment.

The Recpetion Analysis Theory is the theory that producers encode messages through the media and the audiences themselves decode the messages to how they understand it. the flaw within tis thoeory is that many audiences may decode the message the wrong way and not understand it as well as intended.