Audience theory's

Audience theory's

 

There are three main theory's that we can relate to seeing how and why our audience watch horror films.    theses are...

 

-The hypodermic model

-The used and gratifications model

-Reception theory

The hypodermic model

The consumption of media texts has an effect or influence on the audience.

It is commonly conceded that this is a negative effect.

Audiences are 'passive' and powerless to prevent this influence

The power lies with the message of the text.

The used and gratifications model

The message of the media text is injected into the audience by the syringe-like media.

The audience is powerless to resist.

This means that the media works like a drug.

Reception theory

When a producer constructs a text, it is encoded with a meaning or a message that the producer wants to convey to the audience.

In some instances the audience will correctly decode the message or meaning and understand what the producer was trying to say.

However in other instances the audience will rejects or fail to correctly understand the message.

Stuart hall identified 3 types of audience readings...

Dominant or preferred - where the audience decodes the message as the producer wants them too and broadly agreeing with it .  e.g.  watching a political speech and agreeing with it.

Negotiated - Where the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in light of previously help views  e.g.  neither agreeing or disagreeing with the political speech or being disinterested.

Oppositional - where the dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for the culture, political or ideological reasons  e.g.  total rejection of the political speech or active opposition.