Audiences:


Some people see media audiences as being easily manipulated masses of people who can be persuaded to buy products through advertising, or to follow corrupt leaders through propaganda. With this the problem of violence in media is arisen. People may believe violence to be 'cool' or 'accepted' in society, due to seeing it in the media. An example of this is where James Bulger was murdered by two children, the media reporting suggested they were influenced by violent videos.


Historical Background:


150 years ago all types of media would have seen like fantasies. Instead people were more independent and filled up their leisure times with things such as reading. Media has had a huge influence on this behaviour.


Their are two views people can take of the media

1. It can split people up as people do not go out as much.
2. Bring people closer together as millions of people experience the same media events.

The audience as a 'Mass':


When listening to or watching media products we become part of a mass audience in many ways.
Media can spread different songs, pictures or films across the world therefore the media is less restrictive. Whereas media used to be restricted to a certain number of people.


Herbert Blumers ideas of mass media:

1. Its membership may come from all walks of life, and from all distinguishable social strata; it may include people of different class position, of different vocation, of different cultural attainment and of different wealth.
2. The mass is an anonymous group, or more exactly is composed of anonymous individuals.
3. There exists little interaction or change of experience between members of the mass.
4. Loosely organised and is not able to act with the unity of a crowd.

Defining audiences: the mass market:


Media producers and institutions like to consider audiences in groups. (Target audience)
Therefore we carried out questionnaires to discover our target audience to enable us to produce a music video to their expectations.
We have to think of:

• The age group 
• Gender
• Race
• Location
• Also what their expectations are and what they like/enjoy to see

Influencing the audience:
 There have been a number of theories throughout the years about how exactly the media work on the mass audience. We looked at a few some are explained briefly below


The effects/Hypodermic model:

• Syringe injects ideas and concepts into the audience and attitudes and beliefs.
• People therefore are affected in different ways.
• Therefore this relates to our videos as people can watch the video and believe it as we shall be making it like others on the market with a twist therefore the audience can watch it and believe it, especially if we use a storyline.

The cultivation/culmination theory:

• While any one media text does not have too much effect, years and years of watching violence will make you less sensitive to violence, years and years of watching women being mistreated in soaps will make you less bothered about it in real life. This process is referred to as Desensitisation.
• Although this is difficult to prove either way
• People have seen the sterotypes of a R'n'B video many times and therefore when watching our video shall not be shocked of its content.

Identification:

• Some psychiatrists claim to have successfully used pornography to help sex offenders release their emotions

Sensitisation:

• Violence can be shocking to some people and consequently put people off.

Criticisms of mass audience theory:

1. Relies on assumptions of the people analysing the masses.
2. Could be just a chance for people to air their prejudices.

Uses and gratifications theory:


According to this theory we all have different uses for the media and we make choices over what we want to watch.
What kind of gratifications can we be getting:

1. Information- We want to find out about society and the world- we want to satisfy our curiosity.
2. Personal identity- We may watch tv in order to look for models for our behaviour.
3. Intergration and social interaction- We use the media in order to find out more about the circumstances of other people.
4. Entertainment- Enjoyment, relaxation or just to fill time.

• These are the reasons why some people want to watch our video, we shall try to include each one so our audiences is broadened. 

Reception analysis:

• Concentrates on the audience themselves and their reading of the text. Believes that the audience themselves help to create the meaning of the text.

Is all about trying to look different meanings and to understand them. What reception analysts have found is that factors such as gender, our place inside society, and the context of the time we are living in can be enormously important when we make the meaning or the text.


David Morley:


Theorist of reception analysis.


BBC Survey of Nationwide audience in 1974

Social Group	Size	% of Audience	% of Overall Population
Upper middle-class	321,000	5.4	6.0
Lower middle-class	2,140,000	36.3	24.0
Working-class	3,438,000	58.3	70.0
Male	2,772,000	46.1	--------------
Female	3,177,000	53.9	--------------

Source: Morley (1980: 38)

Three Positions

Morley outlined three hypothetical positions (adapted from Frank Parkin) which the reader of a programme might occupy (1983, pp. 109-10; see also 1981b, p. 51 and 1992, p. 89):

• Dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: The reader shares the programme's 'code' (its meaning system of values, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions) and fully accepts the programme's 'preferred reading' (a reading which may not have been the result of any conscious intention on the part of the programme makers).

• Negotiated reading: The reader partly shares the programme's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but modifies it in a way which reflects their position and interests.

• Oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: The reader does not share the programme's code and rejects the preferred reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of interpretation.

Morley argues that 'members of a given sub-culture will tend to share a cultural orientation towards decoding messages in particular ways. Their individual "readings" of messages will be framed by shared cultural formations and practices' (1981)
Morley insists that he does not take a social determinist position in which individual 'decodings' of TV programmes are reduced to a direct consequence of social class position. 'It is always a question of how social position, as it is articulated through particular discourses, produces specific kinds of readings or decodings. These readings can then be seen to be patterned by the way in which the structure of access to different discourses is determined by social position'


He also found in his research:

• Men prefer more factual programmes
• women often watch the television whilst doing something else.