Audience Theories

Audience Theory and Understanding  

Overview

A media audience may be as small as one person or may be on a much larger scale like billions of people from around the globe watching events like the Royal wedding live on TV. 

Audience have a complex relationship with the products they consume, Media companies and producers intend for their audience to react to a product in a certain way but in actual fact each and everyone reacts to a piece of text and media in their own individual ways. 

It is common that media audiences could be consuming different types of music at the same time; like listening to music on their phones, watching TV or chating via the internet, infact it is common for a family to sit down together and watch TV at the same time. 

Producers, broadcasters, advertisers and other members of Media companies organize their Media consumers into different identified groups based on how much they earn and even their life styles, this makes it easier for producers to target a specific audience. it should also be noted that most media products where made to make profit, so producers and co are more likely to target those with spending power.

THE THEORIES 

The Hypodermic syringe theory 

This is a theory that states that the mass media and other forms of propaganda can inject and sometimes even force down certain messages into the public's mind. This is certainly true, the power shared by the Government and the Multimedia strands are immanence and sometimes frighting. 

The audience is seen as a single mass that passively receives the text and media this is evident by people being "addicted" to video games and certain other uses of the internet, in fact advertising is known to be so powerful that certain products such as cigarettes are banned from bring advertised on television.

The uses and Gratification theory 

This is a theory that states the audience is highly active in making use of the media for a range of purpose designed to satisfy needs such as entertainment, information and identification. Technically an individual has the power over what they choice to believe is true, and selects the media text that best suit her needs and her attempts to satisfy those needs