AUDIENCE THEORIES

Audience is a highly valued concept in media

and information production. From the side of
the creators and producers, they are the
perceived receiver, the viewer, and the end-
user of the media and information texts that
will come out of the production cycle. Media
corporation spend a huge amount of corporate
funds trying to learn about their target
audience.
Passive Audience Theories
The hypodermic needle theory emerged in the late 1920s
and gained prominence until after World War II. It asserts
that media information messages, like a hypodermic needle,
inject their messages directly to their audiences. Media is
described as powerful conduits of messages and audiences
as passive recipients of the messages. It also suggests that
audiences will believe anything told to them by the media. It
views audiences as largely homogenous and
undifferentiated; thus media text will generate the same
reaction from all kinds of audiences.
The two-step flow of communication emerged
from studies of Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson,
Hazel Gaudet when they analyzed how voters make
their electoral decisions in the 1940 United States
presidential campaign. The findings revealed that
voters do not access information directly from the
media but through what is referred to as opinion
leaders, a group of people who exert particular
influence on the voters.
The uses and gratification approach argued that the
audience access media and information bringing
with them their own needs and desires, which in
turn structures the way how media is received.
Kinds of Gratification
• Information: We want to know about the society we live
in. We want to sense the world. Human beings are
naturally curious and we want to satisfy our curiousness.
• Personal Identity: We watch the television to validate our
understanding and appreciation of our identities.
• Integration and Social Interaction: Because we turn to
the media for information, it became a means of
providing us with the information we need so we can
integrate and interact with social groups.
• Entertainment: Sometimes we simply use media for
enjoyment, relaxation, or just to fill time.
Cultural Effects Theory
In 1976, George Gerbner introduced the cultural
effects theory. He argued that television
cultivates in its viewers a way of sensing and
seeing the world. Without judging television
viewing as good or bad, Gerbner intuited that
regular usage of television over extended periods
of time can shape people’s opinions, views and
behavior.
Active Audience Theories
From the linear transmission models, we will now
proceed to a more complex theorizing on audience
reception. We need to invoke our basic
understanding of Stuart Hall’s framework for
encoding and decoding messages.
• Encoded in the construction of media texts are the
organizational and contextual factors surrounding the
production of media and information text.
• Encoded in the media and information texts are also
dominant perspectives that emanate from the main
institutions of society, including even the established
codes and practices that create preferred meaning.