Audience theory - 27th September

After researching into the different conventions, techniques and genres I will now seek to gain further understanding of the audiences that different documentaries are targeted at. All good media products are created with a specific audience in mind and are crafted to relate to the needs of that specific audience. Representation and Mise En Scene are two considerations directors of documentaries relate to when creating their work. Often the set up of an interview and attire of a presenter can be used to influence how an audience receives a product, much like the use of the expert convention explained earlier. For example a nature program presented by a man in a suit sitting in an office would not be as well received as if it were presented by a man in outdoor gear in a forest, as well as one would expect a documentary on economical decline to be presented by a man in a suit as opposed to a man in outdoor gear. Although virtually the same information, ideals and opinions are being put across, the audience will be more sceptical of the man in the suit as he is not a representation that the audience expects and is comfortable with, and will receive the information better when it is put across by a presenter they feel is representational to the information being put across.

In researching audiences I will investigate audience theories used in the media to explain audiences and see how these relate to my production. I will also research demographics and create a questionnaire to be distributed to a wide variety of people in order to discover my prospective target audience. I will then look into how audiences consumer media texts and research how institutions within the media distribute this with audience consumption in mind.

Audience theory

Audience Theory is a medium of research focused on how audiences receive media texts and consume them that have matured and sophisticated from as early as the 1920’s.

Since then there have been four major schools of thought regarding audience theory that have increased in sophistication and depth of audience with some of the first theories regarding audiences as very similar and almost drone like in their consumption of the media.

The Hypodermic Syringe Model

The Hypodermic Syringe Model (or the Hypodermic Needle Model) was the first attempt by academics to attempt to explain how “the masses” might react to media. The theory was created just after the First World War, at a time where the media as a means of influence was a new thing and governments had only just begun to discover the power that media had in influencing the population (this power would of course later be used to cataclysmic extremes by both the Nazi party in Germany and the Bolshevik party in Russia to impose their radical ideals on the people of both countries).
The theory in itself was a crude model that reduced audiences to passive drones consuming media without a second thought. The intelligence and opinions of the individual were not considered relative at the time of this theories creation. It also assumes that audiences receive any media without mediating (filtering it logically) it in their minds. The name of this theory literally refers to a metaphorical needle injecting media right into audience’s minds, manipulating them and indoctrinating them to follow the media creator’s ideals and that being their only thoughts. Of course this theory was soon superseded as it became apparent that audiences were not so easily manipulated by the creators of propaganda and media texts and that audience’s filtered information in their minds, instead of receiving it passively like an injection of information to the brain.

Two Step Flow

As mass media became more and more prevalent in societies throughout the world, it became apparent that audiences were not drone like in their consumption of the media, rendering the hypodermic syringe theory useless to anybody wishing to understand the relation between audience and media texts.
The Two Step Flow school of thought was developed during the 1940’s. Branching away from the hypodermic syringe model, this theory gave thought to idea that audiences do not directly consume media straight from media texts but from what was known as “opinion leaders”. These opinion leaders were people with more access to the media, who would then pass this information on to their “lesser associates” over whom they held influence. These opinion leaders would filter the information from media texts judging them by their own values and opinions before handing them on to the “masses”. The “masses” would then of course believe the opinions and facts handed to them by the opinion leaders much in the same was as the hypodermic syringe model worked.
Though this theory was a step up from the hypodermic syringe model by the fact it recognised that media texts were mediated by individuals not just received straight lie an injection, it still grouped the masses together into a single minded entity with passive drone like tendencies in consuming media texts.


Uses and Gratifications

During the 1960’s as the first generation born into a mass media consuming society who grew up with television became adults, it once again became apparent that current audience theories and the “Two Step Flow” model were outdated an ineffective in explaining the relation between audience and media text. A new theory that was developed around audiences having more than a passive intake of media that instead of them in taking it like a drone, they consumed certain media texts depending on their needs for their uses. In short the theory was an audience centralised school of thought where audiences controlled the media they consumed to gratify their needs, not the media controlling what audiences consume in order to manipulate and indoctrinate audiences. In the late 70’s four main uses for audiences were devised that sought to explain why certain audiences consumed certain media texts. They were:

• Diversion – for escapism value and a change of scenery from every day problems and stress.

• Personal Relationships – Using media texts for emotional interaction, eg substituting soap operas for family life

• Personal Identity – indentifying themselves within media texts and learning behaviour, ideals and values from them.

• Surveillance – watching news, weather and financial reports to intake information valuable in an audience’s life.

In this instance documentaries would fall under personal identity and surveillance, as an audience would consume a documentary to learn from it for use in social situations and think about the values presented in the documentary and identify their own values and morals in relation to this information and opinions presented.

Reception Theory

As it became more and more apparent that audiences consumed media for their own uses, academics soon began to investigate how certain individual’s situations such as race, gender, age and social status, affected what media texts they consumed and for what reasons. Based around the encoding/decoding theory that suggests media texts are encoded by creators and decoded by audiences through conventions such as representation and background knowledge. According to this theory, specific Mise En Scene may be placed on a set by a director in order to appeal to a certain audience almost like an inside knowledge of the themes presented in the text. This leads to separate audiences consuming the same media text in a different way, decoding a different meaning from it. This leads to the reception theory of preferred reading, where specific audiences consume texts they relate too and understand to gratify their needs as presented by the uses and gratifications theory.

Applying Audience Theory to My Production

From researching the progression of audience theory throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, I have learnt a great deal about audiences in relation to their consumption of media texts. I have learnt that audiences are not passive in their consumption of media texts, and that they gratify their needs by using media texts for different purposes. I have also learnt how conventions, Mise En Scene and familiarity are used by the creators of media texts in order for their audiences to relate to and choose to gratify their needs with certain media texts that they enjoy through preferred reading.

This understanding of audience theory will help me to create a documentary that can be used by audiences to gratify their needs of surveillance and personal identity, and that will use Mise En Scene and representation effectively so that my audience will both enjoy my piece and make use of it to fulfil their needs.

I will now study demographics, an audience theory used in market research as well as a questionnaire in order to identify my perspective target audience that I will create my documentary with in mind.