L03; Audience
responses and behaviour
There are
two main theories audiences and they are the “hypodermic needle theory” and the
“uses and gratifications theory” these two theories are the main point of
reference when it comes to understanding you’re audience and trying to
understand how they process , handle and respond to various different aspects
of media , advertising and branding.
Adverts have
the potential to make a massive impact on an audience, some people more so than
others and this depends on which physiographic, demographic and geographic
categories they fall into for example young people are a lot more susceptible
to influence from media.
The hypodermic need theory
“The "hypodermic needle theory" implied mass media had
a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences. The mass
media in the 1940s and 1950s were perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour
change.
Several factors contributed to this "strong effects"
theory of communication, including:
- The fast rise and popularization of radio and television
- The emergence of the persuasion industries, such as
advertising and propaganda
- The Payne Fund studies of the 1930s, which focused on the
impact of motion pictures on children, and
- Hitler's monopolization of the mass media during WWII to unify
the German public behind the Nazi party”
Information source - http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Mass%20Media/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory.doc/
In short the hypodermic
needle theory suggests that media can be pumped into, forced upon or directly
injected into the mind of the audience. A prime example of this is ; a young
girl walking down the street will see hundreds of images of skinny super models
, makeup and beauty products these images make her think that she needs to buy
these products as these woman are made to look like idealistic clones of each
other using photo editing software such as photoshop .
Somebodies ideas and views can be changed in
an instant if they are subject to the right piece of media. Even on a sub
conscious level we take in media, because it is all around us; billboards, the radio,
posters, flyers, the internet and hundreds of other media platforms. Due to the
fact that media is always around us as we get older we sort of become numb to
it , we know it’s there , we know what to expect and we can make educated
conclusions about the things around us ; this is why young minds are a lot more
susceptible to advertising.
Uses and gratifications theory
“Uses and gratifications
approach is an influential tradition in media research. The original conception
of the approach was based on the research for explaining the great appeal of
certain media contents. The core question of such research is: Why do people
use media and what do they use them for? (McQuail, 1983). There exists a basic
idea in this approach: audience members know media content, and which media
they can use to meet their needs.
In the mass communication
process, uses and gratifications approach puts the function of linking need
gratifications and media choice clearly on the side of audience members. It
suggests that people’s needs influence what media they would choose, how they
use certain media and what gratifications the media give them. This approach
differs from other theoretical perspectives in that it regards audiences as
active media users as opposed to passive receivers of information. In contrast
to traditional media effects theories which focus on “what media do to people”
and assume audiences are homogeneous, uses and gratifications approach is more
concerned with “what people do with media” (Katz, 1959). It allows audiences
personal needs to use media and responds to the media, which determined by
their social and psychological background”.
Simplified the uses and
gratifications theory , suggests that what we see in the media is dictated by
the public as the teams behind all the advertising , marketing and branding
that we see on a daily basis are trying to suit the needs and wants of the
public.
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