Audience Theorist

• Stuart Hall - Reception theory

  Communication is a process involving encoding by producers + decoding by an audience
• What is dominant-hegemonic/preferred reading (SH - Reception)


  Encoder's intended meaning is accepted + understood
• What is negotiated reading (SH - Reception)

  Encoder's message is acknowledged but isn't fully accepted (adapted to suit the decoder)
• What is oppositional reading (SH - Reception)


  Encoder's message is understood but decoder disagrees and/or decodes it differently
• George Gerbner - Cultivation theory

  Being exposed to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time, can shape + influence the way people perceive the world around them
• Cultivation reinforce mainstream or dominant value and ideologies
• Albert Bandura - Media effects


  Media can implant ideas in the mind of an audience directly (hypodermic needle model)
• What do audiences acquire through media products?(AB - Media E)

  Attitude, emotional responses and behaviours
• Media representation of transgressive or antisocial behaviour can affect an audience as it and encourage/ lead to audiences imitating said forms of behaviour (AB - Media E)
• Henry Jenkins - Fandom Theory 


  Fans are active ppts in the construction and circulation of textual meanings
• Fandom refers to a particular organised and motivated audience of a certain media produced franchise (HJ - Fandom)
• Fans can construct their own social and cultural identities by borrowing and inflicting mass culture images and participating in a culture that offers a vital social dimension (HJ - Fandom)
• What is textual poaching (HJ - Fandom)


  Fans appreciate texts and read them in ways that are not fully authorised by the media producers
• Clay Shirky - 'End of audience' theory 


  The internet and digital technologies have had a significant effect on the relations between media and audiences

  -The internet has changed the role of audiences as they are no longer passive consumers of mass media content, they now have the ability to 'speak back to' media producers/products
• Media consumers participate in content creation and distribution by engaging in creating and sharing content with one another (social media, blogs, videos etc.) (CS- EOA Theory)