Yiyun Hu

6.3 Understand how media audiences respond to media

products

In media industry, audience is the most important part of the whole production.
Without audiences, media products lost their basic values. And by studying
audiences, we can see the effect the media can have on them and understand
why audiences choose to consume certain texts convey by producers and how
they consume them.
Audiences normally can be defined by different elements, including gender,
age, nationality, sexuality, region or morals, education and socio-economic
group, which is also called class in a simpler way. Besides, some audiences are
passive, while others are active. Passive audiences are easily led, influenced
and manipulated. They dont question the texts and are always gullible as sheep-
like fashion followers. Active audiences are more willing to interact with the texts
given by the producers and always questioning them. This kind of audiences are
the ones in control and free willed. They are engaged with their own opinions and
response to the texts in different ways.
Different audiences are for different media texts. Although not all audiences
response the same, todays audiences are still positioned and manipulated by
media producers.

Here are three audience theories we use to demonstrate the relationship

between audiences and texts. They are The Hypodermic Needle Model, Uses and
Gratification Model and Reception Theory.

Introduction of Three Theories

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First one is called the Hypodermic Needle Model firstly generated in

1930s, which is related to passive audiences. Sometimes when it is
linked to advertising and propaganda, we also call it
magic bullet theory. It is a model that show how all the
audiences will response to the media text in the same way
and accept message of the text passively. The media
texts influence the attitude, thoughts and
even behavior of audiences. And these
compliant audiences are powerless to get
rid of the influence and power lying with the
message of the texts. So these audiences are
totally controlled by the texts. The reason why it is
called Hypodermic Needle Theory is because
these media mediums (TV, games, the press and
advertisement) work like a syringe. And the
message or products are the drug, which
are injected to audiences by powerful media day by day. Then the
audiences will become more and more powerless to resist, addicted and patient
to waiting the drug-like message injected to their brains. One of most common
examples is the propaganda of jihad by numbers of extremists. By keep
injecting their own values to others and brainwashing, more and more people will
be affected both physically and psychologically. Even if some of these victims
dont believe in them in the beginning, as the time goes by, they will start listen
to these message unconsciously and accept their opinions more and more
patiently. In the end, when these victims are totally influenced, their behavior
and values become different as well. The famous Bobo Doll Experiment also
proves the theory. 88% of the children imitated the violent behavior someone did
to a bobo doll, which they saw in a video before. In short, the hypodermic needle
model assumes that audiences think what they told to think, believe what they
are told to believe and consume what they are told to consume through these
media texts.
Although this model helps producers see trends, it has its weakness. This theory
totally ignores the diversity of audiences. Different audiences use media for
different reasons. And it is rare that all audiences can be influenced in the same
way even some of them are sophisticated.

The second theory is called Uses and Gratification Model. Audiences are
opposed to those in the Hypodermic Needle Theory. They are active. Instead of
being used by the media text, these audiences use the text to fulfill their certain
needs and gain the pleasure. These needs include information or called
surveillance, personal identity (self-surveillance), social interaction and
entertainment. Information (surveillance) is the need for people to know what is
going on the world. Personal identity (self-surveillance) means that define
ourselves by comparing own lifestyles and situations with those in the media.
Social interaction means the use of media to find and communicate with those
kindred spirits. Entertainment is another need for these audiences. They use
media texts for distraction and escapism to make them escape from the real life.
This theory is linked to Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, which is a theory focusing
on the observation of human innate motivation in psychology, and developed by
Jay Blumler and Elihu Katz in 1970s.
Uses and Gratification model is audience-centered approach to mass media.
In short, in this model, audiences is in control and use the media texts to please
themselves. For instance, when people go to the cinema, they always choose to
spend their money on watching the film they like depending on their own moods
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and choices. Audiences have the power over the media producers and play an
active role of incorporating these texts into their own lives to meet their desires.
However, the weakness of this theory is that it underestimate the importance
and power of the media. Audience might not always be active while the media
text can influence their needs and gratification without consciousness.

The third
theory
is

Reception Theory focusing on active

audiences. The main proponent of this
theory is Stuart Hall, an American
cultural theorist. In this theory, it believes that audiences are made up of
individuals so that their responses to the media text are also complex, diverse
and keep changing. All the media texts have their encoded signs messages and
values created by producers. Producers encode these texts with a preferring
reading, the certain meaning they want to convey to audiences and wish them
understand. Producers define and create issues of public interest and trends
through audience positioning so that audiences will response in a particular
way producers prefer to get. By using s particular sound or camera angle or
words in the media products, audiences may react in a particular way when
decoding that producers want to see. For example, in 2012 Christmas advert by
John Lewis, producers use light music, which sounds a
bit sad, as the background music. The background
music the power of love matches the story, which is
about a snowman traveling to London just for buying
a present for his lover. The closes ups of the
snowmans facial expression make audiences feel
sympathy towards him. The audiences positioning
made by the producers makes this advertisement
touching.

However, because of the diversity of the audiences,

some of them may fail to understand correctly, challenge or reject the message
after decoding them in various words depending on their opinions. Active
audiences may respond in several ways: preferred reading, oppositional reading
and negotiated reading. Preferred reading is the response what the producers
want to see when encoding. The text accepted by audiences usually reflects their
ideas and beliefs. Oppositional reading means audiences may reject the intended
meaning. Audiences dont agree with the meaning producers want to convey to
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them, which may be resulted from their ages, gender, religion and other factors.
Negotiated reading refers to that audiences put their own understanding and
opinions on the text. Audiences accept some of the text and negotiate about the
things they didnt accept before. It is more common to see negotiated reading in
a political speech. People who are disinterested in any party may either agree or
disagree these political opinions. For example, the reviews rating about The
Neon Demon is 6.3, which is not quite high. This film is disputable, where the
director express lots of his ideas and opinions about the dark and ugly side of the
entertainment circle. The contrast of light and shadow and color are fantastic
like a piece of art for some professional directors. However, for other audiences,
this kind of lighting and composition look dizzy and cheap. Some of them
rate it as the best film ever, while others think it is the worst movie he has ever
seen. And a part of audiences agree that is visually stunning but without
substance, especially the mountain lion in Jesses room which looks surreal but a
bit ridiculous.

Application of Three Theories

Nowadays, as we get into the information age, social media, this web-based
communication tool, becomes a more and more important part of our lives. For
some people, especially the youth, social media even replaces the traditional
press and media (newspaper, radio and TV) in their daily lives. We use or hear
the information from social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Snapchat, YouTube and Reddit. Every day, we will receive millions of media texts
from different social media platforms. And audiences who browse these
texts may be affected by them from different
aspects.

According to the concept of the Hypodermic Needle

Theory, all the audiences are passive, easily led and
manipulated. They are all sheep-like fashion follower
without questioning any message of texts
provided by producers. These texts will have deep
and usually negative influence on audiences both
physically (behavior) and psychologically (thoughts).
Even if some of them are not compliant in the
beginning, after long-time consistent being told with the same message by
producers, audiences will be more and more patient and believe in these drug-
like message. Since the beginning of 2016, the public concern of whether UK
should leave the European unit has created a big continuous sensation in social
media. There are always the voices keeping spreading their opinions online. And
that kind of brainwashing do influence more and more viewers. In the screenshot
from a twitter post created by I Vote Leave, we can see a strong proof of applying
the hypodermic needle theory. The words it used, such as time to spread vote
leave and join us are very pushy and matches with the images. The white bold
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better of out with a star quit from other symbolizes Brexit. And this may
influence viewers again visually in a more direct way. Vote for leave. The
supporters of this claim keep spreading their opinions in Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and social media platforms by using powerful, emotional and strong
words to affect the public. In several months, the leave camp has built
momentum online and setting the tone of the debate across all the major social
media platforms. One of the biggest reason of the victory of leave camp is

because they have more

vocal supporters
in social media,
who are
five

times more active than remain activists by

analyzing 30k posts in 30 weeks. The dominant
overwhelming message of vote leave influence
loads of undecided or passive voters (even
including some remain supporters) and make
them change their mind unconsciously. More and
more people comment I used to think I am right. But now maybe you
are. Under the posts. The more straightforward
and intuitive words they use, highly emotional
contents such as win the county back and
migrants are killing our countries and huge
numbers of texts they create consistently all
influence others accept their points of view
passively. The similar situation also happened in
American presidential election. Today, when I
browse twitter, the top hashtag is #saveourNHS, which criticizes the potential
decision made by Teresa May to make NHs be part of US trade deal. Open the
hashtag, I saw hundreds of posts about counterviews of Teresas politics. Most of
the posts have strong and highly emotional words to show how emergent the
situation is, such as NHS is under attack and protect our real life heroes. The
overwhelming posts spreading online all the time.

There is another example of how media texts can influences passive audiences
not only from political aspect but a more serious way. These years, Russian police
has investigate an increasing number of twisted social media groups than
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manipulate teenagers to take their own life. And that has already caused
hundreds of teenagers deaths. These producers in the group create texts in the
way teenagers normally use and keep telling and convincing the girls they are
fat and boys are losers. That is why they are chosen in another world. By
keep injecting this twisted thought to victims day by day, these teenagers
become compliant and start believe what they are told (they are rubbish) and
start do what they are told to do (kill themselves).

However, most of the audiences and viewers now are tended to be active rather
than being controlled by media. In many cases, we can see the application of
Uses and Gratification Model. Audiences use social media for different reason to
fulfill their different needs.

Some of them use social media for getting

information to figure out what is happening on
the world. Audiences receive these information,
consume them and share with others. There
are thousands of different information every
day in social media. Different audiences choose
to browse different content based on their needs, moods and interests. When we
start using a new social media tool, it might jump out a topic category, which
allow viewers to select their interested ones.
That means the social media will filter
thousands of information and pick up proper ones based
on viewers choices. For instance, teenagers are
interested in idols and memes. Young ladies
prefer fashion, gossip and entertainment.
Businessmen are more tended to browse only business
information and news in their limited time. For finding the business news they
want, businessmen can type business news in search tool. Then the related
accounts will jump out automatically. If they are working in small and local
business, BBC Business is the first choice they may choose. If they are in global
business, the link of BBCWorldBiz, which shows latest global business news and
issues. Apart from that, there is a small possibility for them to browse other
information they are not interested in.

Some viewers pick information to define themselves. By comparing own situation

with others in media, they figure out their personal identity. For instance,
some viewers who used to be confused about their sexuality or have gender
cognitive deviation, social media is always the best and secure way for them to
seek for help and define themselves from others who used to experience the
same issue. So this group of viewers much more often to read and pay attention
to related information than others. There are also numbers of groups in
Facebook, where are built up by people who have the same concern, problems or
life experience. The viewer picks these groups, joins them and communicates
with those kindred spirit, who can understand and socially interact with him or
her, to gain reliefs and gratification based on free will. Viewers use social media
to make their social interactions actively for their own pleasure.
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Some of viewers use social media for

entertainment to distract themselves and
escape from the stress coming from the real
life. By selecting the information a person
want to read, he or she will get relief of
feeling of depression or sadness. One of the
common examples is that fans usually choose
to read positive news or information about
their idols instead of some negative truth in
social media. By choosing information based
on their interests and opinions, it gives
these fans the illusion that their idols are
always prefect without any defects. In the
real life, most of fans are eager to be
someone or date with someone like the
idol they like. So every time when they
choose reading the text about the positive
side of their idols, it creates an illusion that
their choices and values are right and
exceed than others. If someone breaks the good impression they have on the
idol or celebrity, it is equal to break these peoples dreams. There are so many
accounts in social media created by fans, while anti-fans cannot be neglected.
Without knowing both positive and negative sides of idols, fans and anti-fans
stuck in their own worlds by browsing the media texts they want to see and
refusing to face the truth. Some anti-fans attack some celebrities even just for
escaping from depressions coming from their own unsuccessful lives in social
media. By choosing and using information based on their own wills and
standpoints, viewers get pleasure. The increasing number of homebody these
years proves this more demanding need.

Another example of escapism is the existence of chatbot, which is a computer

program conducting conversation with real people. More and more single people
start using and are addicted to it. Because through chatbot, they can choose to
talk to the virtual characters they like in media. And the replies of these
characters give them are all what people like to hear. It gives them excitement
and fulfills their needs of being loved and admired even if the admirer is virtual. I
used to see my friend very keen on chatbot and always talks with them in
messenger when she was frustrated. She feels like she can talk with these virtual
characters without any limitation and worries in a way she is never allowed to do
in real life. And replies made by virtual characters are always supportive and
sweet even if she does do something wrong first. Sometimes, social media can
create a perfect illusion to make losers feel like the biggest winner in their lives.

Nowadays, people using social media are diverse because of different age,
gender, sexuality, nationality, social background and other elements. More and
more people become active to interact with media texts. And each of them may
give different responses to the message hidden in media texts by producers
based on their cultural, social and economic background. Some of them give the
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preferring reading the producers (encoders) want to convey to viewers. Some of

them refine elements of the media text due to their previous views to achieve a
negotiated reading. While others audiences may have the oppositional readings
and reject the media texts provided by producers. And that is what we called
Reception Theory. Here are some examples of how this theory may apply to
social media.
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Reception theory is more often to see in

political speech. In February, the American
president Trump sign an order called
immigration ban, which bars people from
seven predominantly Muslin countries. In his
own Twitter accounts, which has more than 27
million followers, there is a post said
according to the latest poll, immigration ban
is the most popular orders Trump made so far.

Under the words, here is a massive

image of a pie chart. In his pie chart, more than 55% people approve while 8%
dont have any opinions. The message hidden in this media text is actually
obvious. The immigration ban Trump makes is wise and right supported by the
public. However, not all the people accept and make a preferring reading. We
can see the diversity of responses through the result of poll already. However, if
we read the most popular replies of this post, we will get oppositional opinions
from people. The first four have received more than 10k like in total. They
believe it is fake news created by Trump, which cannot behalf the real public
trending. Most of viewers, who have oppositional reading about the post have
Muslin or migrant background. So they have more sympathy to people who are
affected by this order and understanding the disadvantage of this order and
reject it in an opposite standpoint. However, other comments under the post
shows the preferred reading and claim that Trump might be the very best
president we ever had and use screenshots of polls to fight back. This group of
people are usually middle or upper class, middle-aged and live in a white family.
A small part of viewers, who are not involved in this topic, have no clear opinions
and just watch two opposite groups arguing. From this example, we can the
response of different audiences are different, especially in social media, where
gather people from everywhere in the world.
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The existence of Reddit, an American social news aggregation, web content

rating and discussion website is a good application of Reception Theory in social
media. In this social media community, people can write their opinions down and
show them to the public. The public can agree or disagree or be neutral
depending on their own feelings and opinions. The reason why it can develop in a
short time is because it pays attention on the diversity of different audiences.
People feel free here to express and interact with different media texts in
different responding.

Although todays audiences are being more and more

active and in control when using social media,
there is no debt that they still cant get rid of being
positioned and manipulated by these media texts. When
audiences use You Tube to watch videos or listen to
music, it will always offer audiences a recommended
playlist based on their previous searching records.
And it seems that audiences have more choices
when selecting the media texts. In fact, the
recommended playlist always limit audiences
choices while they even dont realize that. The
media texts including in these playlist are massive but are still filtered by the
system (encoders). However, most of audiences believe that they choose the
text depending on their own wills and not willing to search extra texts out of the
playlist any more. The audience theories explain the relationship between
audiences and media texts. In my opinion, no matter how active audiences are,
they are still the weaker ones when facing thousands of powerful texts. The only
difference is how much they can be influenced.

Resource:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodermic_needle_model

https://www.slideshare.net/HannahCharlesMedia/hypodermic-needle-theory-
29639628

http://www.referendumanalysis.eu/eu-referendum-analysis-2016/section-7-social-
media/impact-of-social-media-on-the-outcome-of-the-eu-referendum/

https://www.slideshare.net/dphillips4363/reception-theory-presentation