Passive Audiences
The earliest idea was that a mass audience is passive and inactive. The members of the audience are seen as 'couch potatoes' just sitting there consuming media texts. It was thought that this did not require the active use of the brain and that the audience accepts and believes all messages in any media text that they receive.
The Hypodermic Model
In this model the media is seen as powerful and able to inject ideas into an audience who are seen as weak and passive.
It was thought that a mass audience could all be influenced by the same message. This appeared to be the case in Nazi Germany in the 1930s leading up to WWII. Powerful German films used propaganda methods to ‘inject’ ideas promoting the Nazi cause into the German audience. That is why this theory is known as the Hypodermic model.
It suggests that a media text can ‘inject’ ideas, values and attitudes into a passive audience who might then act upon them. This theory also suggests that a media text has only one message which the audience must pick up.
This sees the audience not as couch potatoes, but as individuals who are active and use media texts for their own purposes. We behave differently because we are different people from different backgrounds with many different attitudes, values, experiences and ideas.
This is the active audience model, and is now generally considered to be a better and more realistic way to talk about audiences.
Surveillance – our need to know what is going on in the world.
Personal relationships – our need for to interact with other people. .
Personal identity – our need to define our identity and sense of self.
Diversion – the need for escape, entertainment and relaxation.
In this model the media is seen as powerful and able to inject ideas into an audience who are seen as weak and passive.
It was thought that a mass audience could all be influenced by the same message. This appeared to be the case in Nazi Germany in the 1930s leading up to WWII. Powerful German films used propaganda methods to ‘inject’ ideas promoting the Nazi cause into the German audience. That is why this theory is known as the Hypodermic model.
It suggests that a media text can ‘inject’ ideas, values and attitudes into a passive audience who might then act upon them. This theory also suggests that a media text has only one message which the audience must pick up.
This sees the audience not as couch potatoes, but as individuals who are active and use media texts for their own purposes. We behave differently because we are different people from different backgrounds with many different attitudes, values, experiences and ideas.
This is the active audience model, and is now generally considered to be a better and more realistic way to talk about audiences.
Surveillance – our need to know what is going on in the world.
Personal relationships – our need for to interact with other people. .
Personal identity – our need to define our identity and sense of self.
Diversion – the need for escape, entertainment and relaxation.
Active Audiences
Uses and Gratifications Model
This model stems from the idea that audiences are a complex mixture of individuals who select media texts that best suits their interests.
The users and gratifications model suggests that media audiences are active and make active decisions about what they consume in relation to their social and cultural setting and their needs.
This was summed up by theorists Blumier and Katz.
Audiences choose to watch programmes that make them feel good e.g. soaps or that give them information that they can use e.g. news or information about new products or the world about them.
Blumier and Katz four main uses:
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