How Audiences Respond to Media Products

                                         

The Hypodermic Needle Model:

 Dating from the 1920s, this theory was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media.The audience receive an intravenous injection of a media text, either positive or negative and are stimulated into a response.

 The Inoculation Model:

This theory suggests that the long-term exposure to repeated media messages makes audiences immune to them.The audience is desensitised by the media text and can no longer be shocked by it. Someone sensitised is more likely to commit a violent act as it is not seen as an extraordinary action. Again, the audience is seen as passive.

The Two-Step Flow Model:

It was found that individual views were most affected by opinion leaders who played a key role ini the communication process, filtering the process. Opinion leaders tend to be someone the individual trusts e.g parents or siblings. This is semi-passive.

 Uses & Gratifications Theory

 During the 1960s, as the first generation to grow up with television became grown ups, it became increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they did when consuming media texts.

Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed media texts for different reasons and in different ways. Move away from what media does to people and think of what people do with media.

Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a media text for the following purposes:

•  InformationPersonal Identity
• Integration and Social Interaction
• Entertainment

Information:

• finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world
• seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices
• satisfying curiosity and general interest
• learning; self-education
• gaining a sense of security through knowledge

Personal Identity:

• finding reinforcement for personal values
• finding models of behaviour
• identifying with valued other (in the media) 
• gaining insight into one's self

Integration and Social Interaction:

• gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy
• identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging
• finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
• having a substitute for real-life companionship
• helping to carry out social roles
• enabling one to connect with family, friends and society

Entertainment:

• Fantasy, escaping, or being diverted, from problems
• Relaxing
• Filling time
• Emotional release
• Sexual Arouse