AUDIENCE THEORY

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory that suggests there are five stages people go through in life. When you apply the five different stages to media then you can understand the motivations behind the target audiences.

The five stages with examples:

Self-actualization – This is like when you are a baby, your motivations in life may be food and sleep.
Esteem – This is like as you become a toddler, your motivations in life may be feeling safe and loved.
Love/belonging – This is like when you are teenager, your motivations in life may be to be liked and accepted by your peers.
Safety – This is like when you are a young adult, your motivations in life may be to achieve things in life.
Physiological – This is like when you are a full adult, your motivations in life may be how you impact the world and the concerns of it.
When we apply Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to media, we can find out which stage the target audience is for a certain product and why.

For example, if the media product is a magazine we know the target audience is most likely going to be teenagers or young adults and so we can see from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs their motivations will be at the love/belonging or safety stage.

Uses & Gratifications

The 'Uses and Gratification' theory deals with the effect of people on the media.It provides an approach that is audience-centered. It deals with how and why people adopt specific media to satisfy their needs. The media have a limited effect on their audiences because audiences are able to exercise their control over the media.

Identify- being able to recognise the product or person in front of you, role models that reflect similar values to yours, aspiration to be someone else.
Educate - being able to acquire information, knowledge and understanding.
Entertain – What you are consuming should give you enjoyment and also some form of ‘escapism’ enabling us to forget our worries temporarily.
Social Interaction – the ability for media products to produce a topic of conversation between other people, sparks debates (eg. who is left on the x-factor)

Elihu Katz first introduced the Uses and Gratification Approach, when he came up with the notion that people use the media to their benefit.

Reception Theory

Reception theory is the notion that audiences don’t just absorb everything they are told but are actually involved, sometimes unconsciously, in making sense of any given message as it relates to them in their own personal contexts.

People may interpret a message a certain way just from their own cultural background differently from someone else with a completely different background

The theory invented by Stuart Hall in the 1970s to be a different approach to how audiences were perceived as opposed to the Uses and Gratification theory. The reception theory is when there is an encoded message in the text constructed by the producer/director which the audience will see and understand if it was conveyed well

There are different types of audience reading messages as Stuart hall identified

Dominant-a dominant audience is an audience that agrees with the overall message or idea that’s trying to be conveyed from the music video, it also involves what the audience wants to hear from people and agrees with the subject, although usually has limited knowledge on it.

Negotiated-a negotiated audience is when the audience agrees, disagrees or questions the message/idea being portrayed in the video.

Oppositional-an oppositional audience is when the audience recognises the dominant or important message that’s trying to be shown but rejects it; this is usually because of culture or political opinion.

Cultivation Theory

Cultivation theory was an approach developed by Professor George Gerbner.

Cultivation theory examines the long-term effects of television

The assumption is that television is fundamentally different from other forms of mass media and shapes the way individuals within society think and relate to each other.

Cultivation theory in its most basic form, suggests that television is responsible for shaping views of social reality.

According to the theory, people who watch television frequently are more likely to be influenced by the messages.

Beullens, Roe and Bulck conducted research relating to alcohol consumption in music videos. The research revealed that high exposure to music videos develops an unrealistic perception of alcohol consumption.