Active Audience Models

Question 1

What do active audience models assume about the audience?

Answer 1

audience aren’t entirely passive and suggest that people have considerable choice in using and interpreting media.

Question 2

What is the two-step flow model?

Answer 2

A model suggesting that media messages are first interpreted by opinion leaders and then passed on to their social circles.

Question 3

Who came up with two step model?

Answer 3

Katz and Lazarzfield

Suggest that personal relationships and conversations with significant others (eg: family) result in people modifying/rejecting media messages

Question 4

Who are opinion leaders?

Answer 4

People of influence whom others in the network look up to and listen to.

pass their viewpoint as true to the audience - overarching acceptance of opinion leaders interpretation

Question 5

What are the two steps in the two-step flow model?

Answer 5

• The opinion leader is exposed to the media content
• Those who respect the opinion leader internalize their interpretation.

Question 6

True or False: Media audiences are directly influenced by media messages according to the two-step flow model.

Answer 6

False

Rather they choose to adopt a particular opinion/attitude/behaviour after negotiation and discussion with opinion leader

Question 7

What is a critique of the two-step flow model?

Answer 7

no guarantee that the opinion leader hasnt been subjected to an imitative or desensitizing effect.

Socially isolated individuals dont have access to an opinion leader to help with the interpretation of media content

Question 8

What does the selective filter model (Klapper 1960) suggest?

Answer 8

For a media message to have any effect, it has to pass through three filters of active selection.

Question 9

List the three filters in the selective filter model.

Answer 9

• Selective exposure
• Selective perception
• Selective retention.

Question 10

What is selective exposure?

Answer 10

Audience must choose to view, read or listen to the content of specific media

Media messages can have no effect if noone sees/hears
- what the audiences chooses depends on their interests etc

Question 11

What is selective perception?

Answer 11

Audience may not accept the message: some people may take notice of some media content but decide to reject or ignore others

Question 12

What is selective retention?

Answer 12

Messages have to ‘stick’ in the mind of those who have accessed media content

Research indicates that most people have a tendency to remember only the things they broadly agree with

Question 13

Who came up with the uses and gratification model?

Answer 13

Blumler and McQuail etc

Question 14

What is the uses and gratification model?

Answer 14

Audience use the media to gratify a need

Audience is way more active than previous models suggest

Question 15

What are the four basic needs identified by Blumler and McQuail regarding media use?

Answer 15

• Diversion
• Personal relationships
• Personal identity
• Surveillance.

Question 16

How may media serve the need for diversion?

Answer 16

People may immerse themselves in particular types of media to compensate for dissatisfaction in their daily lives.

Question 17

How does the media serve the need for personal relationships?

Answer 17

Media products may compensate for the lack of community in our lives

Through identifying with characters - cybercommunities seen as alternative families

Question 18

How does the media serve the need for personal identity?

Answer 18

People may use the media to modify their identity

Social networking websites allow people to use the media control the presentation of their identity

Question 19

How does the media serve the need for surveillance?

Answer 19

Use of the media to obtain information and news that contribute to their opinions on certain topics

Question 20

Who came up with the reception analysis model?

Answer 20

Morley

Question 21

What is the focus of the reception analysis model?

Answer 21

It focuses on interpretation and response to media content.

Audiences actively read media content and dont automatically accept the media’s perspective

Question 22

What are the three ways audiences interpret media content according to Morley?

Answer 22

• Preferred reading
• Oppositional reading
• Negotiated reading.

Question 23

What is preferred reading?

Answer 23

Accepts media content as legitimate

Often shared by journalisys and editors and underpins news values

Question 24

What is oppositional reading?

Answer 24

Opposes the views expressed in media content

Question 25

What is negotiated reading?

Answer 25

Audience reinterpret the media content to fit in either their own opinions and values

Question 26

What is meant by the term ‘polysemic’ in the context of media messages?

Answer 26

Media content attracts more than one type of reading or interpretation.

Audience is impressionable and homogenous, act in a variety of sub cultural ways making media content polysemic

Question 27

According to Strinati (1995), what role does media play in identity formation in a post-modernist context?

Answer 27

The media are the most influential shapers of identity and offer a greater range of consumption choices.

• Postmodernist Model

Question 28

What has intensified since 2000, affecting local cultures?

Answer 28

The globalization of communication.

All consumers of global media are citizens of the world and of their locality
- seeing other global experiences allows people to think critically about their place in the world

Question 29

What tension can arise from the interaction of global media and local cultures?

Answer 29

It can create tension and hostilities, as seen with attempts to control global media access.

According to Thompson

Question 30

Fill in the blank: The selective filter model includes _______ exposure.

Answer 30

[selective]

Question 31

Fill in the blank: Blumler and McQuail identify _______ basic needs.

Answer 31

[four]