Active Audiences

Question 1

The cultural effects model (Neo-Marxism)

Answer 1

• The media contains ideological messages that reflect the values of media owners and professionals
  
  • Content which counter the hegemonic view is kept out through agenda setting
  • Audiences constant exposure to dominant ideology creates a ‘drip effect’ = they come to share the views of the powerful
    Does acknowledge that audiences are active and can interpret messages differently

Question 2

The reception analysis model

Answer 2

People interpret media differently depending on class, age, ethnicity, gender and other identity factors

Question 3

Morley

Answer 3

investigated 1970s evening news programme `nationwide’ in 29 groups made up of a range of professions. Carried out in depth interviews to see how messages in ‘nationwide’ on a strike of workers were accepted, modified or rejected. Found that audiences are not passive, if did accept message based of personal knowledge:
- Preferred reading: accept views seem as legitimate or a consensus (e.g. the royal family is great)
- Oppositional reading: a minority views which rejects views expressed by the media
Negotiated reading: misinterpreting media messages to fit own values and opinions

Question 4

The uses and gratifications model (Blumer and Mcquail)

Answer 4

• People use the media to satisfy biological, psychological and social needs that are relative to class, age gender, race and etc

Question 5

Wood

Answer 5

identifies that teens use horror films for excitement.

Question 6

Two step flow model (Katz and lagarfield)

Answer 6

• Personal relationships and conversations with significant others result in people modifying and rejecting media messages
  
  • Social networks are dominated by ‘opinion leaders’
  • These people have strong opinions on a range of matters and expose themselves to a ray of media
  • Their interpretations are then passed onto members of their social circle
  • The media goes through two steps; the opinion leader exposed to content, then those who respect their opinion internalise their interpretations of that content
    Media audiences are not directly influenced by the media but the opinion leader

Question 7

The selective filter model - Klapper

Answer 7

for media messages influence its audiences it must pass through 3 filters
- Selective exposure: the audience must choose to engage with certain media content
- Selective perception: the audiences don’t always accept the messages, they reject or re-interpret it
Selective retention: the messages need to ‘stick’; in the mind of the audiences. This is only likely to happen if they agree to it

Question 8

Post modernist model - strinati

Answer 8

society is ‘media saturated’, affects people’s sense of identity = more choice
- Consumer choices in terms of identity and lifestyle inform how people should live their lives
- Medias sources advice on how people should ‘make over’ their bodies, relationships and more (e.g. make-over shows)
The media transmits the idea that signs and symbols are more important tan the goods they represent

Question 9

Philo

Answer 9

argues that postmodernists see media content as producing a particular definition of reality which has the same degree of importance as other definitions. These
interpretations are constantly changing and being modified, they are not fixed. Therefore, postmodernists say that it is impossible to generalize about
media effects as the same person may react to the same media messages in different ways

Question 10

Lull

Answer 10

TV in China notes how localised ways of thinking and seeing the world change perspectives, lifestyles and ways of thinking available for others to think critically about their place in the world.