Audience Flashcards
What does Gauntlett say in his Web 2.0 theory?
The current state of the internet is Web 2.0. Audiences can create AND circulate content freely (making them prosumers). There is more user generated content than media produced. Audiences are interconnected by apps, social media and converged tech unlike the past where audiences were limited to the type of content they liked. Audiences use powerful technology to express themselves.
What does Shirky say in his End of Audience theory?
The internet has impacted the way people communicate and the relationships between media companies and audiences. Audiences can now ‘speak back’ to each other and to mainstream institutions. Online media has given audiences limitless niches to fit into and mass audiences no longer exist. Conglomerates used to be powerful and less accountable for their actions but audiences can now challenge them. Conglomerates risk losing money if they don’t listen to audience opinion. The concept of passive audiences is no longer ‘tenable’ because converged technology requires us to swipe, tap and share if we want to consume media. Audiences are prosumers (consumers and producers). Media companies have to adapt their communication if they are to take advantage of interconnected audiences.
What does Jenkins Participatory culture theory say?
Fans actively participate in the construction and circulation of media texts.
The messages sent by producers can be ‘appropriated’ by fans.
When fans take snippets of things they like and change them, it can change the intended meaning of the original that is not authorised by the producer.
Fans can circulate content on their own which is organic amplification.
Fans build their identity based on things that they relate to or qualities they want to emulate.
Fans borrow mass culture images and make them fit new contexts. Example being memes.
Fans are able to form their own niche groups away from mainstream media producers by sharing their own content.
Every member of an audience will want to join an online discourse or community which is participatory culture.
What does Hall’s reception theory say?
Audiences actively decode messages according to their own cultural backgrounds, experiences, and social contexts.
Dominant, Hegemonic or Preferred Reading is audiences who largely accept and reproduce the preferred meanings encoded in media texts. This reading aligns with the dominant ideology or cultural values promoted by the media and social institutions.
Negotiated Reading is when audiences may relate to certain aspects of the text while challenging or reinterpreting others based on their own beliefs, values, and experiences.
Oppositional Reading is audiences who reject or oppose the preferred meanings encoded in media texts.
Audience interpretations are shaped by a range of factors, including class, race, gender, ethnicity, age, and education, as well as broader cultural and political discourses
What are critiques of Hall’s reception theory?
It limits the agency of the audience by portraying audiences as passive recipients of media texts, especially in the dominant-hegemonic reading.
It oversimplifies audience responses that may fail to capture the nuanced ways in which individuals engage with media texts and may overlook the potential for hybrid or ambivalent readings that blend elements of different positions
What does Bandura say in the social learning theory?
Ideas can be implanted directly in the minds of the audience by media.
Observational Learning is where individuals can learn by observing others and modelling their behaviours.
Representations of transgressive behaviour impact individuals.
Transgressive modelling (to go beyond what is socially acceptable) leads to imitation of negative behaviours.
This is the basis for regulation law and the restriction of transgressive content in the media.
Individuals replicate behaviours they have observed in others.
Behaviour, environment and personal factors of the individuals all influence each other in a continuous loop (reciprocal determinism).
Self-efficacy is someone’s belief in someone. This can impact experience if there is a lack of belief.
Modelling occurs in 4 stages:
Attention - observing behaviour
Retention - remembering it
Reproduction - copying it
Motivation - performing behaviour on our own
We go through the first three stages repeatedly before we get to the 4th stage and are motivated to perform behaviours independently.
What does Gerbner’s Cultivation theory say?
Prolonged exposure to television content shapes viewers’ beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions about the world.
Repeated patterns and messages can warp an individual’s perception of reality.
Resonance is when a viewer’s real-life experiences align with the portrayals and messages they encounter in television content.
In cases of resonance the impact of television on viewers’ perceptions is intensified, leading to greater cultivation effects.
Forms the basis for regulation law and the restriction of media content that is perceived to be harmful.
What are critiques of Gerbner’s cultivation theory?
It only focuses on TV.
It oversimplifies diverse audiences and their varied experiences.
It assumes audiences are passive.
It doesn’t give audiences agency.
What does Shirky call audiences?
Prosumers. Producers and Consumers.
What does Jenkins say organic amplification is?
When fans circulate content on their own.
What is transgressive modelling from Bandura’s social learning theory?
Behaviours that go beyond what is socially acceptable.
What is reciprocal determinism from Bandura’s social learning theory?
When behaviour, environment and personal factors of an individual all influence each other in a continous loop.
What are the 4 stages of modelling from Bandura’s social learning theory?
Attention, Retention, Reproduction, Motivation.
