Audience theories

Question 1

Bandura - Media effect

Answer 1

• Violent behaviours are learned through modelling
• Audiences can copy media representations of negative behaviour, this is a problem as violence is an endemic feature within the media

Question 2

Gerbner - Cultivation theory

Answer 2

-Media products shape attitudes and perceptions of the world

-Storytelling shapes our attitudes and social values

-Mass media has replaced institutions (religion and school) for symbolic storytelling

-Television has a homogenising effect on the on society as we all engage in the same symbolic stories as a result of mass media

-Media consumption leads to acceptance of established power structure

Question 3

Stuart Hall - reception theory

Answer 3

Producers encode texts, audiences decode them in one of three ways:

• dominant - the audience agree with the reading
• negotiated - the audience understand the reading but disagree
• oppositional - audiences don’t understand the reading

Question 4

Jenkins - Fandoms

Answer 4

-Fans appropriate media texts (seen by fandoms) in an unauthorised ways

Question 5

Shirky - End of Audience

Answer 5

• Everybody makes media
• ‘Filter then publish’ model used to provide quality content
• ‘publish now, filter later’ model due to lower production costs