Audience Theories

Audience Positioning; Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall suggests that producers encode certain meanings and messages which the audience will the decode. However audiences may decode the message in a different way intended by the producers, which could be due to a number of reasons, such as cultural differences. Hall accepted that audiences  were not passive, but active and suggested there are three main ways an audience may reapond to a text:

• Preferred reading; Audiences will decode the message closely to what the producer intended the message to be. This will generally happen if the audience has a similar culture or background to the producer, and therefore won’t find it challenging to interpret the meaning. 
• Negotiated reading; Here, audiences will go through some sort of negotiation with themselves to allow themselves to accept the way in which the is presented. Audiences may agree with some elements of the text’s message, and disagree with other elements- audiences may have to adjust their viewpoint in order to extract the intended meaning and get the most of the text.
• Oppositional readings; Audiences don’t agree with the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the product and it’s content. This could be due to a number of reasons including culture, age, or gender. This may oppose a conflict between the audience and the producer or product. 

Uses and Gratification Theory

This theory trys to explain why and how audiences seek out specific media texts to satisfy certain needs. This theory assumes that audiences have the power over their media usage, rather than positioning individuals as passive consumers of media. The basic model of the theory suggests four reasons to why audiences consume certain media texts:

• Entertainment and diversion; This reason suggests audiences consume media texts to escape their everyday lives. Audiences chose entertaining products to divert their attention from the real world to something else.
• Information and education (surveillance); Audiences can consume media products if they want to be informed and educated. Audiences who consume media for this reason will typically be interested in media texts such as newspapers and documentaries, as they allow for the consumer to learn and know about what is happening in the world.
• Personal identity; Some audiences will consume media texts in order to build their personal identity and compare their real life experiences with those seen in the product. Audiences will gain pleasure from products by empathising and identifying with characters or content that they feel represents themselves.
• Social interaction; Audiences may consume media texts as they gain social interaction out of it. Social media can spark an immediate reaction from the audience and get people talking whilst the action is still happening.