Films can connect with all different kinds of audiences. It tries to connect to you as an individual through the storyline with moving images. They are made up of a series of individual images called ‘frames’. When these are shown rapidly in success, the viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The audience is diverse & more complex Diversity in the way we identify & Recognise due to different backgrounds and experiences preferred reading .Ruling classes bombard audience it becomes difficult to ignore and retain a critical viewpoint this is not a direct process but has a slower process. Audiences are targeted by media institutions based on demographic variables such as gender, age, class, sexuality, occupation, hobbies, where they live, wealth etc. In terms of films, the more popular actors are the ones that have films charged more.
We all have different needs and some of these can be provided by the media. Therefore we make choices over what media we want to use in order to gratify these needs.
There have been a number of theories over the years about how exactly the media work on the mass audience.
One of the most popular theories is the;
'The Hypodermic Syringe'. According to the theory the media is like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience who as a powerless mass have little choice but to be influenced- in other words, you watch something violent, you may go and do something violent, you see a woman washing up on T.V. and you will want to do the same yourself if you are a woman and if you are a man you will expect women to do the washing up for you.
The media is seen as a syringe which injects ideas attitudes and beliefs into the audience who are seen as passive sponge like junkies who are powerless to resist.
An example for this would be the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Before every one of his murders, he watched a clip from his favourite film in order to get himself excited. This is the kind of fact that might seem to prove 'The Hypodermic Syringe'
Because of the difficulty of proving the effects of individual media texts on their audience a more refined version of the theory has been created called the Culmination mode. According to this, while any one media text does not have too much effect, years and years of watching more violence will make you less sensitive to violence, years and years of watching women being mistreated in soaps will make you less bothered about it in real life. Many people have a general sense that the media do affect our behaviour and advertisers certainly justify their fees by working on this assumption, but it can be extraordinarily difficult to actually prove how much effect if any a text might have on an audience. Some of the critics of the idea of the mass audience have pointed out the many ways those individuals who watch programmes alone will then share their experience with others in conversations about what they have seen. One argument is that these kinds of conversations have much more influence on potential behaviour than the programme from which they may have sprung.
Two Step Theory:
The idea of this is that whatever our experience of the media we will be likely to discuss it with others and if we respect their opinion, the chances are that we will be more likely to be affected by it. We are all individuals with different views and opinions. Our interpretation of a media text is influenced by our individual world view. In other words viewers experience the same text in very different ways.
According to the Uses and Gratification theory, we all have different uses for the media and we make choices over what we want to watch. In other words, when we encounter a media text, it is not just some kind of mindless entertainment we are expecting to get something from it, some kind of gratification:
Information
We want to find out about society and the world because we want to satisfy our curiosity. This would fit the news and documentaries which both give us a sense that we are learning about the world.
Personal Identity
We may watch the television in order to look for models for our behaviour. So, for example, we may identify with characters that we see in TV programme. The characters help us to decide what we feel about ourselves and if we agree with their actions and they succeed we feel better about ourselves.
Intergration & Social Interaction
We use the media in order to find out more about the circumstances of other people. Watching a show helps us to empathise and sympathise with the lives of others so that we may even end up thinking of the characters in programme as friends even though we might feel a bit sad admitting it, At the same time television may help us to get on with our real friends as we are able to talk about the media with them.
Entertainment
Sometimes we simply use the media for enjoyment, relaxation or just to fill time.
One of the difficulties of assessing uses and gratifications like this is that people won't often be aware of the real uses of a text in their lives- how many people would admit for example that they watched a certain program because they were lonely even if that were the truth.
Reception Analysis is based on the idea that no text has one simple meaning. Instead, reception analysis suggests that the audience themselves help to create the meaning of the text. We all decode the texts that we encounter in individual ways which may be a result of our upbringing, the mood that we are in, the place where we are at the time or in fact any combination of these and all kinds of other factors. So viewer 1 may watch a television programme and enjoy every minute of it and viewer 2 may hate the same show. Reception analysis is all about trying to look at these kinds of differences and to understand them. What reception analysts have found is that factors such as a gender, our place inside society, and the context of the time we are living in can be enormously important when we make the meaning or a text.
