Audience Theories 1

Define Effects Theory: The Effects Theory states that media violence will instantly cause the audience to become more violent. This is sometimes referred to as the hypodermic needle theory because psychologists that believe in feel that violence will be 'injected' into society.

What effects do you want to have on your audience?

We want them to think that the video is artistic and well thought out, but not to have any effect on their behaviour.

What might go wrong to stop you achieving this?

If we are not well organized with our video and do not plan each shot carefully.

Define the Cultural Theories approach.

The approach tries to understand the intended effects of media texts, but also sees audiences as active, they have their own viewpoints of the media texts. The three viewpoints and audience can have are:

Preferred (or dominant) reading - the audience recognise the values being offered by the text and accepts them as natural and correct.

Negotiated reading - the audience recognise the values in the text as legitimate and accept them in general, but adapt their reading of the text to fit in with their experiences and interest.

Oppositional reading - the audience understands the values in the text, but disagrees with them and rejects them.

Preferred - " This video is really cool and artistic, it is just a bit of fun and doesn't mean to offend. "
Negotiated - "This video is really cool but it is slightly disrespectful of religion and is possibly too sexual for a young audience."
Oppositional - "This video is far too sexual for a young audience and makes a mockery of religion."