4 Audience theories

Reception theory:

• Stuart Hall
• Text coded by producer, decoded by audience.
• Dominant/preferred = when audience decodes message as producer wants them to and agrees with it.
• Negotiated = when audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of text in light of previously held views.
• Oppositional = when message recognised, but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons.

Cultivation theory:

• George Gerbner
• How media affects people's attitudes rather than actions. Overexposure to films/television shows can blur audiences sense of real world.
• Heavy media users has attudinal misconception called mean world syndrome.
• The more exposure to TV, will cultivate viewers perception of reality.

Desensitisation:

• Mary Cover Jones
• The more violence viewers are exposed to in the media, the less sensitive we become to it. The violence no longer bothers them.
• Behavioural state.
• Viewer can become immune to general shock of these actions.

Copycat theory:

• Mary Cover Jones
• Audience will copy what they see in media text. Can influence and affects audiences behaviour and how they think.
• Parents monitor media children use.
• Preconception of danger varies.
• Jamie Bulger murder case.