Passive and active audience theories Hypodermic needle theory

The hypodermic needle or magic bullet theory is the theory that media audiences are passive towards what they see and hear. A theory by Albert Bandura uses the hypodermic needle theory, he recorded a video of a woman beating up a doll, had children watch this and then allowed them into a room with a replica of this doll, the children then persisted to beating the doll and yelling aggressive verbal terms at it such as the woman in the recording had, he did the same thing with the same woman beating up a clown, he then put the kids in a room with a clown, once again the kids persisted to beat this clown copying the woman. Society often falls o the conclusion that if something happens they blame the media, for example, the columbine massacre. Two high school pupils took to killing 13 pupils and a teacher on their school, the blame for this was pointed at violent video games and mainly Marylyn Manson a shock rock Goth singers violent lyrics, and representation as the driving force to this incident. The hypodermic needle theory shows the audience as passive soaking in the events that occur on TV and possibly copying them in real life.

Uses and gratification theory

This theory shows the audience to be active and will take from media text only what they choose to take in, and interpret it based on individual preference. Most underground stuff will be related to the uses and gratification theory as it is seen as cool as it is a less popular or mainstream and is against the curve. The uses and gratification is deemed as a form of intelligence as the audience takes in what it sees and thinks it over as to how to use it, this is the opposite to the hypodermic needle theory as the hypodermic needle theory says that the audience just takes the information and follows that, the uses and gratifications theory also includes the audience only using what gives them gratification, from what they use, and will search out that type of media over others.

Audience responses
Negotiated
A negotiated reading reading is when an audience takes in a media product, they will not completely be passive towards it as the hypodermic needle theory suggests, they can relate to it in some ways and not in others. An example I used for this is Lord Of The Rings, the relationship between Sam and Frodo, people may be able to relate to the having a friend who will stand by them, or feel that they must have someone like this in there life however can see the huge war and battle scenes as clearly fake, this is just an obvious representation as one cannot believe magical beings are real.

Preferred
A preferred reading is when an audience is passive, this theory goes hand in hand with the hypodermic needle theory and means the audience will take in all that is shown on the screen, the example I would use here is with a programme like Skins on E4 which touches various topics all revolving around drugs and sex and student life in university, the preferred reading the audience would take in is that all uni students are drugged up party animals that care little for their results. The preferred reading shows that the creators point he was getting at when creating the product was the message the audience got.

Oppositional
An oppositional reading is the opposite to the preferred reading and goes hand in hand with the uses and gratification theory. The audience will challenge or oppose the creators message and be in complete disbelief, if we use the skins example again, the oppositional reading would be that no students do drugs or at least vary little, this says the audience is an active audience which is deemed intelligent

Participatory
The audience will adapt the meaning into there own life and participate but will still be subjective as to what media they are affected by, this shows that the audience is both active and selective. The audience will take the meaning that the writer tries to put across and change it for themselves, to use the Lord Of The Rings example again, some participatory audiences would see Sam and Frodos relationship as homosexual which it is not meant to be seen, but you can make connections towards this reading

Audience classification
Audience Classification is to do with target audience and how the audience is classified, if we use advertisement as an example the organisation BARB, Broadcaster Audience Classification Board, would collect data on when to advertise a certain product, you would not find adverts for kids toys during a programme like Skins, as the viewing demographic is majority teen aged and wouldnt buy a childs toy.