Audience Theories

Uses and Gratifications Theory
This theory focuses on what people get from media rather that the effects that media has on people. This approach suggest that people uses media to fulfil specific gratifications, this being one of the following:
Identify – being able to recognise the product or person in front of you.
Educate – Being able to acquire information, knowledge and understanding.
Entertain – Must provide enjoyment to the consumer, and some form of “escapism”
Social Interaction – The ability for media products to produce a topic of conversation between other people.

Reception Theory
This is the idea that a specific audience type of media is an essential part in understanding the overall meaning and its importance. This theory suggest that when a piece of text/film is produced, it is constructed in a way in which there is a hidden message or meaning.

Two-Step Flow Theory
Hypothesis that was introduced by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet.
First, individuals who pay close attention to the mass media and its messages receive the information; they then pass on their own interpretations in addition to the actual media content. Thus influencing the audience.

Hypodermic Syringe Theory
This theory implies that the media has a direct and powerful effect on the audience. It suggest that mass media has the power to "inject" people with a message designed to trigger a desired response. This model expresses the danger with mass media in that the audience is passive and will consume the information being transmitted as there is no other source of information and are unable to escape.

Passive Audiences and Active Audiences
The difference between a passive audience from a active audience is that passive audiences just sit back and absorb the information whereas active audiences participate by questioning and developing their own opinions based on the subject matter.