Audience Theory

Richard Dyer

·      Dyer suggested that audiences want media products that offer them Utopian Solutions to their problems (1992). They want to be offered diversions and escapism

Blumler & Katz – Uses and Gratifications Theory

·      Uses and Gratifications is an approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs

·      Uses and Gratifications is an audience cantered approach to understanding mass communication. Diverging from other media effect theories that question “what does media do to people?”, it focuses on “what do people do with media?”

·      Gives the consumer power to discern what media they consume, with the assumption that the consumer has a clear intent and use

·      Moves consumers on from being the victims of mass media, forcefully fed what production companies to pick, to seeing them as an audience to whom the media must appeal, competing with other diversions for their attention

·      The five components comprising the Uses and Gratifications Approach:

-       The audience is conceived as active

-       In the mass communication process, most initiative in linking gratification and media choice lies with the audience member

-       The media compete with other sources of satisfaction

-       Methodologically speaking, many of the goals of mass media use can be derived from data supplied by individual audience members themselves

-       Value judgements about the cultural significance of mass communication should be suspended while audience orientations are explored on their own terms

·      According to the research, goals for media use can be grouped into give uses. The audience wants to:

-       Be informed or educated

-       Identify with characters or the situation in the media environment

-       Simple entertainment

-       Enhance social interaction

-       Escape from the stresses of daily life