VISUAL ESSAY - AUDIENCE THEORIES

Blumer and Katz - Uses and Gratifications

The Uses and Gratifications model represented a change in thinking, as researchers began to describe the effects of the media from the audiences point of view. It looks at how people use the media and why in the way that we do. It shows that the audience is not forced into consumption but they control what they choose to consume, the media only creates the product. The theory argues that the audience need social and psychological experiences and needs that create expectations of what they consume. Although underlying this theory, there is the idea that rather than finding out how the media uses us, the model asks how we as the audience use the media and what we gain from it. The four 'needs' of the model are surveillance, personal identity, personal relationships and diversion.

Surveillance, Personal Identity, Personal Relationships and Diversion
Linking to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

As I am applying this theory to Katy Perry's California Gurls, the audience do not gain any awareness throughout the video therefore surveillance doesn't apply. Whereas, personal identity explains how being a subject of the media allows us to confirm the identity and positioning of ourselves within society. Katy Perry has became a big role model inspiring young children everywhere, when consuming her products many feel gratified by sharing identities with her. For example, California Gurls has a lot of breaking stereotypes (Tessa Perkins) by switching the gender roles which is very relatable for strong women and feminists which will make them feel more 'normal' and accepted. The video allows audiences to identify with it if they are from California as the song represents how great California is, people can also identify with it if they have ever had an experience where a man has controlled them. This could result in the audience feeling strength and determination after consuming the song which may make them carry on consuming it. It applies mainly to a younger audience (10-18), however some of the lyrics are quite explicit language metaphorically. It also targets more females than males because of how the male loses in the narrative and is looked down on and more females listen to Katy Perry's music. However it can target males because the females are dressed in bikinis and provocative outfits. Personally I identified with the video as I like to feel strong as a woman and break the stereotypes of females being weak and vulnerable, I also like the genre.

This also links to personal relationships: relationships with the media and using the media within relationships. We can form a relationship with the media, in this case the audience would form a relationship with the protagonist Katy Perry hoping that she succeeds in her quest to save the queens and take control over the male antagonist (Tzvetan Todorov). Because the audience has consumed Katy Perry and watched her they have formed that relationship to think of her as a real person rather than a constructed character (Richard Dyer), sometimes the audience treat characters as if they are their friends when really they are only there to be consumed. Our sociological and psychological needs are what make us depend on characters and form these relationships. Products are made by institutions to appeal to a mass audience, they make them so that audiences are able to relate to the characters and narrative so they are more likely to be consumed (which makes more money). The media is also there to support the audience in ways, as it helps us understand social issues to help us deal with them, just like I have with this video.

The diversion need in this model describes what is more commonly known as escapism, meaning that we consume these products so that we can forget about events and issues in our own lives and think about someone else's. This applies to any product, especially music videos as they do not all have a narrative and can be abstract which can be relaxing to an audience.

Stuart Hall - Reception Theory

This theory suggests that a person's background and past life experience can affect how they react to a media text. Stuart Hall developed the decoding/encoding model which then developed the reception theory.

The decoding/encoding model argues that messages and ideas are encoded by the institutions (ideology), and then decoded by the audience. There can be two differences between two different readings which are the preferred reading and an oppositional reading. There is also a negotiable reading which is a mix of the two. Preferred is how the producers can guide the audience using stars, genre and expectations, and position an audience. An oppositional reading is when the audience challenges the preferred reading.

For the majority of Katy Perry's music videos, she is dressed in very revealing, provocative clothing. This emphasizes the fact that in today’s industry, women are wrongly used as objects and not as people, which the way they should be. As Charlotte Church stresses in her 2013 Independent article, women “only serve to distract from the strong messages being put forward by other artists,” which is exactly what this music video does and why it plays a part in contributing to the current crisis in the music industry as the main point of the music video should have been to get the message across that women can be strong and independent, but instead the music video gets the point across that women are objects, and perhaps, should be treated as such. Another part of Stuart Hall’s theory, which this music video fits into well, is the oppositional Reading part of the theory, which states that the reader’s social position places them in an oppositional relation to the dominant code, which means that audiences aren’t viewing the video in the way that the director intended it to be viewed but instead, to be viewed in a way which, in this case, is demeaning and sends out the wrong image/impression.

Hypodermic Needle Theory/ Effects Theory

This theory suggests that the mass media has a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences. This was formed in the 1920s, and was later expanded into a slightly more complex two-step theory. In the 1940s and 1950s the media developed and became a powerful influence on behavioural charge. After World War 2, the popularity of media platforms such as television and radio had risen, and advertising became more apparent. This is due to Hitler's use of propaganda throughout the media.

The hypodermic needle theory implies that audiences have no willpower and believes everything that media tells them, it states that audiences are passive and easily influenced. An example of where the audience has been passive is Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast, which was a fictional reading out of a play which many American's thought was real. This caused a nationwide moral panic.

A passive audience is an a victim of the media as they believe the information they are told by media texts. This is the audience of the hypodermic needle theory, which argues that the media has a direct effect on its audience. Whereas an active audience challenges this theory by stating that there is plenty of choice in society due to people being different and engaging with the texts differently. This theory suggests that instead of the institutions trying to make the audience believe media texts, they create them in order to please us and will try to reflect the values and beliefs of society.