Audience Theory

Why do audiences consume texts?
How do they consume texts?
What happens when they consume texts?

The effects model-
- Consumption of media texts has a effect or influence upon the audience, it is usually considered that this effect is a negative.
- Audiences are passive and have no power to prevent the influence which is upon the audience.
- Power is in the message of the text.

This is called the hypodermic model.
Here the messages in media texts are fed to the audience by the media. The audience is powerless to resist the messages which are being injected into the audiences. The media works like a drug and the audience is in some way 'drugged' and 'addicted' to what the public are consuming.

Bobo doll experiment- which was founded in 1961 by Albert Bandora. 

Albert Bandora believed that all human behaviours was learned through copying the people around you, rather than inheriting these behaviours through genetic factors.

There have recently been many  concerns of the effect media has on the growth and development of a child's personality and morality. Television, computer games, good additives, music and the negative role models are the main reasons for breakdowns in society and an increased tendency towards violence. 

Bandora wanted to prove to the public that children would copy their role models behaviour. He used aggressive as well as non aggressive actors, that the child would then imitate the adults behaviour. In this experiment children watched a video where an adult violently attacked a toy clown (Bobo doll) , it was discovered that lone children seemed to imitate violent media content. 


Results-
The children who were exposed to the aggressive role model were more likely to immite aggressive behaviour themselves. It was also proved that boys were nearly three times more likely to replicate physically violent behaviour than girls.

This study suggests that when a child  is exposed to violent media it does in fact increase the likelihood of violent behaviour in teens. An argument is that violent teens could be drawn to violent media, rather than the media creating the violent teens. However, many teenagers have watched violent TV or played violent games and have not developed violent behaviour.


When we are producing and planning our music video we will have to consider the effects that the video could have on our target audience, which is teenagers. When selecting our band members we will also have to think about the role models of the band members and whether it is going to have a positive or negative effect on the public. Storyboarding will be very important when relating this theory to our music video, we will have to discuss the different shots and in particular the narrative part of the video, taking into account the effects these scenes could have on our audience.

By Amy Thrush