Audience Essay

These theories show how the audience respond and why they watch films:

Hypodermic model is where the messages in the media are injected into the audience.

Reception theory is where the text is coded by the producer and the audience decodes the text. There are three types of decoding. Dominant is when the audience decode the text like the producer wanted them to and they agree with the text. Negotiated is when the audience don’t agree or disagree.Oppositional is when they disagree with the text. 

Cultivation theory is that the TV cultivates the viewers of what they think of reality. If viewers watch TV a lot, the media can influence the viewer’s ideas, and choices.

Uses and gratification theory this is where people use media for their own needs. We use the media to find information, for our emotional needs watching TV to relate to the characters, for our self esteem when we watch advertisement, looking at social networking sites helps us with our social integrative needs to see what our friends are doing. We help our tension free needs by watching something we like on TV for escapism.  This theory can relate to the horror trailer, as some people might want to watch it for escapism, as zombies don’t exist.

Desensitisation is where you watch so much violence that you can become immune to it. So if you were to see violence in real life you wouldn’t be uncomfortable watching it as you are used to watching it on a screen. This could relate to the horror trailer because it will appear quite gory when the characters get bitten by a zombie or killed and there will be blood shown in the trailer.

Copycat theory is where the audience copy what the characters do in films and in what happens in violent video games so the media influences how they behave.

Catharsis theory is emotional cleansing where people watch violence and this makes them have less aggression and this theory could link to the media text, as there is some violence involved.

Suspension of disbelief is where you accept that the fictional TV shows/films are real and you don’t think about how they are impossible in reality. This can link because zombies are not real so people watch zombie films because they are something they don’t see in real life.

Two-step flow is how the media text gets more known by telling others about it after you have watched it. This can link to the trailer as someone could watch the trailer and then tell others to watch it if they think it looks good.