Media & Audiences:

Theories about the Role of

the Media in everyday life.

Chapter 10. Pages 253-289

Preview of slides

 Overview
 Uses & Gratification Theory
 Reception Studies
 Information Processing Theory
 Information Processing Model
 OVERVIEW:
 1970’s & 1980’s researchers in US
became increasingly interested on
media audience. Their attempt was to
gain more useful information about
audience. As more studies were
carried out the Audience Centered
Theories were also developed.
Active Audience Theory or
(Audience Centered Theory)
 This theory focus on assessing on what people
do with media. It does not focus on what the
media do to the people. This theory is micro-
level in its approach.
 The argument for such theories were quite
convincing. E.g. why were advertisers spend
billion of dollars to purchase advertising time if
the messages on the media has no effect on
the audience ? Why were the TV network
audience still growing?
A. Uses & Gratification
Theory
 Herzog (1944) was the first to create the
theory of Uses & Gratification. He identify 3
types of gratifications:
 1. Gratification as a means of emotional
release
 2. Gratification as opportunities of wishful
thinking
 3. Gratification as the advice obtained from
listening to daytime radio programme.
 Schramm (1954) continued to offer the
gratification theory by describing how individual
make media and content choices based on
expectation of reward and effort required.

 Schramm argued that our decision to select the

content materials based on our expectations of
having some need met, even if the decision is
not to make a choice.
 The revival of Uses &
Gratification thinking
 The scenario:
 By 1970 the limited effects paradigm had
demonstrated study after study media role was
found to marginal in comparison the effect it
had with other social factors.
 But the question that trouble researchers’ mind
were that how could this be true when media
audiences were on the increase & people spend
so much time consuming media? Why were
advertisers spend billion of dollars to purchase
advertising time if their message had no effect?
 Why were the network television
audiences continue to grow? Didn't
any of the media use have important
consequences for the people who
were engaged in it? Why didn’t
research found these reasoning?
 Therefore the first revival interest among
researchers looking into the Uses &
Gratifications perspectives can be traced into
three development areas such as:
 A. 1. New survey research into methods &
data analysis techniques to allow new
studies to be developed.
2. The increasing in awareness that people’s
are active in using the media.
 3. Although some researchers found that
there were some positive uses of the
media but these findings were often
ignored.
 The second revival was because of the
rapid diffusion of Internet & World Wide
Web (www) led to the intensity use of the
media aggressively (interactively).
In other words researchers began to examine
the issues of:
(a) Interactivity i.e. the degree to which
participants in the communication
process have control over, & can change
roles in their mutual discourse (Williams,
Rice & Rogers, 1988)
 (b) Demassification i.r. the ability of
media audience to select from a wide
range of media & the
characteristics that allow individuals
to tailor messages to their needs
(e.g. internet) Rugeriero, 2000.
 .
 (c) Asynchroneity (mediated
messages) i.e. senders & receivers
of electronic messages can read mail
at different times & still interact
conveniently
 In other words uses & gratification
theory proved to useful in explaining
how & why the ‘new media’ are use to
supplement & in some cases replace
older media.
 Blumler (1979) claimed that one of the major
problem in using the uses & gratification theory
is the ability this theory capable of explaining a
wide range of meaning on the concept of
activity. He identified several meanings for this
term as follows:
 (1) Utility i.e. media have uses for people &
people can put media to those uses.
 (2) Intentionality: i.e. that consumption of
media content can be directed by people’s
motivations.
 (3) Selectivity i.e. People use of the
media might reflect their existing
interests & preferences.

 (4) Imperviousness to influence:

i.e. audience will certainly try to avoid
certain types of media.
 What the uses & gratification theory
does is to provide a framework for
understanding when & how different
media consumers, involvement in the
media.

 Katz, Blumler, Gurevitch (1974)

described five elements in the uses &
gratifications model:
 1. The media is active & its media use is goal oriented.

 2. The initiative link to the need gratification to the media

choice rests with the audience member.

 3. The media compete with other sources for need

satisfaction.

 4. Audience are self aware of their own media use,

interest & motivates to be able to provide with an accurate
picture of that use.

 5. Value judgments linking to the need of specific media content

should be suspended. That means people can use the same
content in vary different ways & therefore the same content
should have very different consequences.
 With above conclusions the researches
raised other questions, such as:
 What factors effecting the level of
activeness of media use among
audience? What other factors in the
environment (social situations)
influence audience needs of which
media use?
 Katz, Blumler & Gurevitch (1974) explained that the
‘social situations’ involving media related needs as
follows:
 1. Social situation can produced tensions & conflicts,
leading to pressure to utilize or consumed
certain selected media.

 2. Social situations can create an awareness of

problems that demand attention thus, to fulfill this
demand, information could be obtained form the
media.

 3. Social situations can deprive your real life

opportunity to satisfy these needs, and media can
substitute this need instead.
 4. Social situations can transmit
certain specific value which also can
be obtained from certain media.
 5. Social situation can provide
anticipated familiarity with the media
which must be met in order to
fulfilled the aspirations of the social
group norms.
Uses & Gratifications
 STRENGTH:
 Focus attention of individuals in the mass
communication process.
 Respect intellect & ability of media consumers.
 Provides insightful analysis of how people
experience media contents.
 Differentiate active use of the media from more
passive uses.
 Studies of the use of media as part of our everyday
social interaction.
 Provides useful insight into adoption of new media,
 WEAKNESSES:
 Alliance on functional analysis can
create status quo orientation
 Cannot easily addressed the present or
absent of media effects.
 Measurement of key concepts is
criticized. It is too micro-level
orientation.
 B. Reception Studies or
Reception Analysis
 This is an audience centered theory that
focuses on how various types of audience
members make sense of media contents.

 1. Critical theorists view that the producer

intended meaning of the piece of content the
assumption was to reinforced the status quo
also known as preferred reading.
2. or audience provide an alternative
interpretation which is known as the
negotiated reading.

 3. or It is also possible that the audience

made an interpretation is directly
opposite to the preferred reading
which is also known as the
oppositional decoding.
 STRENGTHS:
 Focus attention on individuals.
 Respect intellectual ability of audience.
 Acknowledge range of meanings.
 Seek in-depth understanding of how
people interpret media content.
 Can provide an insightful analysis the way
media are used in everyday social contect.
 WEAKNESS:
 Based on subjective interpretation of
audience report.
 Cannot address the presence or absence
of effects.
 Qualitative research methods preclude
causal explanation.
 Too micro level in its orientation.
 C. Frame Analysis
 This analysis deals with the idea about how
people use expectations to make sense of
everyday life.

 In other words the expectations we get from the

media are based from:

 (a) Previous experience (through media or

personal).
 (b) Pudience can be quite resistant to change
despite of having all the factual information.
 (c) Audience can associated with
emotions such as hate, fear,
love.

 (d) It is difficult to control despite of

having all the factual
information
 Goffman (1974) theory of Frame analysis
provides us with a systematic account of how we
use our expectations to make sense of our
everyday life situations.

 Goffman was convinced that the daily life is

much more complicated than it appears.
 He argued that we often change the way we
define the situations as people moves through
space & time. In other words our experience of
the world constantly shifting, sometimes in
major ways other times not.
 We always monitor the social environment
for social cues that signal when are to
make the change.

 Goffman therefore used the term frame to

refer to a specific set of expectations that
are used to make sense of a social situation
at a given point of time.
 But when we are ready to move from
one set of frames to another we then
said to applied the downshift or
upshift. We are expected to change
frames depending the seriousness of
the case.
 That is we move back & forth between
serious & less serious sets of
expectations.
 It is just like an animal cubs acquiring
skill of catching frogs & butterfly and
as the cubs grows maturity these skills
are transfer to a more serious
situations to kill when the animal
grows up in order to survive. These
skills were learned at the early stage.
 According to Goffman daily life
involves countless shifts in frames &
these shifts are negotiated by using
social cues. Some social cues are very
conventional while others are subtle.
E.g. couples usually develop a very
complex set of cues when to uplift or
downshift in their interaction.
 In gender ads for example Goffman argued
that advertising that uses the sex appeal of
women to attract attention of men
indirectly teaches us how social cues were
learned & that could have a serious
consequences – e.g. stereotyping of women
etc.
 We learned more than just product
presentation. We learned vast arrays of
other social cues & thus reinforcing the
formation of ‘dominant public culture’.
 What we are experiencing here
according to Goffmn what is known as
‘primary or dominant reality’. That is in
the real world people will obey certain
conventional & accepted rules.
 In this theory Goffman’s focuses on how
individual learn to routinely trying to make
sense of their social world that we lived in.

 Goffman provides us with an interesting

way that we are all attracted of how the
media can reinforced the dominant public
culture. E.g. ads did not creates sex-role
stereotyping but homogenizing how women
are publicly depicted.
 Powerful visual imagery is used to
associates products with women. Ads both
teaches & reinforce these cues.

 According to Goffman we firmly committed

ourselves to live in what we experience as
part of the frame known as the ‘dominant
reality’ – that is a real world in which
people & events obey certain conventional
& accepted rules.
 Thus, according to Goffman we are all
prisoners of our own reality whatever
it might be. And if do make mistake
with framing the reality the result
would be devastating.
 Frame analysis theory as developed by
Goffman is a microscopic theory. It
creates conceptual framing theory that
focuses how individual learn to make
sense of their social world through
the use of the concepts of (a) framing
(b) what can they learned from the
media.
C. Information Processing
Theory.
 This theory discusses the use of
mechanistic analogies to describe &
interpret how people deal with the
flood of information that we they
receive every day.
 This theory describes individuals as
complex computers with certain build
in information capabilities. It can
received, recognize, filter, make sense,
store & retrieve information.
 According to the information
processing theory we can never be
conscious of more than very small
fraction of the information present in
our environment
 One advantage of the information
processing perspective is that it provides
more objective in learning.
 We blame ourselves if we fail to learn
something that we think we should have
learned. We assumed that a little more
conscious effort learning would have made
the difference. But would that a little more
efforts would have made much difference?
Or could that be possible that could led you
to breakdown?
 In this case what you need is revamping of
your routine information handling skills &
strategies that is a transformation of your
information processing system.

 Information processing theory provides us

with a means of developing a more
objective assessment of the mistakes we
make when processing information. These
mistakes are routine outcomes from a
particular cognitive process & not personal
errors caused by personal failings.
 By the end of this lesson you have
learned the following topics as follows:
 A. Uses & Gratification Theory
 B. Reception Studies
 C. Information Processing Theory