Audience Response (WJEC Eduqas GCSE Media Studies): Revision Note

Audience response 

• The relationship between audiences and media is an interesting theoretical topic area with many theorists considering this from different perspectives

• Theories such as Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory, Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze consider how media texts are coded and interpreted

• Some theories consider the effect or influence media has on audiences

• The Uses and Gratifications Theory consider audience appeal and why audiences engage with media

Audience appeal

Uses and Gratifications Theory: Blumler & Katz

• Blumler & Katz are media theorists

• They developed the Uses and Gratifications Theory in the 1970s

• Their theory focuses on what audiences do with media and why they choose to engage with it, rather than what media does to audiences

• The Uses and Gratifications Theory suggests that audiences are active, not passive

• Audiences use media to meet their specific needs or gratifications

• The four main needs are:

• A single media product can meet more than one need at the same time, for example

  • A TV show can be:

    • entertaining (E)

    • help someone relate to characters (P)

    • give people something to talk about (S)

• The 'Effects Debate' is a discussion among theorists about how much influence media actually has on audiences

• The Uses & Gratification Theory shows that ‘media effects’ depend on the type or nature of audience, because different people use the same media for different reasons