The Audience as People

Audience

The audience in today's society play a great role within the media as they are the key targets. Everyone encounters a form of media in their everyday life, be it hearing the sound of the radio or passing a billboard and therefore, are all part of the media. It is through propaganda and easily maipulated masses, people are engaged into the media. Researcher's show contents of media produts, are evidently the cause of audiences behaving in differet ways, some may become more violent. Critics have argued however, the media has less influence on today's audience as it works in more subtle ways.

Historical Background

Many people refer to today's media as "The Media", however we fail to realise these specific media's are in actual fact recent conventions. Photography, film, television, radio's and computers one hundred and forty years ago all seemed like a dream. This clear cliche about pre-media times prove people came up with their own form of entertainment. When comparing today's leisure options to those in the pre-media times it is clearly obvious people during the pre-media times chose independant things to do, such as reading or they would attend a play. As the media arrived in society, pre-media times changed. People began to watch films in theatre sized audiences. It has been argued ever since media, many people have become unsociable, children rarely go out due to video games and potable television. However, the media does convey a positive attitude as some people argue it allows us to become closer as a society, for example looking at a picture of Mark Tyson in the newspaper. The evident chances are thosands of people across the U.K will share the same experience of the same media event. Therefore, one can argue as we are all experiencing the same things and don't know which is good or bad from the media, the media has an unprecendented power to affect us in negative ways.



Uses and Gratification Theory

According to the Uses and Gratification theory, we all have different specific uses over the media as we all choose what we want to watch. Therefore, when people engage with today's media they expect to gain something out of it, otherwise known as "gratification". In order for people's needs to be satisfied they have the power to select specifically what they would like to see from the media which will best suit their needs. Psychological basis for this specific model is named "Heirachy of Needs" by Maslow. There are four main gratifications found by researchers, they are the following:

1. Information- People are eager to find out about the world and society. Therefore they want to satisfy their curosity by turning to the media for specific information, such as the news, people or documentaries.
2. Personal Identity- Many people identify themselves with specific famous characters. People argue these characters help them to make decisions in life, what they feel about themselves. If these characters succeed with their actions it allows the person to feel better about themselved. These characters reflect your behaviour.
3. Intergration and Social Interaction- In order to find out more about people's circumstaces we turn to the media. A show allows us to emphathise and sympathise with people across the world, sometimes we may even replace the characters as friends, relating situations portrayed on TV to your life.
4. Entertainment- Media is used by people for pure enjoyment and relaxtion.

Many people will be able to recognise themselves under these descriptions. This theory argues, with any media product you enjoy, you are gaining a type of gratification from it. However, there have been criticisms made on this theory, critics have argued people do not have a choice as to what they receive from the media. People are having to choose from media which is available to them, for example we may not all like a specific poster on a billboard however, we have no choice in choosing another. Therefore, this undermines the idea of "uses and gratification".