Audience Theory

When making a video it is of high importance to identify and understand my audience so i know what they want to see and make. Our video won't really entail hypodermic needle theory as it is not aimed at a large/wide range of mass consumers, it is a more niché, younger target audience we are going for.

Uses and Gratifications Theory 

is an approach to understanding why people actively seek out specific media outlets and content for gratification purposes. The theory discusses how users proactively search for media that will not only meet a given need but enhance knowledge, social interactions and diversion .

It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives. The theory also holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their needs. The approach suggests that people use the media to fulfill specific gratifications. This theory would then imply that the media compete against other information sources for viewers' gratification.

Hypodermic needle Theory.

The Hypodermic needle theory suggests the idea of an 'All-powerful' mass media prosuct with large effects on the consumers. It suggests that consumers of mass media are passive viewers and will simply accept what they see without question. In that way media content is shot at the audience like a 'Magic Bullet' directly penetrating the viewers' minds, showing that mass media used to have a strong, direct effect on the comsumers and audience.

Two-step flow 

This theory says that most people form their opinions under the influence of opinion leaders, that in turn are influenced by the mass media. So according to this model, ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population.

Reception Theory

This refers to the idea that the circumstances in which an individual is in effects the way they perceive a piece of text, this was discovered by a series of research carried out in the 80s and 90s into how an audience perceives Media products and texts. The theory is based around the idea that the Producers of Media products is encoded and is then in turn decoded by the Consumers. Producers include Codes and conventions to connote the product in such a way that is preferable to the consumers. It is possible for an individual consumer to decode and interpret the text in multiple ways depending on the individual and also on the situation.