Audience Theory

Uses and Gratifications Model:

• the theory of uses and gratifications is centered around the audience.
• in the 1970s two media theorists: Blumer and Katz, categorised how and why people use media texts.Their theory led to the use and gratifications model in which there are 5 main reasons for why people use media texts...

1. to gain information
2. to be entertained
3. to identify with characters/situations
4. to socially interact with others
5. to escape from their troubles of everyday life

Hypodermic Needle Effect Theory:
The "hypodermic needle theory" implied mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on its audiences.
Several factors contributed to this "strong effects" theory of communication, including:

•  the fast rise and popularization of radio and television
•  the emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda
•  the Payne Fund studies of the 1930s, which focused on the impact of motion pictures on children, and
•  Hitler's monopolization of the mass media during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi party