Research and Planning: Audience theories 1.

Effects Theory

Psychologists attempted to explore a pre-existing presumption that media violence would make the audience violent, and came up with The Effects Theory. The Effects Theory explained that the media has a direct behavioural effect on the passive audience, and is sometimes known as the Hypodermic Needle Theory. An example of a famous experiment on this was the Bobo Doll Experiment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdh7MngntnI

The kind of music I'm going to be using on my music video is in the indie/acoustic/alternative genre. The intended effect this will have on the audience is to make them feel as though the artist is genuine, and works hard to achieve what they have gained in their music career. Also that not all artists have all the work done for them, such as mainstream artists.

The audience won't all take the preferred reading, some will either be completely opposed or negotiated towards my video, which will make it harder for me to achieve this effect. I'll also have to get the filming and content just right to achieve it, which means I will have to plan it well.

Cultural Studies Approach

This was developed by David Morley at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.

This approach uses the Effects Theory and understands the intended effects of media texts, but also considers the active nature of certain audiences, and how different audiences take different views in relation to the values expressed in a media text. There are three different views that an audience may take:

• Preferred reading: The values in a media text are accepted by the audience as the creator intended.
• Negotiated reading: The values are generally accepted, but there is some debate over them, depending on the audience's different interests and experiences.
• Oppositional reading: The values in the text are understood, but are rejected and disagreed with completely.

This can be applied to this music video:

I think that the preferred reading of this video is to see the band out and about, having fun together as a band.
The oppositional reading may be that as they are in Japan, some people may feel that they are making fun of the country/culture.