Audience theorists

Within our theory lesson, the class was divided and we researched different narrative theorist and the theorists. After doing so we reported back to one another and collected a plethora of notes to ensure we had a selection of theories to put into our narratives. Here are the theories and theorists that were researched:

Theodor W. Adorno

Adorno was a German philosopher, sociologist, and composer known for his critical theory of society. He was a leading member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, whose work had been associated with such thinkers as Ernst Bloch, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse, for whom the works of Freud, Marx and Hegel were essential to a critique of modern society. his main interests were social theory, sociology, psychoanalysis, aesthetics,epistemology, musicology and mass media.

Upon his return to Frankfurt, Adorno helped in shaping the political culture of West Germany. Adorno worked on the intellectual foundations of the federal republic and was a professor at Frankfurt University until his death in 1969. Whilst he was there he taught his students "contemporary problems in the theory of knowledge" and the "concept of knowledge". He also wrote about critical theory, literary criticism, aesthetics, music, political theory and sociology.

Adorno also did a lot of work on fascism as he took a particular interest in this. He created a series of influential works to describe psychological fascist traits. His work contributed to the Studies in Prejudice performed by multiple research institutes in the US, consisting of 'qualitative interpretations'. Adorno's books have had a major influence on sociology and remain highly discussed and debated.

Famous Adorno quote:
"Probably no important artwork ever corresponded completely with its genre".

David Gauntlett
Gauntlett is a British sociologist and media theorist. His earlier work concerned contemporary media audiences and has moved towards a focus on the everyday making and sharing of digital media and social media and their role of these activities in self-identity and building creative cultures.

Platforms for Creativity is a concept created by Gauntlett and it is meant to encourage creative conversation and foster the creativity of people. These 'platforms' can be in the form of an event, environment or tools. They give the opportunity to think creatively expressing themselves and also to help with the connection of people and sharing ideas to contribute better ideas.

He believes that the traditional form of media studies teaching and research fails to recognise the changing media landscape in which the categories of 'audiences' and 'producers' blur together. This was published in "Media Studies 2.0". Another popular study of Gauntlett's is "Web 2.0". This states that, as an audience, we can become our own producers. It allows us to create our own identity that doesn't follow the traditional forms and conventions of gender. Web 2.0 gives freedom for people to express themselves and makes it far more acceptable to be different.

Gauntlett blows apart the image of 'couch potatoes' and uses the term 'prosumers' for the audience who are doing their own production.

Famous Gauntlett quote: 
"Making is connecting".

Stuart Hall
Stuart Hall places high value on the responses of individuals and groups because of their specific personal contexts. Audiences are seen as active producers of meaning as opposed to consumers of media meanings. His interests were in dominant, negotiated and oppositional reading. Hall was a cultural theorist, political activist, sociology professor at the open university and a Marxist. He created the Reception Theory because he was concerned that the power of the media would create a dominant ideology of social values.

Hall's theory of audience positioning refers to how different social groups interpret mass media text which the producer encodes a message they wish to convey.

Decoding:

• Dominant reading- the reader fully accepts the preferred reading. This is where the audience reads the text the way the director intended them to. The code seems natural.
• Negotiated reading- the reader will partly believe the code and accepts the preferred but may modify it to reflect their own experiences and interests.
• Oppositional reading- the reader will reject the reading as their social position places them in an oppositional relation to the dominant code.

Some researchers think that looking at the lifestyle of an audience is much more effective and has more authority than a sociological approach.

How audiences take the meaning

Factors affecting how individuals decode media texts:

• Life experience
• Mood at the time of viewing 
• Age
• Culture
• Beliefs
• Gender

Blumler and Katz

Uses and Gratification theory: approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. It's an audience-centered approach to understanding mass communication. The main question of their theory is "Why do people use media and what do they use it for?"

Blumler (born 1924)- American-born theorist and author of communication and media.

Katz- American and Israeli sociologist and communication scientist, usually associated with uses and gratifications theory.

Basic model:

• Identify- being able to recognise the product or person in front of you and an aspiration to someone else.
• Educate- being able to acquire information, knowledge and understanding.
• Entertain- what you are consuming should give you enjoyment (forgetting worries in everyday life).
• Social interaction- the ability for media products to produce a topic of conversation between other people and spark debates.

What does the audience do with the media? This approach moves away from the idea that audiences are passive. This theory can be used in cases like personal music collection and selecting music to fit a particular mood.

Clay Shirky
Clay Shirky is an American Professor who looks at the economic effects of social media. His 'end of audience' theory links into the work of David Gauntlett. It argues a chaotic landscape where consumers are producers (or "prosumers"). Shirky felt it had previously been fragmented activity however it has changed; now people operate as groups. He has identified new audience groupings as follows:

• crowd funding
• crowd funded businesses
• collaborative projects 
• publicity campaigns (volunteers)

Shirky believes that organisations have to understand and respect the motivations of the billion new participants in the contemporary media eco-systems. 

Shirky quote: "Every consumer is also a producer and everyone can talk back"- he states that the evidence for this is devised from simple maths and the connections in a networks.

Shirky also became part of the development of the 'Long tail Theory' which is about there being life beyond the initial appearance of the product. Amazon are a company that recognise this theory and understand how reviews express emotions of people. They have embraced the world of social media  and their reviews now serve a purpose of making audiences feel good.