Audience theories

Film producers have different ways of inciting an audience. These can be broken down into 3 theories.

The Hypodermic Needle Theory:
This is the theory that the audience will absorb the media. The audience are passive and the media creators can manipulate the behaviour or actions of them. A good example of the Hypodermic Needle Theory is the Jamie Bulger Case, the two children convicted for the death carried out the death after watching a violent film.

The Uses and Gratifications Theory:
This is the theory that rather than going and purely absorbing media they are actively seeking something from the media. Some people see media as entertainment, an escape from everyday life and use it as a way to relax. Personal Identity, this is the way that people compair their own lives to those of the characters they simular to in the film, this can confirm or adjust there sense of identity.

The Reception Theory:
This theory involves codes placed in the media by the producers to be decoded by the audience. However, the code can be read in many different ways, therefore the producers can postition the audience so they will read the code in a specific way.

Films use audience theories in different ways depending on their audience. For example disney tend to show the hypodermic needle theory, this is because disney films are purely for entertainment and pass beliefs onto you sometimes without noticing.

A film like dogma shows the uses and gratifications theory because they question things other than the film it is not watched purely for an entertainment reason. It allows you to think of wider things as well as being entertained by the film.