Sunday 10 October 2010

The Cultural Studies Approach Perspective on Audience:

David Morley developed a theory to understand how the media might be powerful in influencing audiences through effects research, yet also encourage researchers to understand the active nature of certain audiences using the gratifications theory.

The approach sees audiences as active, stating that different audiences adopt different standpoints in relation to the values expressed within a media text:

Preferred reading- The audience recognise the values being offered by the text and accepts them as natural and correct.

Negotiated reading- The audience recognise the values in the text as legitimate and accept them in general, but adapt their reading of the text to fit in with their experiences and interest.

Oppositional reading- The audience understands the values in the text, but disagrees with them and rejects them.

This theory contradicts the 'Effects Model Theory' as it opposes the psychological methods of testing and instead utilises the sociological methods of testing audiences consumption. Where the Effects Model views audiences as passive, sometimes referred to as the Hypodermic needle theory where the message is 'injected' into the audience and psychologically changes their behaviour, the Cultural Studies theory views audiences as active which then enables audiences to take different reading positions in relation to a media text.

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