Sender: Max Aitchison
Says What: The labour leader Corbyn Crony who thinks it’s a good idea to remove UK Road Signs
Channel: Daily Mail
Shannon and Weaver in 1949, what they did was develop and criticise the Lasswell’s Model. The model that is presented isn’t necessarily accurate.
Two Step Flow of Communication (active consumption)
At the same time Paul Lazarfeld recognised that a simple, linear model may not be sufficiently complex to understanding the relationship between message sent > message received. As such, in 1948 he developed the Two Step Flow model of communication, which took account of the way in which mediated messages are not directly injected into the audience, but while also subject to noise, error, feedback etc, they are also filtered through opinion leaders, those who interpret media messages first and then relay them back to a bigger audience.
Audience are ACTIVE NOT PASSIVE
Uses and Gratifications (active selection)
The distinction is this approach is rather than categorising the audience as passive consumers of messages, either directly from source, or from opinion leaders, this theory recognises the decision making process of the audience themselves.
n essence, they put forward research to show that individual audience members are more active than had previously been thought and were actually key to the processes of selection, interpretation and feedback. In essence, individuals sought particular pleasures, uses and gratifications from individual media texts, which can be categorised as:
- information / education
- empathy and identity
- social interaction
- entertainment
- escapism
My newspaper story is about getting rid of UK road signs fits into the social needs section because this is able to give you a better understanding of what is happening in the world and around you.
Cultivation Theory – effects over time . . .
George Gerbner, Larry Gross and others worked on a large-scale, positivist, in-depth, longitudinal study into the effects of television, which started in 1975. Looking primarily at the relationship between violence on television and violence in society. They developed what is known as CULTIVATION THEORY, noting the distinct characteristics of television in relation to other media forms, they suggest that ‘television cultivates from infancy the very predispositions and preferences that used to be acquired from other primary sources‘ (Gerbner et al 1986). In other words, television shapes the way individuals within society think and relate to each other.
The Theory of Preferred Reading
At around the same time Stuart Hall, working at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), at the University of Birmingham, was also developing a critical theory that looked to analyse mass media communication and popular culture as a way of both uncovering the invidious work of the State and Big Business, as well as looking for ways of subverting that process.
- A dominant position accepts the dominant message
- A negotiated position both accepts and rejects the dominant reading
- An oppositional position rejects the dominant reading
Clay Shirky: The End of Audience
To bring this summary of different audience approaches towards a conclusion, would be to look at Clay Shirky‘s notion of the end of audience. Because what could happen if, instead of the choice of three subject positions as offered by the theory of preferred reading, there were limitless, individual subject positions available to all of us, at any time
“The more ideas there are in circulation, the more ideas there are to disagree with”