Audience Theories

Two Step Flow

The theory suggests that information from the media moves in two distinct stages. Individuals, who are opinion leaders, pay close attention and receive information from the media. They then pass on their own interpretation of the information to people who are in social contact with the opinion leader. The opinion leader has personal influence on the medias messages and could change other people’s attitude and beliefs towards the media.

The Hypodermic Syringe Theory

This theory was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to the mass media. It started in the 1920s, the Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that audiences passively receive information from the media and get manipulated into believing what they see is true without being given a chance to question the message. The theory suggests that the mass media could influence a  large group of people directly by ‘shooting’ or ‘injecting’ them with appropriate messages designed to trigger a response.

Reception Theory

This theory uses the audience’s individual background and circumstances to explain how the media affects the audience. The theory says that a person’s gender, class , age  and ethnicity effects how the audience interprets and reads the media.  Depending on the culture of the audience, the audience will read the media differently and have different views on the messages the media sends.



Uses and Gratifications

This theory is also more about the audience than the actual message in the media as it is considered an audience-centred theory.  The theory says that the audience look for a particular type of media to meet their needs.  Their needs do alternate though and the media provides a large variety.