Audience theory

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Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies.

With a specific focus on rhetoric, some, such as Walter Ong, have suggested that the audience is a construct made up by the rhetoric and the rhetorical situation the text is addressing. Others, such as Ruth Mitchell and Mary Taylor have said writers and speakers actually can target their communication to address a real audience. Some others like Ede and Lunsford try to mingle these two approaches and create situations where audience is "fictionalized," as Ong would say, but in recognition of some real attributes of the actual audience.

There is also a wide range of media theory and communication studies theories about the audience's role in any kind of mediated communication. A sub-culturally focussed and Marxism-inflected take on the subject arose as the 'New audience theory' or 'Active Audience Theory' from the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies during the 1980s.

1 Effects models
2 See also
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Effects models

The hypodermic needle model: The intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.
Two-step flow: The people with most access to media, and highest media literacy explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of the hypodermic needle model.
Uses and gratifications: People are not helpless victims of mass media, but use the media to get specific gratifications.
Reception theory: The meaning of a "text" is not inherent within the text itself, but the audience must elicit meaning based on their individual cultural background and life experiences
Obstinate audience theory: This theory assumes that there is a transactional communication between the audience and the media. The audience actively selects what messages to pay attention to. The Zimmerman-Bauer study found that the audience also participates in the communication by influencing the message.