Audience is the basis for any form of media, the producer must be able to engage with the audience and create a response, by evoking some sort of emotion or creating a relation between the audience and the media.
The Hypodermic Needle Theory and Two Step Flow help to explain audience theory.
>The Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that the information from a text passes into the mass consciouness of the audience unmediated, ie the experience, intelligence and opinion of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text. This theory suggests that, as an audience, we are manipulated by the producers of media texts, and that we are easily influenced by producers through our passive nature, and need to be accepted through conformity.
>The Two Step Flow suggests that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience, like the Hypodermic Needle Theory, but that we are influenced by "opinion leaders" who communicate it to others, over whom they have influence. The audience then take in the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, therefore they have been influenced by a two step flow. This suggests that the media do not hold power, but that "opinion leaders" such as iconic figures that the media portray influence us, this leaves us to conclude that social factors are important to consider when we talk about the audience being influenced by media texts.
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