Learning objective: To explore how magazines target audiences.
Key terms:
Active audience. This describes an audience who responds to and interprets the media texts in different ways and who actively engages with the messages in the ways suggested here.
Passive audiences. This describes an audience that does not engage actively with the text. They are more likely to accept the preferred meaning of the text without challenge. this also suggests that passive audiences are more likely to be directly affected by the messages contained within the text.
Media texts are constructed in order to place audiences in a particular position in relation to that text. Audience positioning concerns the relationship between the text and responses an audience may have to that text.
The producers of the texts encode the text with signs and messages and the audiences decode these messages.
Different audiences will decode the same text in different ways and will therefore have a different response.
The Encoders are those who produce the texts - in the case of a magazine this would involve:
In question 2C or 3 of the MS1 exam you may be asked to discuss how media texts position audiences.
You must support your points with specific examples.
How do media texts position audiences?
Use of stereotypical good looking people
Mode of address
Language used, slang, colloquialisms, hyperbole, imperatives etc
Content that deals with relevant issues for the audience
Sell lines with free gifts
This may enhance audience pleasure in the text.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is important in your analysis
Task 1:
List how you think conventions have been used in the magazine below and how may these position the audience.
Key words: Stuart Hall
The positioning of audiences by media texts suggests that the audiences shouls accept the messages contained within the text and decode the text in the way expected by the text's producers. However, audiences do not all respond to the texts in the same way.
They may accept or challenge the messages encoded within the text.
Stuart Hall accepted that audiences were active, not passive and suggested that there were three main ways in which audiences may respond to a media text.
Key terms:
Active audience. This describes an audience who responds to and interprets the media texts in different ways and who actively engages with the messages in the ways suggested here.
Passive audiences. This describes an audience that does not engage actively with the text. They are more likely to accept the preferred meaning of the text without challenge. this also suggests that passive audiences are more likely to be directly affected by the messages contained within the text.
- Encode
- Decode
Media texts are constructed in order to place audiences in a particular position in relation to that text. Audience positioning concerns the relationship between the text and responses an audience may have to that text.
The producers of the texts encode the text with signs and messages and the audiences decode these messages.
Different audiences will decode the same text in different ways and will therefore have a different response.
The Encoders are those who produce the texts - in the case of a magazine this would involve:
- Editors
- Journalists
- Photographers
- Designers
In question 2C or 3 of the MS1 exam you may be asked to discuss how media texts position audiences.
You must support your points with specific examples.
How do media texts position audiences?
Use of stereotypical good looking people
Mode of address
Language used, slang, colloquialisms, hyperbole, imperatives etc
Content that deals with relevant issues for the audience
Sell lines with free gifts
This may enhance audience pleasure in the text.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is important in your analysis
Task 1:
List how you think conventions have been used in the magazine below and how may these position the audience.
Audience responses
Key words: Stuart Hall
The positioning of audiences by media texts suggests that the audiences shouls accept the messages contained within the text and decode the text in the way expected by the text's producers. However, audiences do not all respond to the texts in the same way.
They may accept or challenge the messages encoded within the text.
Stuart Hall accepted that audiences were active, not passive and suggested that there were three main ways in which audiences may respond to a media text.
There are a few important things to remember about the three different positions that we can take.
Preferred Reading
Is not just about 'liking' a text - you must understand what the purpose of a text is and agree with its ideologies and the messages it carries.
Oppositional Reading
Is not just 'disliking' a text - there are many reasons why someone may take an oppositional reading - but whatever these reasons are, the audience member must understand what the intentions of the text are, but reject them.
Negotiated Reading
Can be the case whereby an audience member agrees with some ideologies and not others, but it can also be the case where the audience doesn't fully understand the intentions of the text - or is confused about the purpose of the text.
Responses can be affected by social and cultural backgrounds e. g. gender, ethnicity etc
Situated culture. This means a response is dependant on how we consume the text. Reading alone at home, reading on a tablet, watching in a cinema with other people.
Age can affect response
Active and passive readers
Notions of polysemic readings of different texts. Barthes' ball of thread.
Responses can be affected by social and cultural backgrounds e. g. gender, ethnicity etc
Situated culture. This means a response is dependant on how we consume the text. Reading alone at home, reading on a tablet, watching in a cinema with other people.
Age can affect response
Active and passive readers
Notions of polysemic readings of different texts. Barthes' ball of thread.
Task 1:
Discuss reasons for the three different possible readings of the magazine cover below.
Work in pairs. Bullet points.
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