USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY

Audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways.

Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory in 1974, suggesting a series possible reasons why audience members might consume a media text.

• Diversion- escape from everyday problems and routines
• Personal relationships- using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg. substituting soap operas for family life
• Personal identity- constructing their own identity from characters in media texts, and learning behaviour and values.
• Surveillance- Information gathering, eg. educational programmes, weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains

Dennis McQuail suggests a more detailed breakdown of audience motivation:

Information

• finding out about relevant events and conditions
• seeking advice
• satisfying curiosity and general interest

Learning

• self- education
• confidence thorough gaining knowledge

Personal identity

• finding reinforcement for personal values
• finding models of behaviour
• identifying with "celebrities" - eg. Beckham
• gaining insight into oneself

Integration and social interaction

• gaining insight into circumstances of others
• identifying with others- a sense of belonging
• finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
• having a substitute for real life companionship
• helping to carry out social roles
• enabling one to connect with family, friends and society

Entertainment

• escaping, or being diverted, from problems
• relaxing
• getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment
• filling time
• emotional release
• sexual arousal

MY VIEW...

I think that the audience view texts in their own way and consume them the way they want. Different people respond to different texts, and that includes whether they find the text interesting or not. I think that this also applies to why they want to watch it, and the idea of genders and ages is also important. A child would want to watch something for a different purpose to why an adult or teenager would. It all depnds on audience interests and the way they want to consume the text.

EFFECTS THEORY

To sum up the effects theory it can be viewed as forced ideolgies on a passive audience.

The Frankfurt School
This is the impact of the rise of the media industires on society. They argued that the rise of the "culture industry" resulted in increased standardisation within society. Society controls evrything and culture is processed through the mass media as sometihng which is bought and sold. So culture is produced by the industry of the media.

The mass audience is thus manipulated and indoctrinated by society and progresively less able to criticise it. The mass media prevent culture from being effectively communicated in any authenic form until it has first been comodified and changed to fit the capitalist system.

The Hypodermic needle model
This is a model which demonstrates the effects of the mass media on their audiences. In particular this applies to film- which is designed to inject the passive audiences with ideologies.
The audience is seen as a passive mass who will immediately accept whatever version of events is given in the media.

Violence in the media.
Some argue that TV output which is explicitly sexual, too violent or in other ways offensive may be censored as it may influence the audience to act in the same way. This again assumes that the audience is passive.
Today's audience are more media literate and are able to decode media texts without being injected in this way.
Theorists will try to blame the media for all anti-social behaviour.

Cultivation theory
While a single text does not have much effect, repeated exposure will make the audience less sensitive. Critics call it becoming "desensitised"
Social attitudes and expectations have changed so much.

Two step flow
This assumes a more active audience, who will discuss media text with each other. If the text is discussed with someone we respect then we may well be passive enough to accept their received views of the text.

MY OPINION...
I agree with the view that as an audience we are manipulated into being like people we see on television. I think that this especially applies to young children as they are the most naive, in aspiring to people on television. I also think that the audience are also passive in terms of what is portrayed to them in the media. Whatever version of events is presented to them, they are passive in believing what they see, even if that may not be the whole truth. This can also link to the idea of "moral panoic" as the audience become indoctrinated with information so much, that they start to fear what might happen.

WHAT IS MARXISM?
Marx argued that capitalism is based on the profit motive and that under capitalism, profits are generated by exploiting workers.
Marx believed that capitalist society is divided into two social classes.

ALTHUSSER
Althusser identified what he called the Ideological State Apparatuses, which operate alongside the Repressive State Apparatuses to maintain these bourgeois ideologies:

• Religion
• Education
• Family (family values)
• Legal and political systems
• Political system
• Cultural and communications system

GRAMSCI

This is the dominance of the ideologies of the ruling class, with all the beliefs and values that they incorporate. He argued that this process is so successful that it becomes "common sense".

WHAT IS PLURALISM?
Pluralists view society as a system of competing groups and interests, none of them predominant.

Opposite to the marxist perspective - rejects the concept of 'Mass Culture'

Pluralism takes a more flexible and open view, arguing that for a class to resond to the media it is determined economicaly and by the audience.

AUDIENCE
If the audience do not like the text they will simply buy it or watch it. The audience is seen as playing an active role in the media, selecting texts from a vast range, consuming them, not receiving them passively. Therfore the media will respond to this buy changing their output.
Audiences are perceived as a capable of manipulating the media and having access to what Halloran calls "the plural values of society", enabling them to conform, accomodate or reject.

AM I A PLURALIST?
I believe that i am a pluralist, because as a member of a media audience, i agree that i do play a part in the manipulation process. If there is a certain text in which i do not enjoy, i will simply not watch it. I will only watch a text if there is some sort of an entertainment factor.

Eva Longoria Pepsi

This advert is another one that uses celebrity endorsement. The well known Eva Longoria is seen running wild and free in the rain whilst drinking Pepsi. This shows a representation on women to be young, free and independent. Even though she is not dressed provocativley men still look upon her as a sex symbol, as she is known for her raunch roles in "Desperate Housewives"

Aishwarya Rai - Loreal Commercial

This advert is celebrity endorsed as it features a famous bollywood actress. The woman in this advert is not fetishised in terms of her assets, but is still appealing towards men as she is known for her beauty. This advert also represents a different ethnicity as she is Asian.

Girls - Lynx ad

This advert shows a range of different women that all appeal to men in the way that they are dressed. This advert fetishises women as there are a number of close up shots on specific body parts. The women are seen to act provocatively.

Has Google become too ad powerful?
By Mark Sweney / Advertising/ Internet/ Television 02:40pm
That Google is set to make £900m in the UK this year - or put another way, almost £1 of every £2 spent by advertisers online - raises some serious questions about its market dominance.
Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan made the comment to highlight that the "structural change" in the ad industry means that Google will make more money than his corporation (£800m estimate).
However, an equally important question is just how comfortable is the UK ad industry that Google is so all-powerful when it comes to digital advertising?
In TV land there is a huge furore over ITV controlling around 45% of the ad market - and it has the regulatory mechanism of contracts rights renewal to keep it in check.
If you want dominance take a look at Google.
According to the Internet Advertising Bureau the UK online ad market will crack £2bn this year.
Search marketing consultancy Greenlight estimates that search advertising accounts for around 60% or more of total online ad spend (maybe around £1.3bn this year).
And Google takes the lions share (60% to 70%) of that, completely dominating next closest rival Yahoo!, with MSN much further down the search advertising revenue food chain.
As one consultant put it: "the others are fighting for scraps".
And it has exercised its muscle. Last year, Google scrapped the 15% gross discount it traditionally offered agencies using its advertising auction system and replaced it with a new net pricing system.
This caused a furore among many agencies.
Damian Burns, Google's head of agency relations for Europe Middle East and Africa, argues that the new system created "more transparency and put everyone on a level playing field using the auction system".
Microsoft has run into trouble in the US and Europe over market dominance and Apple too has its share of potential legal wrangles over opening its music platform.
But not much, so far, has been said about Google's position. For example, can it even be regulated, and, more to the point if it has such a great model and has taken full advantage of it over competitors why should it?

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2006/11/google_making_more_than_channe.html

Telegraph targets Mail associate editor Stephen Brook, press correspondentMonday October 23, 2006http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,,1929581,00.html.
The Daily Telegraph has launched another poaching raid on the Daily Mail.This time the paper is targeting Daily Mail associate editor Tony Gallagher and is attempting to woo him to boost its news operation.Gallagher, a long-standing Daily Mail staffer who was a New York correspondent for the paper before becoming news editor, was this year placed in charge of DailyMail.co.uk.It is understood that Gallagher has yet to decide whether to leave the Mail. If he moves, he will follow his friend Ian MacGregor, who left his post as deputy editor of the Evening Standard to become Daily Telegraph deputy editor earlier this year.But Gallagher could still knock back the offer and stay at the Mail, just as Mail deputy editor Jon Steafel did last year after rebuffing the Telegraph's overtures.There is speculation that if Gallagher moves to the Daily Telegraph, he would become home editor. That role is currently filled by Richard Preston, who was promoted to that position last September, but is understood to have been offered another senior role.At the same time Michael Smith, a former executive news editor at the Evening Standard, was made Telegraph news editor.MacGregor, Gallagher and Smith all worked on the Daily Mail newsdesk together.Since Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay bought the Telegraph group in June 2004 a string of executives from Associated Newspaper, which owns the Mail and the Evening Standard, have joined the Telegraph, starting with chief executive Murdoch MacLennan.In January the Telegraph hired Liz Hunt to be its assistant editor (features). She had been assistant features editor on the Mail.In November John Bryant arrived from the Mail to be editor in chief, prompting the resignation of the editor Martin Newland.Columnist Simon Heffer is another prominent Daily Mail journalist to join the Telegraph.My Comments : i dont think this is a problem, at the end of the day competition will always motivate organisations and if the Daily mail's staff are considering to move to Daily Telegraph then its obvious which newspaper is doing well. Maybe the Daily mail should give their staff more attention and more money lol. because theres obviously something that the daily telegraph have that they are lacking.