Audience Theory

There are many different theory's that explain how an audience is influenced by the media. Some of these are more excepted than others due to the amount of personal information they take into account.

Hypodermic Syringe
- Injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience who is then influenced.
- Although this theory is simple, it is very black and white in terms of the way its stated. For example not everyone that sits down and watches a violence film will go straight out and cause a fight with someone. It also doesn't take into account every ones individual backgrounds so isn't very accurate.

Culmination theory
- Watching years and years of violence accumulates and will make people less sensitive to this. For example if people constantly watch violence films then eventually people wont think of it as anything but everyday life.
- I believe that this theory could be partly correct as if people are constantly seeing something terrible it will come to a point where the shock factor is no longer there, however again this doesn't mean that with everyone watching horror films society will come to a point where everyone goes out murdering everyone else.

Two-Step-Flow
- This theory talks about how what people experience in media individually will then result in them discussing this with people, which can then influence there behaviour.
- This is saying that although it may not effect someones attitude and actions directly it may cause them to think in a different way and look differently at certain aspects of their life.

Uses and Gratifications theory
-We choose what we watch so choose by what we are influenced by.
- I believe that this theory is very accurate as its not saying we will base our actions on aspects of media we have seen but we may be influenced by it even if we are not aware of this. we base what we watch on the 3Is and 2Es
Information - Informed/ Educated
Identification - Identify with characters/ Situations
Interaction - Social interaction
Entertainment - Be entertained
Escapism - Escape from daily troubles

Encoding/ Decoding Theory
- The way in which directors encode footage with signs for the Audience to decode. However due to the fact that people come from all different backgrounds and cultures it will mean that different people encode media differently.

By understanding the way in which viewers are influenced by the media it makes it possible to create the most appealing short film possible. I believe that the last two theorys are the most feasible so I will have to ensure that i take into account target audience feedback so that the audience are drawn into the short film.