10 NM 3413 Audience Analysis MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS AND

10 NM 3413 Audience Analysis MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS AND THEIR EFFECTS

OVERVIEW - Concept of media representation - Media effects

NM 3413 AUDIENCE ANALYSIS REPRESENTATIONS Representations

Representations “Audience(s) is the groups and individuals addressed and often particularly ‘constructed’ by media industries. ”

Representations ‘The audience’ is not simply those have media ‘delivered’ to them, but is a group now often present in the media. • Phone-ins • Vox populi (voice of the people) • Confession shows • Reality television • Letters to editor (In newspapers and magazines) • Opinion polls

NM 3413 AUDIENCE ANALYSIS REPRESENTATIONS Artist Audience Model

Representations Do the media represent reality?

Representations media = mirror ?

Representations representation refraction re-mediation

Representations Gender Representation Ethnicity Marginal group

Representations The conceptual area of representation and ideology considers the relationships between people, places, events, ideas, values and beliefs and their representations in the media; and the issues and debates arising from their representations.

Representations This includes how we might choose to create representations of ourselves, our families and surroundings. We also look at how we make sense of the meanings of media texts and how these meanings contribute to the ways in which our society and communities function.

Representations The key questions to ask here are: _ Whose interests does the text serve? _ Who is present in this text? Who is absent from this text? _ Who or what can it be said to represent? _ What does the text tell us about who made it and when and where they made it? _ Has its meaning changed over the years and in what ways? _ What judgments do you make about the truth, accuracy or effect of this text?

Representations The key questions to ask here are (cont’d): _ What judgments do you make about the truth, accuracy or effect of this text? _ What judgments might other people or groups make about it? _ What values are offered, either directly or indirectly, by the text? _ What conclusions can we draw from it, what issues does it raise? _ What do we need to consider when making a media text? _ What messages and values are we using in our decision-making?

Representations However realistic or compelling some media images seem, they never simply present the world direct. They are always a construction, a re-presentation, rather than a mirror, or a clear ‘window on to the real’

Representations The term has the capacity to suggest that some media re -present, over and over again, certain images, stories, situations. This can make them seem ‘natural’ or familiar – and thereby marginalize or even exclude other images, making those unfamiliar or even threatening.

NM 3413 AUDIENCE ANALYSIS REPRESENTATIONS Media effects

Media Effects Theories § Magic Bullet Theory § Social Learning Theory § The Two-Step Flow Hypothesis

Media Effects Theories Discussion Question: Does mediated violence encourage aggressive behaviors in children?

Media Effects Theories § Social Learning Theory Albert Bandura’s the Bobo Doll Experiment (1968)

Media Effects Theories Discussion Question: Does the poll change people’s choice for voting in an election?

Media Effects Theories Lazarsfeld’s experiment (1940): The 1940 Presidential Election 1. Early Decider 2. Waverers 3. Converts Franklin D. Roosevelt vs Wendell Willkie 4. Crystallizer “The results revealed that very few voters actually changed their minds over the course of the campaign. In fact, voters’ ultimate choices could be largely inferred in advance by looking at their socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, and age. ”

Media Effects Theories § The Two-Step Flow Model of Communication XYZ XYZ opinion leaders 1 small groups 2

Media Effects Theories “Opinion leaders are regarded to be knowledgeable about a particular issue and are consulted by others as a source on that issue. ”

References: Bencharongkij, Yubol. Audience Analysis. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn, 1991. Branston, Gill and Roy Stafford. The Media Student’s Book. New York: Routledge, 2006. Sullivan, John L. Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power. Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2013.