Reception theory and Uses of gratification Theory

These are my notes on both these theories and  I have written them up from my work book and are what I have found out:

Text is not passively accepted by the audience, but that the reader/ viewer interprets the meanings if text based on their cultural background and life experience.

Active- going to see it (HMV for music adverts on tv)

passive - just seeing it while doing something else (Magazine scrolling through pages)

Uses and gratification theory-

This is an approach to understanding mass communication.

The theory places more focus on consumer or audience rather than he actual message itself.

"What people do with media" rather than "what media does to people. Katz 1959

Idea of active role and wanting to see it.

We use this theory when buying/listening to music. We choose it to fit a certain mood but also to show empowerment or other socially conscience motives.

Websites like you tube allow any music anytime to be played and we can learn at any time on Wikipedia. All change the way it is perceived.

This takes out the possibility that the media can have a unconscious influence over the lives of viewers.

These impact on researchers as we will have to plan both products completely differently.The Digipak will be active because people are actively searching for something and I will have to keep the uses and gratification theory in mind throughout. It needs to keep and gain the attention.

The music magazine page however needs to be passive as people are not searching for it, instead they may be just flicking through and not noticing and this will need to be planned completely differently to the Digipak as there audiences and ways of communication have to be completely different.

For my target audience this would change prepared to an audience of the age of 60 years + because out audience (16.30) have a different style of buying and how the watch promotional videos and adverts. As I am in this age group I can talk from personal experience that I see promotional videos on social networks and you tube, and I see adverts in the same place, and even on the Internet itself, things have changed form having in magazines because the adverts on the Internet can be much more focused as the data you have given includes your age and what you like.