The audience theories focus on the idea that the audience are not only the passive viewers of events in the media, but are the active members involving themselves in making sense of the news, society thus incorporating and adjusting their lives around the media and politics. The audience theory approach accentuates the ways in which the media affects the society we preside, as well as simultaneously, the public influencing what is depicted through the media. The representation of women through the media can be debated through these theories, the audience stimulating conflicting ideas towards the media. Representation can be portrayed through the encoding and decoding theory, as well as the effects theory and the uses and gratifications theory. The audience theory approach, both effects theory and uses and gratifications theory, enables us as an audience to understand the ways in which we react to certain events and the various perspectives engrained onto society from the media.
How we as a society make sense and interpret the information executed from the media depends on our varying perspectives, shaped by our beliefs and ideologies. Hall argues that audiences can respond to the media text’s preferred message in a number of ways, according to their preconceived beliefs and attitudes (Williams 2003, p. 152). The effects theory, also known as the hypodermic needle theory, and the uses and gratifications theory enable us to investigate the relations between society and media through their conflicting ideologies, broadening our understanding of how audiences react to certain concepts in the media. Television commercials such as the Carl’s Jr American Burger Chain advertisements, sexualise the female body idolised through the male gaze, resulting in either a passive view from the audience or society taking an active role and attempting to challenge the views of the media. The effects theory provokes us to view the hegemonic demeaning images of women throughout the media, Leasca’s article ‘Headless Women in Hollywood’ focusing on the objectification of women, idolising only the physical appearances of females (Glamour 2018). These depictions of women can be seen through music videos and advertisements, such as Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’, the women portrayed in the music video displaying their body in sexualised poses. The uses and gratifications theory is seen through the audience attempting to copy such movements exposed in the video, a hegemonic representation of women throughout the media. The link between media and politics is thus evident here, politics governing the certain perspectives that is exposed through the media, hence impacting the lives of people within society.
The effects theory focuses on passivity of the audience, feeding them with information and not receiving a response, whereas the uses and gratifications theory delves into what the audience does with the media. Meaning is a way of making individuals in society fit into specific gender, cultural and social roles, impacting upon how we interact with others on an everyday basis (Langlois 2014, p. 2). The relationship between media and society through the differentiating views on gender expectations are intertwined, with television, advertisements and music videos using women as sexual objects, however often society appealing to such stereotypes through platforms such as Instagram, posting images of their body to gain more ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ for validation. These continuous posting of certain images on social media enable the exchange of capital between business and consumer (Veum, Undrum 2017, p. 89), most often the more provocative an image is on these platforms, the more validation received from the public, thus demonstrating the relationship between the media and society.
Encoding and decoding within the media are exemplified through the constant deconstructing of media texts by audiences, thus interpreting them in ways that suit their attitudes, beliefs and social and cultural upbringing. In order to understand and comprehend meaning, it involves an individual opening up and finding agreement and recognition within others (Langlois 2014, p. 1), the decoding theory allowing us to view the correlation between society, media and politics. Politics involves the influencing of others through a variety of ways, media being a main source. Through the encoding and decoding theory, we can see the parallels between media and politics, politics being the key influential aspect that has an organised control over society. The expectation of gender roles is inculcated throughout the media, under the supervision of politics in order to ingrain certain attributes and beliefs into individuals, society either passively viewing these ideologies or challenging them. The links between the media and politics are interdependent, the media being surveilled by political ideologies.
Society incorporates groups of people with various beliefs differentiating themselves from others, acting as audiences for specific media texts, inculcating certain aspects of the media from political ideologies in their lives. McLennan suggests that in order for a set of beliefs to be considered ‘ideological’ they need to be shared by a significant number of people, thus creating an society (Williams 2003, p. 146). The Kardashians, for example, are seen widely throughout the media as many audiences are intrigued and interested on their everyday lives. The effects theory is thus conveyed here as the audiences are passively viewing how these types of people live, whether it be through social media or even their own television show, ’Keeping Up With the Kardashians’. Flew proposes that the role of the media is to enable citizen participation, the audience reinforced to react to certain events in the media, encouraging that a more media centric approach will allow for a better understanding in contemporary trends (Flew 2017, p. 44). Flew’s argument here depicts the certain backlash or commentary given in regards to the Kardashians, views concerning the negative portrayal of women and the constant exposure of their bodies through the media. Contrary to Flew, Veum and Undrum argue that self documentation technologies are often interpreted as a way of empowering the individual, thus the use of social media increasing drastically (Veum, Undrum 2017, p. 88). Audiences of social media are both passive as well as interacting with media by leaving comments, retweeting and liking certain posts, thus associating media and society.
In conclusion, the effects theory, uses and gratifications theory and the encoding and decoding theory all assist in understanding the links and correlations between the media, society and politics. Through these theories, we can understand the interdependence on each aspect of media studies, politics influencing the media’s views on certain concepts, thus conveying them in particular ways to the audience, society either reacting passively or challenging towards these views. The hegemonic sexualised portrayal of women in the media resonates throughout society, individuals involving themselves in the media by often mirroring certain images exposed in the media. Juxtaposed with this, the audience also passively views the depiction of gender expectations. Through these audience approaches, we can apprehend the links between society, the media and politics, and the reasons to which audiences react certain ways to the censored and uncensored media.