Audience

Uses and Gratifications Theory

Stuart Hall Theory

The reception theory states that media texts are encoded by the producer. This means that the text will have messages and values created by this producer. Then the text is decoded by an audience. Each person viewing a media text will view it differently, not always in the way the producer wanted it to.

There are 3 readings applied to this theory: dominant reading, negotiated reading and oppositional reading.

Dominant reading 

This means that an audience views a media text in the exact way the producer intended. The audience fully agrees with the ideology and the meaning behind the text. Therefore, this means that the consumption has been met and the institution is happy that the meaning they intended is understood by an audience.

How could an audience have a dominant reading?

-They are the same age so the product is more relatable

-From the same culture and have the same religious views
-The narrative is easy to understand

Negotiated reading

This is a mixture between the dominant and oppositional reading. An audience accepts the message the producer was trying to get across, yet also they have their own understanding of the media text. They don't agree or disagree, although they are aware of the point being made, however they have their own opinion of the text. 

How could an audience have a negotiated reading?

-They may not have been through the same life experiences so cannot fully understand
-Age may be too different so they fail to understand the narrative
-The messages may be hard and unclear to understand, therefore the dominant reading is not understood

Oppositional reading

The audience completely rejects the reading and creates their own understanding of the text. This means that they don't agree with the message being shown. They may misinterpret the text and see it in the wrong way. It could make them feel upset, annoyed and angry, meaning they have failed to see the intended message from the institution.

How could an audience have a oppositional reading?

-The media text conveys controversial themes
-They don't agree with whats being shown in the text
-Different cultures have different understandings
-May fail to understand what is going on
-They may find if offensive and cause negative feelings surrounding the text

Hypodermic needle theory

Implies that mass media had a direct, immediate, and powerful effect on it's audiences. Mass media in 1940's and 50's were perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change. 

The theory suggets that mass media could influence a very large group of people directly and uniformly by 'shooting' or 'injecting' them with appropriate messages designed to trigger a desired response.  It suggests a powerful and direct flow of information from the sender to the receiver. suggets that the media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. 

It expresses the view that the media is a dangerous means of communicating an idea because the receiver or audience is powerless to resist the impact of the message. People are seen as passive and are seen as having a lot of media material 'shot' at them. People end up thinking that what they are told because there are no other source of information.

The theory assumes that what we see or hear, we believe and consume. The theory implies we are brainwashed into believing the media messages.

We are consumed by media products and are influenced by them greatly. 

In the 1930's a radio broadcast of 'War of The Worlds' was performed like a real news broadcast to heighten the effect of the story, people listening thought it was real and assumed mars had come to invade the world.This demonstrates a passive audience and how an audience believes what they hear in the news and how this can quickly lead to misinterpretation. 

Cons of the theory:

-Not everyone watches the news/consumes media in the same way

-Very out of date and invalid

-Audiences are not simply passive, more up-to-date theories have proved this

-Technology has changed how we consume media and the sources where it originates from

-We are more aware of society and how institutions operate

-We are now used to consuming media texts that we understand conventions and know when to react to messages if we deem them insignificant.

How does the Bad Blood music video link or not link to the Hypodermic Needle Theory?

The strong narrative of Betrayal in the plot of the Bad Blood music video could make Taylor Swift's fans believe she is taking a side jab at someone who has betrayed her in the past. This relates to the Hypodermic needle theory because it means that the audience assume that what they're seeing has happened to the artist for her to produce a video on the subject in the first place. Furthermore, this also means that the audience believe any message that a type of media text promotes and implies that we are indeed brainwashed into believing the message being shown. However, as the theory is old, there are many cons, meaning the theory also couldn't conform to the Bad Blood music video as we are much more aware of how media institutions operate. Due to being so aware of how the media uses particular subjects to make the media text more popular, the producers of the Bad Blood music video may have chosen the subject of betrayal in order to make it seem like Taylor had 'bad blood' with someone, causing people to jump to conclusions and talk about who it could be aimed at. People believe it is a dig at Katy Perry and this shows that audiences are aware of how the institutions use certain subjects to gain more views. Therefore, audiences don't always consume the message in the same way; some people may think they've chosen the topic of betrayal for popularity as people will discuss it more, whereas others may believe they've chosen the topic of betrayal for the audience to sympathise with- proving that the theory is outdated because not everyone believes the same message and reasons behind the choice of the message a media text is trying to promote. 

Genre Theory

Genre

Genre is a critical tool that helps us study texts and audience responses to texts by dividing them into categories based on common elements: codes and conventions, iconography, organising structure, paradigm. 

Generic characteristics across all texts share similar elements:

-Typical mise en scene/visual style. (Iconography, props, set design, lighting, temporal and geographic location, costume, shot types, camera angles, special effects)
-Typical types of narrative (plots, historical setting, set pieces)
-Generic types ie. typical characters
-Typical studios/ production companies

-Typical personnel (directors, producers, actors, stars, auteurs, etc)
-Typical sound design (dialogue, sound effects
-Typical editing style

 Katy Perry

Lana Del Rey

For example, these two pop stars Katy Perry and Lana Del Rey are wearing similar costumes which conforms to the idea that they are both reflecting their chosen genre of music (pop) through the use of the bright coloured flowers, as rock artists would not have this particular style of iconography around them.

Daniel Chandler (2001)

Chandler argues that the word 'genre' comes from the French (and originally Latin) word for 'kind' or 'class.' The term is widely used in rhetoric, literary theory, media theory, to refer to a distinctive type of 'text.'

All genres have sub genres. This means that they are divided up into more specific categories that allow audiences to identify them specifically by their familiar and what become recognisable characteristics (Barry Keith Grant 1995)

Steve Neale (1995)

Neale stresses that 'genres' are not 'systems', they are processes of 'systemisation' ie. they are dynamic and evolve over time. Neale also says 'genres are instances of repetition and difference.' How a media text must conform to these conventions enough that it can still qualify and be identified as a media text of that genre. How much a media text subverts the genres stereotypes and conventions. He says that a media text must subvert these conventions enough that it is still viewed as a unique media text, not just a clone. Furthermore, he states that difference is vital to the economy of genre as simply repeating everything would not make an audience want to watch a media text, therefore media texts need to stick to a genre but also offer something different to attract the audience.

The Bad Blood music video and Katy Perry's 'Roar' is quite similar. Both videos are quite bright and often colourful. This represents their genre of pop and how these same connotations of bright colours are being used to allow the audience to identify the pop genre, however they are used differently to portray certain narratives, although we can still see it is a pop genre. This relates to Steve Neale's theory because although the two videos are different in terms of the messages being represented, the genre of the videos are identified through the same things; such as the bright colours, makeup choices and the outfits worn. This suggests that same genre music videos do represent the genre similarly, but are still different from each other enough to make it interesting for an audience to watch.

Jason Mittell (2001)
Mittell argues that genres are cultural categories that surpass the boundaries of media texts and operate within the industry, audience and cultural practises as well. Industries use genre to sell products to audiences. Media producers use familiar codes and conventions that very often make cultural references to their audience knowledge of society, other texts. In the Bad Blood video there are lots of references to other film texts which all help to promote a certain message to sell to an audience- that message is the 'betrayed' storyline.

Rick Altman (1999) argues that genre offers audiences ‘a set of pleasures
•Emotional Pleasures: The emotional pleasures offered to audiences of genre films are particularly significant when they generate a strong audience response.•Visceral Pleasures: Visceral pleasures (‘visceral’ refers to internal organs) are ‘gut’ responses and are defined by how the film’s stylistic construction elicits a physical effect upon its audience. This can be a feeling of revulsion, kinetic speed, or a ‘roller coaster ride’.•Intellectual Puzzles: Certain film genres such as the thriller or the ‘whodunit’ offer the pleasure in trying to unravel a mystery or a puzzle. Pleasure is derived from deciphering the plot and forecasting the end or the being surprised by the unexpected.
Taylor Swift's Bad Blood music video has all of these emotions labeled by Rick Altman. For example, it is an emotional video as the narrative is based around being betrayed by someone who meant a lot to her, which therefore creates emotional pleasure to an audience as they will sympathise with her and feel a particular way. Also, it offers visceral pleasure as the audience are on the edge of their seats wondering what Taylor is going to do when she's planning her revenge. The Bad Blood video also has intellectual puzzles as at the very beginning we're confused as to why she has been betrayed, however towards the end we realise that she was never really her friend to begin with and now there is a big feud between the two.

Postmodern Style

Music video is a medium intended to appeal directly to youth subcultures by reinforcing generic elements of musical genres.

•They are called pop-promos as they are used to promote a band or artist.•Music videos are postmodern texts whose main purpose is to promote a star persona (Dyer, 1975).•They don’t have to be literal representations of the song or lyrics.
Bad Blood could relate to postmodern style as the video appeals to youth subcultures via the narrative and also the interesting mise en scene and editing techniques used. Such as the guns, bikes, helicopters and explosions; these would engage a youthful audience. However, it could also apply to an older audience too, as many ages could enjoy watching this video. Furthermore, the video helps to promote Taylor Swift, as well as her famous friends such as Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne, Karlie Kloss, etc. This conveys the idea that the main purpose of media texts are to promote a star persona (Dyer 1975) and the Bad Blood music video does seem to promote stars such as models and singers.

 Gigi Hadid in the Bad Blood music video

Cara Delevingne in the Bad Blood music video

David Buckingham (1993) 

Argues that 'genre is not... Simply "given" by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change’.

The Bad Blood music video does link to David Buckingham's idea that genre is a constant process of negotiation and change. For example, the video genre is pop and it has various aspects of other media texts such as Kill Bill, Sin City, etc within the video and this implies that the pop genre is changing and referencing other genres of media within their own product. However, it is still a pop video which shows that by negotiating with other techniques, it can help to make the genre a bit different from other same genre videos and to make it more interesting for an audience to consume.