Audience theories

Effect theory - Passive, as you are manipulated by the mass media. Mass refers to the scale of the operation and who they reach. Mass assumes that consumers are weaker - i.e. women and children or of a lower class. Violence on screen is therefore seen as a cause for copycat violence's off screen. Effect theory is also known as the 'Hypodermic Needle Model' as the media 'injects' its thoughts and beliefs to a mass audience - this can produce moral panics, (panic due to what has been said, or 'injected'). The effect theory nearly always tends to be negative.

Uses and gratifications model - This tends to avoid any negative associations, as the audience is actively decoding the text. 'Active' means that different audiences respond in different ways. The uses and gratifications model means that the audience uses the text in a more practical manner.

Audience reception theory - What is encoded in the text may be different than that of the decoded - this is what really matters as the audience is active. The audience is invited into the show, using elements such as mise-en-scene and camera work. Everything therefore must effect the pleasure of the text, and more deliberate choices to treat the text as real are used in order to gain more pleasure.