Theories.

In our media lessons we have been discussing 3 theories that tell us about how an audience sees the media they are presented with and what they take from it. The 3 theories we discussed were the Hypodermic Needle Model, Two-Step Flow and Uses and Gratifications Theory. I am going to discuss what these theories are and talk about their importance in the media industry.




Hypodermic Needle Model
The Hypodermic Needle Theory suggests that media messages are injected straight into an audience who are immediately influenced by this message. It basically is a theory that says that the media we immediately affects us and we don't have a say in what we take in from media. This is important to my project as it helps me to understand that the content I put into my project must be important as it will immediately make an affect on my audience therefore I want this media to be worthy of their attention.


Two-Step Flow
This theory is basically saying that the institution produce mass media from which opinion leaders get information from and they pass it on to us- people who look up to the opinion leaders- and then we pass this information on to our family and friends with our own interpretation- to make the audience more widespread. The opinion leaders are the people who really pay attention to media. This is important for my project as it is telling me to make sure that my magazine stands out so people take it this information and spread it around to make my audience more widespread.


Uses and Gratifications Theory
This is the approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy their specific needs. For example, if someone was sad they would maybe choose a light-hearted comedic piece of media to cheer them up. We choose media and take from it what we need. It is an audience-centred approach to understanding mass communication. There are 5 main uses for media: to be informed or educated, identify with characters, entertainment, social interaction and escapism. This theory helps me with my project as it gives me some guidelines of what I can include for my magazine so that people ill be able to take from it what they need and will be satisfied with my product.