GWL2

1. GWL2
Audience theory consists of different theories such as the hypodermic needle theory,
uses and gratifications theory and the reception theory which discuss active and
passive consumptions of audiences. In this assignment it will be based on the
analysis of film responses and how an audience read a specific film depending on
contextual factors such as their age, gender, ethnicity, class, geodemographic status
and occupation. They include elements of the viewer's identity and circumstances of
exhibition in terms of social, historical and political issues.
The hypodermic needle theory, developed in the 1920’s and 30’s, was one of the
first ways of thinking about how the mass media influences audiences. It begun
when researchers observed the effect of propaganda during the world war. This
specific communication theory suggests that media messages are injected directly
into the brain of a passive audience and that people have no individuality in the way
that they respond to the message.
The hypodermic needle theory was recognised
when the war of the world’s radio broadcast
begun. The broadcast tried to convince the
audience that aliens were invading the world
which was believed as the whole of the public
became gullible.
Propaganda is another method of the
hypodermic needle theory. Here is an example
of a propaganda poster which was used in WW1
to guilt and manipulate people into joining up to
fight for our country. The poster is direct in the
way the male is looking straight at you and
pointing his finger in your direction, also the text
‘you’ is in bold and in a large font to attract the
audience’s attention and make them feel like
they’ve been personally chosen. This would
impulse the audience to want to do it because
they feel they’ve been given an order to do so.
There are many criticisms of the hypodermic needle theory. The main thing being
that everything found out about the theory was an assumption rather than being
proven by scientists or published research. There were no theoretical findings to
suggest that the mass media directly injected messages into the brain of a passive
audience and that they were immediately affected by the message. After time it
became apparent to the public that the mass media in fact did have selective
influences on media audiences. This was proven when research methodology
became more highly developed which initially impacted on the belief of the theory.

2. A case proven by this theory is the story of James Bulger who was murdered by two
young boys after they had recently been established to watch Child’s Play 3 (Jack
Bender, 1991) which was a violent film in which people were brutally murdered,
attacked and raped. It’s believed that the young boys murdered James using their
knowledge perceived from the film which they took and put into practice. The judge
of this trail said “It is not for me to pass judgment on their upbringing, but I suspect
exposure to violent video films may in part be an explanation.” This shows an
example of media impacting on its audience in a bad way and how it can be
dangerous.
Another example of a case impacted by the hypodermic needle theory is the film A
Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) which contained all types of physical
violence and rape. Within this time period when the film was brought out, a young
boy named James Palmer, 16 years of age, was imprisoned for murder when he
beat a tramp to death on the street presumably after watching the film. Edward
Laxton reported in the Daily Mirror, "The terrifying violence of the film A Clockwork
Orange fascinated a quiet boy from a Grammar School...And it turned him into a
brutal murderer. The boy viciously battered to death a harmless old tramp as he
acted out in real life a scene straight from the movie A Clockwork Orange". This too
shows how media can have a bad impact on its audience, especially young children.
In contrast to the hypodermic needle theory, the uses and gratifications theory
applies to audiences with more active minds that make their own decisions based on
what type of films they like to watch. The Uses and Gratifications theory was
suggested by Blumler and Katz who had an intention to show that there are four
main pleasures that audiences gain from films; these are diversion, personal
relationships, personal identity and surveillance. Each of these four things impact
audiences in the way that they feel a connection/relation between themselves and
the film. For example, in terms of personal relationships, a viewer who is single might
want to watch a romantic comedy to see the life of someone in the same position as

3. them and watch them become happy or chase the one they love like on the film The
Proposal (Anne Fletcher, 2009). Also, friendship is an example of personal
relationships so a film with a group of friends starring in it such as Mean Girls (Mark
Waters, 2004) might influence the viewer to feel loved and part of the group. The
second example is diversion which is meant to be the most common reason people
watch films; this is when viewers want to escape and be distracted from their
everyday lives and be somebody different. Lots of huge Hollywood blockbusters offer
escapism for their audience; a good example is the film Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012).
It tells a story which is easy to understand where good triumphs over evil and this
can initially lead to people going home feeling good and refreshed. Diversion based
films can also help the audience to escape their location on certain films where you
see them go off into the middle of nowhere like on the film The Martian (Ridley Scott,
2015) which is initially based on Mars. Another reason people tend to watch films is
due to personal identity. This is where a viewer watches a specific film because they
see themselves reflected in it, whether it be one specific character or a certain
subculture of lifestyle; they notice a similar behaviour or moral in the film which lies
within themselves. An example of this is Bridget Jones Diary (Sharon Maguire,
2001); any woman that watches this film may feel empowered by her character as
share the same strong independence or think that they feel the same way that
Bridget feels creating a bond between the character and the person in the audience.
The last reason to discuss is films that link to surveillance; this is a film which gives
the audience useful information for living. Documentaries are a good example of
films that deliver information, such as The Impossible (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2012)
which was based on a true story regarding an outrageous tsunami which hit Thailand
in 2004; other documentaries could also tell you about the news, global crisis,
weather or financial situations.
Many people criticised the uses and gratifications theory as they believed that the
public have no control over the mass media and what they produce. Although people
can sometimes be manipulated by the media, each person also has a free mind to
make up their own decision about what they want to believe and how they feel. As
well as this it was realised that audiences of different ages are likely to have different
gratifications and motivations within the media.
One last theory to discuss is the reception theory created by Stuart Hall who focused
on encoding and decoding media’s texts. He looked at the relationship between text
and audience; the text is encoded by the producers and decoded by the reader
within the audience but he discovered there are huge contrasts between the two
different readings of the same code. Stuart Hall’s aim was to show that produced
media texts are not passively accepted by the audience but instead that the reading
of the text is a case of individual circumstances that affect the audience’s way of
reading in terms of class, gender, age and ethnicity.
There are three types of readings within this theory which suggests how the
audience reads media text. The first one is preferred reading which is when

4. audiences respond to the text in the way that media producers expect them to. The
next type of reading is negotiated reading; this when the audience partially accept
but partially reject the message being given and are unsure on the basis of believing
it entirely. The last type of reading is oppositional reading which is when the
audience completely reject what is being perceived in the message and won’t be
influenced at all by the media.
The reception theory generally has no criticisms because most of the public tend to
agree with the fact that media audiences can be affected in different ways based on
their contextual factors. I agree with the theory myself and couldn’t fault or criticise it
as I agree with what it is based on. The reception theory almost proves the
hypodermic needle theory to be wrong and based on false evidence as it shows the
audience are passive spectators.
Fight Club, produced and distributed in 1999 by 20th Century Fox, is a film based on
an insomniac office worker who is looking for a way to change his life; however he
crosses paths with a devil-may-care soap maker, forming an underground fight club
that evolves into something much, much more. The director of Fight Club was David
Fincher who is well known for directing some of the most popular films within the UK
and USA. The film, while having a drama genre, also had themes of violence and
“disruption of a life” causing it to get a certificate of 18.
Funny Games, produced and distributed in 1997 by Madman Entertainment, is a film
which involves two young men who hold a family hostage and torture them
with sadistic games. The film was given an 18 certificate due to the intense violence
which takes place in the film. The director of Funny Games was Michael Haneke
who actually intended to disturb and irritate the audience with the brutal violence
shown.
I watched the film Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999) as part of this assignment. The
main thing I noticed about this film was that it had a strong theme of consumerism.
The message addressed to the audience in this film was that all men should go back
to being masculine and prove their manliness to the world and that a male being
feminine wasn’t allowed. I completely disagree with the message that the director
addressed within the film as I strongly feel as though every individual person should
be who they want to be, act how they want to act and think how they want to think.
Violence is also shown in Fight Club as well as Funny Games but it isn’t as harsh
and disturbing on the audience because it appears as though they fight for fun and
as a hobby whereas in Funny Games they’re being terrorised and violated mentally
and physically the whole way through the film. The two films both showed themes of
being starved of freedom and not being able to do what they want. This can impact
on the audience and make them feel sorry for the characters as I experienced
myself.

5. When I watched the film Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 1997), my initial response
was that I felt disturbed and was overpowered by the violence and twisted minds of
the characters. From the beginning to the end of the film I began to enjoy it less and
less and by the end I discovered it was a film I wouldn’t necessarily want to watch
again. I think that the acts of violence used were too overwhelming and intense,
especially for an audience of 18 years of age; although the director, Michael Haneke,
did say he made the film to purposely irritate, disturb and manipulate the his viewers
into reconsidering their consumption of violence as entertainment, in which he
achieved to do. Referring to The Reception Theory, I would say that I read Funny
Games in a preferred style of reading because I was influenced by the message
within the film in the way that the director wanted. As a conclusion of this film, I felt
distressed about the situation of torture that the innocent family were being put
through and I put myself in their position and considered it being my family which
encouraged me to want to help and I was almost shouting at the screen telling them
what to do to avoid being killed.
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend or rate Funny Games as I was overpowered by the
violence and disturbed to the point I know I wouldn’t watch it again. Fight club was
more easy going and the violence wasn’t as intense and distressing to watch, I felt
that when I watched Funny Games I felt as if I was in the film and I put myself in the
shoes of the terrorised family whereas I didn’t generally make a connection to the
themes or characters in Fight Club as it was more based around males.
To analyse other people’s responses to these two films I created a survey asking
questions about the audience’s age and gender, whether they usually watch films
with the same genre as ‘Fight Club’ and ‘Funny Games’, what type of readings they
received from these films and what they thought about the violence which took place.
Five of the people that responded to my survey were females and 3 were males.
Five of these eight people were under 18years of age, two were between 18 and 25
years and one was between 33 and 40 years. I discovered that four of the people
that answered yes when I asked them if they regularly watch thriller/horror films, the
majority were male and only one person was female. All four of these people were
under the age of 25 which could show that younger people prefer the excitement of
watching horror films and can deal with the tension and suspense more than adults.
Referring to the reception theory, when I asked the audience what style of reading
they had on the film ‘Funny Games’, the majority answered negotiated, one person
answered oppositional and one person answered preferred. I also answered
preferred because I hated the mental and physical abuse and depth of violence in
this film, however from analysing the responses from this question, it shows a lot of
other people were able to tolerate and deal with the violence and they didn’t find it as
extreme as I did. I then asked the audience the same question about the film ‘Fight
Club’ which yet again was the most popular answer but this time two people
answered preferred and two people answered oppositional. I also answered
oppositional because I didn’t agree with the film in anyway because I have strong

6. opinions on men being able to be as feminine as they want. I discovered that the
other two people that answered oppositional were males which gave me the
impression they could have been insulted by the theory that men can’t be/act how
they wish to on terms of masculinity. The next thing I reviewed on the survey is how
people reacted to the violence displayed within the two films. Beginning with Funny
Games, 40% of the responses the audience gave me said that the violence was
overpowering and disturbing and they didn’t like nor agree with it. The remaining
60% were split equally between the answers ‘it was overwhelming but I liked it’ and
‘the violence was fine and did not bother me’. This goes to show that as the majority
of people that answered the survey were young adults, this age group were
overcome by the violence and it was too graphic and brutal for the audience. In
comparison to this, the audience’s response to the violence in the film Fight Club
was much different. 87.5% of the audience stated that the violence was fine and that
they weren’t disturbed of discomforted. From this you can conclude that Funny
Games is definitely a more violent film and has a harsher impact on the audience,
especially of a younger age, whereas Fight Club is more easy going. To conclude
the survey I created on the two films I asked the audience which out of Funny
Games or Fight Club was their favourite. The answer I received was that Fight Club
was most popular and I assumed this would be based on the fact that it wasn’t as
hard and excruciating to watch due to the violence not being so brutal and not
creating a negative impact on the audience like Funny Games did.
Fight Club has been referred to by multiple theories; the hypodermic needle theory
and the uses and gratifications theory. A quote that references the hypodermic
needle theory is when a man named Alexander Walker who had watched the film in
Venice told London Evening Standard News that he ‘inveighed’ against the film and
that it was ‘a toxic experience… an inadmissible assault on personal decency and on
society itself. It resurrects the Führer principle. It promotes pain and suffering as the
virtues of the strongest. It tramples every democratic decency underfoot’. People
were then scared that the film would influence young boys into bare fist fighting and
thinking they had to be more masculine. There were also press reports which
informed us that unique fight clubs had been set up as a result of the film. This
immediately concerned the BBFC as they stated ‘there were concerns under the
BBFC Guidelines of the time about the glamorisation of violence and the potential for
encouraging an interest in organised bare-fist fighting’. This caused the film to be
openly criticised due to the personal and domestic violence which is shown. A quote
that references the uses and gratifications theory is ‘The new BBFC Guidelines
established the principle that adults should be free to choose their own
entertainment, within the law, and it was considered that there was nothing in Fight
Club that was in breach of UK law, or felt to be harmful’. In this response, it allows
adults to choose their own entertainment and values of pleasure in film.
Funny Games was criticised even more so than Fight Club due to the torturous
violence shown prominently in the film. The BBFC had concerns that ‘the violence in

7. Funny Games would reflect upon its audience’. As there is a sustained focus on the
terrorisation and humiliation of a family, including a young child, which takes place
within a strong sadistic context. The majority of the actual violence is all implied and
largely happens off-screen. Despite this, the mental and physical violence shown to
heavily disturb it’s audience had extreme consequences when there was a debate
on whether Funny Games should be banned. There are two quotes from a
conversation in this film that easily tie in with the uses and gratifications theory, this
is when Anna says: ‘Why don’t you kill us now? And Paul, the brutal terrorist
responds: What about the entertainment value? We’d all be deprived of our
pleasure’. This shows the audience that Peter and Paul see violence as
entertainment and don’t want it to end as they enjoy it and gain from it. They also try
to make the audience feel the same and get them on side. In reference to the
hypodermic needle theory, the film Funny Games puts a message across to initially
trick its audience into thinking Peter and Paul are two sweet, innocent young men.
Especially when they make the audience feel sympathy for Peter when Paul refers to
him as ‘fatty’ as a nickname several times and makes him cry. However, they end up
being brutal murders as they savagely kill a family leaving the audience shocked as
they thought the characters were firstly polite and kind people. Michael Haneke, the
director of the film, aimed to turn passive viewers active and wanted the audience to
reconsider their consumption of violence by making the characters two sided to
manipulate us as spectators. The film has a particular scene where the audience
experience a rewinding of the sequence to take away the ‘feel good’ moment where
they think the family will escape; this has been done in order to give the characters
the pleasure of taking away the happy ending and they want the viewers to
experience the same pleasure as they say they want to ‘offer the audience
something’ proving they will try and get them to agree with their consumption of
violence.