Audience Theories

Maslow's hierarchy of needs can be applied to this video. Maslow created a theory that there was a set of different human needs, organised into groups,  that every media text fits into in some way.

   

'A message to you Rudy' i feel appeals to the love and belonging section of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs. The video shows a large group of people who make up the band, who appear to be close friends, and seem as if they are comfortable with eachother and give off a sense of belonging, which would make the audience want a large group of friends too.

Our music video that we are creating also applies to this section of the triangle, as the band is smaller but appear very close, for example when Filip and Tom are play fighting and messing around with eachother, it gives off a sense that they have a sort of brotherly relationship, which fits into the belongingness and love needs section. I also feel as if Tom, being the lead singer of our band, fits into the next section of the hierarchy which is esteem needs. He gives off a sense of confidence and self esteem in the video, which would be envied by the audience, and make them want to be like him.

The hypodermic needle theory says that the media injects messages into passive audiences, media consumption influences the attitudes and behaviours of audiences. It suggests that audiences are easily led, influenced and manipulated. This theory could be applied to our music video as it could be encouraging young people to mess around in school and disrespect the rules of authority. Most of the images shown in our video display a rebellious and disrespectful attitude, with a lot of it set in school. This could encourage a section of our audience to act in the same way. Cultivation theory could also be applied, as a student could already have a tendency to misbehave in school, and our video could be enhancing this and making their behaviour worse and more common. Although this applies to schools in a literal sense, it could influence people in society in general, disobeying authority figures such as the government, police, parents, etc.

Older people may frown upon this attitude, as they are generally considered the authority figures of society, and therefore may disagree with the behaviours we are displaying in our video, and may not want younger people copying or being influenced by this. This could fall under Reception Theory, which is how factors such as age, gender, class or ethnicity effects the way a person reacts to or feels about a media text. A younger person would react very differently to our video than an older person.