Audience Theory

It is vital to know our audience
- We then know our *target audience*
- We can fulfill the audience's expectations of codes and conventions depending on our genre
- See who will BUY our music and videos
- We know what will appeal to our audience, therefore allowing us to promote according via our music video/digipack
-We may be able to relate to them, using specific iconography
STUART HALL
Developed the concept of audience positioning as a result of examining news reports on industrial strikes. Claiming that media representations established a framework for possible responses – this is like setting an agenda for issues to be raised with audiences. The responses to an audience watching a media text would be likely to fall into three main categories:

 Dominant readings - Audiences respond to the way narrative is constructed and adopt the points of view implied

Oppositional readings - Audiences reject the way the narrative is constructed, question and challenge the points of view implied
Negotiated readings - Audiences partially accept the way the narrative is constructed but can see both points of view

the dominant and oppositional readings

Aberrant readings is an additional interpretation, where the text is read in a deviant and largely unanticipated manner, the preferred reading not being recognised at all