Audience Theorys

Audience Theory's can help us understand how the film will be viewed as well as helping us understand the effect our film can be on a given audience.

Hypodermic Needle theory - This is when you inject morals or some kind of message into a passive audiences, an audience who is easily lead. There has been meny cases of younge childeren who have watched a movie and then acted on its violence.


This is the film Child's play. This film is a good example of the Hypodermic Needle theory because of the case where the 2 young boys reenacted the murder on a 1 year old boy.

Uses and Gratification Theory (McQuail)- this is the audiences participation in the film. How the audience connects or gets out of the film. Most people watch a film for entrainment, to relax. But the audience could also connect on a more personal level by connecting to a character or from personal experiences. An audience could also see the film to gain information and be educated. 

The Reception Theory- this is also about the audiences participation but its more about the enigma code used in the plot. The film is encoded by a producer and it is the audiences job to decode and understand the message. This theory questions whether or not eac audience member gets the same experience from the same film.

This will help me in regards to my film opening because it gives me a better understanding of how the  audience will consoom my film and how they could be effected. This will also help with certification because different age groups are effected by movies more then others, this will help reduce the chance of u having a bad effect on society.