The Active Audience/ Mode Of Address/ Ethnographic Model

The Active Audience:
The active audience theory is based upon the view that audiences decode messages and do not simply use the madia for gratification purposes.
Morley's view that the audience reads text in a dominant, negotiated or oppositional way is a semiotic approach due to the fact that it recognises the importance of the analysis of signs and particularly visual signs.

This model is basically proposing that:

• The audience accept or agree with the encoded meanings.
• They accept or refine parts of the text's meanings.
• They are aware of the dominant meaning of the text reject it for cultural, political or ideological reasons.

Mode Of Address:
The mode of address theory refers to way that the text engages with us in a style that encourages us to identify with it. For example Friends is targeted to a young audience because it uses music and the opening credits to create a sense of fun and energy that a young audience can relate to. However this does not mean that other audience groups are excluded, it just simply means that the dominant mode of address is targeted at the young. Mode of address can be applied to entire media industries.


Ethnographic Model:
The ethnographic model is where the researcher enters into the culture of the group and uses interviews to try to understand what the group engages with. What emeges from this is engagement with media is often structured by the domestic environment. It appears that there are issues about:
- Finance for purchase of media goods,
- Control of the remote,
- The gender nature of watching television,
- The 'flow' of tv that fits in with domestic relationships.
Texts can be identified as belonging to a genre that has a gender appeal. E.g. soaps are usually seen to have a strong female audience.