Theory Application

The Verve - Drugs Don't Work

This is the lyrics video for Drugs Don't Work by The Verve. This song is about Richard Ashcroft's dad who at the time was in hospital being treated for cancer. although this is the meaning of the video, when you apply the reception theory to the video and based on what people take away from this video, some audiences see this song as a warning against drugs by saying that they do not help in certain situations where the opposition of this would say that it encourages drug use during bad times.
The Blumler and Katz theory can also be applied to this video based on the uses and gratifications of the audience where people who take the same opinion on the song can discuss it in detail and can apply it to their own lives, particularly people who are going through the same situation as the one being described throughout the song. This has helped with the ideas of our group music video because we do not have to make the video relate directly to the lyrics in the song to make the video come out at a high standard and also make sense. 

Effects Debate

The effects debate says what effect media has on its audience and how it can influence readers. This is why there is media regulation because media has the potential to influence people in negative ways so there is a need to 'protect' audiences from some of the content that media carries. There tend to be three voices in this debate:

- Those who articulate their concerns about the effects of the media without any actual evidence.

- Those who have conducted research into media effects and whether the effects are positive and negative.

- Those who are subject to the debate, usually children or teenagers consuming new forms of media which the 'adult culture' are worrying about.

This theory is widely taken on board and is shown by media being given ratings to describe what audiences are suitable to view the different texts that are available to society. The biggest form of this is age ratings which are seen in everyday life. Censorship is also a big part of the media that restricts the content being shown to audiences. This theory is backed up strongly because of the laws that have been put in place that follow the morals of this theory.


This is the What it Feels Like for a Girl music video by Madonna. Throughout the video Madonna is seen to be doing things that are stereotypical of a "Bad Boy" image. This goes against conventions and gives the audience of the video different ideas and perspectives of the conventions that it represents and makes people think differently as opposed to living by stereotypes.

Reception Theory

The reception theory is a version of the reader's response literary theory that emphasises the reader's reception of literary text. This approach to textual analysis focuses on the scope for negotiation and opposition on part of the audience. This means that the "text" is not passively accepted by an audience, but it is interpreted based on their individual cultural backgrounds and personal experiences. In essence, the meaning of a text is not inherent within the text itself, but is created within the relationship between the text and the reader.
There are three types of reception models:

Dominant - The reader fully shares the text's code and accept and reproduces the preferred reading.

Negotiated - The reader partially shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests. 

Oppositional - The reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the text's code and rejects this reading.

An example of this could be "The Funeral" by Band of Horses  where audiences could initially see the song as being about the loss of someone close to one of the band members. The actual meaning of the song is about the children that the lead singer has lost due to his partner having miscarriages. However, people could take the message of this song and apply it to their own situation where the meaning would change based around their lives and experiences, showing how audiences can interpret media and create their own meanings.

Hypodermic Needle Theory

The hypodermic needle model suggests that media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. The signals which are broadcast from the media are equal to each recipient, the effect level differs though because each of us respond to the text in different ways to each other. This theory is sometimes referred to as the bullet theory where the "media gun" fired information directly into the reader's head. This theory basically says that the audiences of media do not have a choice on what they believe because the media must always be right, however information can change and people begin to disbelieve when they come across opposing information.

This is the video for Born Free by Mia. this video is incredibly controversial as it is about the hatred towards people with ginger hair. This video opposes the Hypodermic Needle Theory because although the video represents this hatred, this sort of activity does not occur in real life and is not something that could possibly happen.

Blumler and Katz

The Blumler and Katz theory is a theory about what audiences do for the media rather than what the media do for audiences. It is a popular approach to understanding mass communication. It assumes that members of the audeince are not passive, but take an active role in media to meet their needs. When we take a piece of media, Blumler and Katz says that we have to fulfil one of the following to interact with the media:

Identify - Being able to recognise the product or person in front of you, role models that reflect similar values to yours, aspiration to be someone else.

Educate - Being able to acquire information, knowledge and understanding.

Entertain - What you are consuming should give you enjoyment and also some form of 'escapism' enabling us to forget our worries temporarily.

Social Interaction - The ability for media products to produce a topic of conversation between other people, sparks debates. (ex. Who is left on X-Factor)

This theory is criticised because a lot of people say that as an audience we do not have power over what the media creates but the media create what people want to see/hear so that the media itself becomes more popular. Also, because the theory states that people can see the media in their own way, this can infuse negative influences on audiences and can encourage people to take media too seriously or in some cases not serious enough. 
I have applied this theory to my own group's music video because we have filmed a video being filmed inside a video which will give the audience another perspective and a different type of interaction into music videos but because of the ideology the audience will still recognise that it is a music video.

This is the music video for Eminem's Just Lose it. I have used this video to represent this theory because audiences could watch this video to be entertained because the video has been created with light hearted parody. This video is funny because of the controversial subjects that are seen throughout the video and Blumler and Katz believes that people would enjoy this video for the entertainment factor of the content.