Identifying an audience

People use texts to gratify their needs. For example when you watch a horror it would be for social reasons e.g watching it with friends, for the fear of being chased or jut generally the fear, thrill, excitement and adrenaline rush you get from being scared. These types of films also push boundaries which usually attract teenagers as they can relate to these types of situations. They are also watched for the fear of the other- the fear of anybody different to you. 

Audience reception
Most audiences receive things differently, many have different opinions on film plots and contexts. Stuart Hall's encoding theory shows how a reading is viewed differently, according to him there are 4 different types of readings:

Preferred reading- what the director intends the viewer to think.
Opposite reading- the opposite view to what the intention  of the reading was.
Negotiated reading- when he viewer understands the preferred reading but has a differing opinion. 
Aberrant reading- when what the viewer thinks the reading is about is completely wrong and different to the intention.

An example of this is in the T-mobile advert where it shows a recreation of the royal wedding in modern times with the royal family dancing down the aisle. 

A preferred reading would be that it was funny and praising the royal family. 
A negotiated reading would probably be 60+ viewers who understand the meaning but thought the advert was disrespectful towards the royal family. 
A opposite reading would be someone that doesn't really understand it and think it is the real royal wedding. 
A aberrant reading would be someone that thought it was something completely different like someones real wedding video.

Hypodermic syringe theory

This theory is the idea that a passive audience will believe anything that the media tells them, the information is pumped into the person and they always think it true. In the 1930's the main media was newspapers and some radios meaning that many believed everything in these were true as there was little knowledge that some reports could be hoaxes or jokes. An example of this is when a radio play was introduced, there was a reading through the radio of an alien invasion- it was an extract taken from a book, but because it as on the radio many believed in to be true and there was a panic. In more recent times audiences are more active as there is the chance to be part of some TV shows by voting, there is also more awareness with respect to media and many understand that news stories are often distorted and changed allowing this generation to be a lot more vary of things in the media.

A lot of viral advertising happens through social media, for example if someone sees something interesting they can share it on facebook, twitter, youtube, instagram, tumblr ect. this allows more people to see an item and therefore allows more people to see advertisements.