THE IT CROWD

There are several models of audience behaviour, two of which construct audiences in contrasting ways (passive or active):
The Media Effects model or 'hypodermic syringe' model sees audiences as passively led, influenced and manipulated by all that they consume as gullible and impressionable.
The Uses and Gratifications model presents audience behaviour as active choices (uses) that are pursued to meet (gratify) a variety of needs. For Blumler and Katz, these four needs are for 

• entertainment/ escapism/ distraction, 
• seeking information (sometimes called surveillance), 
• personal identity (to support our world view) and 
• social relationships (bonding 'water cooler' moments with friends or family as well as on-screen relationships with favourite performers).

See the extract HERE

The two-step flow model of audience behaviour.
Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign and published their results in a paper called The People's Choice. Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over whom they have influence. The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow. This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts. This is sometimes referred to as the limited effects paradigm. (Source: Mediaknowall.com)

We apply the Uses and Gratifications model of audience behaviour to analyse an extract from The IT Crowd.