AUDIENCE

Qainaat Aftab

Audience Theory

• An audience to a film is the crucial component that makes a film successful. Without an audience there is no film.

• When targeting your audience for your film it is important to look at these factors:

- The construction of audience- The way audiences view text- The audience motivation- The effect on the audience

How do we construct audience?Audience can be constructed by:• Age• Gender• Sexuality• Social Class • Income• Ethnicity• Educational Background• Rural/Urban• Cultural/Religious Background

When categorising an audience it is always important to consider these factors.

David Morley’s Nationwide study

• David Morley is a sociologist who specialises in the sociology of TV audiences. In 1980 he arranged for differing socio/economic groups to watch an episode of Nationwide.

• What is Nationwide?Nationwide was a popular magazine programme

which discussed current media affairs. This programme was aired on BBC1.

• David Morley’s research involving Nationwide has become an important study when concerning audiences.

• What was the study?Morley outlined three hypothetical position which the reader might

occupy:

- Dominant (or ‘hegemonic’) reading: This is where the reader shares the programmes ‘code’ (Its meaning system of values, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions) and fully accepts the programmes ‘preferred reading’

- Negotiated reading: This is where the reader partially shares the

programmes code and its preferred reading, however they modify it which reflects their position and interest.

- Oppositional (‘Counter-hegemonic’) reading: This is where the reader does not share the programme’s code and completely rejects the preferred reading, which brings an alternative frame of interpretation.

• Sociologist David Morley argues that ‘members of a given sub-culture will tend to share a cultural orientation towards decoding messages in particular ways. Their individual “readings” of messages will be framed by shared cultural formations and practices’.

• In conclusion Morley claims that an individuals ‘decoding’ of TV programmes are not reduced to a direct consequence of social class position.

- ‘ It is always a question of how social position, as it articulated through particular discourses, produces specific kind of readings or decoding. These readings can be seen to be patterned by the way in which the structure of access to different discourses is determined by social position’

• Therefore, the meaning of text will be constructed differently according to the discourses brought by the reader.

• Individuals that are in different social positions that are defined according to sex, race etc will be likely to inhabit disposable different codes and subcultures.

EXTRA READING

http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/Documents/short/morleynw.html

Christian Metz• Christian Metz is a film theorist in France, he looked at semiology

as a tool for understanding relationships between ideology and aesthetic expression.

• The Imaginary Signifier –Was Metz’s first incorporation of the psychoanalytical approach to

cinema studies.

This book is broken down into 4 parts:

-The Imaginary Signifier-Story/Disclose-The Fiction and its Spectator: A metapsychological study-Metaphor/Metonymy

The Imaginary Signifier• In this section Christian Metz’s begins to deconstruct

the cinematic image. He starts this study by why an audience goes to watch a certain film.

• According to the French theorist, the cinema satisfies three Freudian desires - These ‘desires’, combined set up specific feature that distinguishes the cinema from other arts (i.e. Literature or Music)

• He argues that the cinema satisfies the desire for the ego. The visions from a cinema screen can be read by more sense, in contrast to other arts.

• He continues to state that the cinema is a completely new and unique form of art. This is because the film being played in a cinema is viewed in a different time period to when it was being made, at different places.

• The Imaginary Signifier explores the concept of variety in cinema. The cinema can stimulate both the sound and visionary senses.

The Second Desire

• The second desire fulfilled by the cinema is the desire to desire.

• Metz claims “the main socially acceptable arts are based on the senses at a distance…”

• The cinema is set up exactly in the stage boundaries of theatre or musical performances. Consequently, because the audience was not present or involved in the objects in the film they are automatically removed from them.

The Third Desire

• Metz also argues that cinema fulfils Freudians third desire which is the desire for an object. This is fetishism, which is based on child development.

• Fetishism in relation to film denies knowledge of the lack of absence in the film image. Thus, creating a binary with the audience.

• In other words, the audience is aware that the images on screen are not reality but in order to appreciate or enjoy the film the must be viewed as real.

• To conclude, Christian Metz believes that the cinema is fulfilled by these three desires.

• When doing my research I came across this website which I found extremely helpful:

http://cinemamoviesandflicks.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/understanding-approach-to-film-theory.html

Audience Composition

An type of audience is separated into different categories.

• A - higher managerial and professional• B - middle managerial and professional• C1 - supervisory, junior management and professional• C2 - skilled manual worker• D - semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers• E - pensioners, lower grade workers and the

unemployed

Audience in Our Short Film

• The target audience for our short film falls into the category AB social demographic, in contrast to those in category C1, C2, D and E. This is because we believe that the people in A and B will be more appreciative of the style in which are film is being made and will go to film festivals where our film will be exhibited. The type of people in this category would consist of aspiring film directors, middle-upper class citizens who would go to these events and have a real passion and enthusiasm for short films.

KEY TERMS - Audience• POLYSEMIC - (polysemy) the ambiguity of an individual word or phrase that can be used (in

different contexts) to express two or more different meanings.

• QUANTATIVE - relating to, measuring, or measured by the quantity of something rather than its quality.

• QUALITATIVE - relating to, measuring, or measured by the quality of something rather than its quantity.

• DEDUCTIVE - characterized by or based on the inference of particular instances from a general law.

• REACTIVE - showing a response to a stimulus.

• PASSIVE AUDIENCE - people who listen in order to accomplish other goals.

• ACTIVE AUDIENCE - audience members who already are interested in an organization, issue, or cause. Instead of waiting to receive information on it, they seek it out from many sources and when doing so, they speak as well as listen.