AUDIENCEPreparation for Exam Question 1b: Lesson 3 & 4

Disney’s The Jungle

Book (2016)

Barber Shop 3: The

Next Cut

Melissa McCarthy’sThe Boss

Batman Vs. Superman

Zootopia

$103,261,464$20,242,415 $9,958,855

$9,028,356 $8,142,641

Lesson Task Put in order the films at this April’s American 2016 box office which films had the largest audience from biggest to smallest. Can you match the weekend box office gross also? As a group, pairs or individually Discuss and Rank.

The Jungle Book

Barber Shop 3: The

Next Cut

Melissa McCarthy’sThe Boss

Batman Vs. Superman

Zootopia

$103,261,464$20,242,415 $9,958,855

$9,028,356$8,142,641

Lesson Task: AnswersWhy do you think these films are ranked in this order? What factors are involved?

Starter Questions & Discussion What do we mean by Audience?

Can you make a list of what defines an ‘audience’?

Why is looking at audience important?

(b) Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of audience. [25]

Example Exam Question

WHAT ARE THE ASSUMPTIONS BEHIND THIS IMAGE?

KEY CONCEPT POINTS: Again, you would have looked at the idea of the target audience – who are

you aiming at and why. You should have also taken feedback from real audience in some way that

involves finding out how the audience really ‘read’ into what you have made.

How does your video ‘speak’ to your audience?

You will need to refer to some critics who have written about audience or theories of media audience and attempt to apply those (or argue with them).

Key words: Genre Reception Uses and Gratification theory Encoding and Decoding Dominant/Negotiated/oppositional reading Fan behaviour Active /passive audience For challenge- Dominant ideology, post modernism. Can relate in answer

to an understanding of genre theory

Audience…Media audiences can be defined in terms of location, consumption, size and subjectivity.

Location – the domestic consumption of media output raises questions about regulation and control.

Consumption – Audiences are defined by what they consume i.e. are they an audience of a particular genre, medium or text. Fans can be defined as passionate/ well informed about a programme

Size – there is a need to distinguish between mass audiences that are broadcast to and niche audiences who are involved in narrowcasting.

Subjectivity – The impact that membership of pre‐existing groups will have on audience members. These groups include: gender, nation, religion, education, to name but a few.

Every media product has to have an audience. In your projects, you would have looked at the idea of a TARGET AUDIENCE.

Questions to consider when looking at audience:

Who are you aiming your project at and why? How does your product affect the audience?

What media techniques or technology did you use to appeal or attract your audience?

What was it about your product that addressed your

audience?

What was it about your product that particularly worked to ‘speak’ to your audience?

How would your project be consumed by an audience?

Who do you think the target audience for these films are? Can you identify any secondary and tertiary audiences? Discuss and feedback.

Think about Age

range Gender Class

Ethnicity

Who do you think the target audience for these films are? Can you identify any secondary and tertiary audiences? Discuss and feedback.

Think about Age

range Gender Class Ethnicity

THEORISTS YOU MAY WISH TO LOOK AT MORE CLOSELY:

Adorno & Horkheimer (Hypodermic Needle Model)

Blumer and Katz

Stanley Cohen (Moral Panics)

Stuart Hall

Jeremy Tunstall

We will be looking at some of these theorists in more depth. It will be up to you to go away and find more information on the others to see what they say.

There are three theories of audience that we can apply to help us come to a better understanding about the relationship between texts and audience.

1. The Effects Model or the Hypodermic Model

2. The Uses and Gratifications Model

3. Reception Theory

‘Passive vs. Active Audience One way of looking at audiences is the power that the media

text has over its audience. This point of view is represented by the whole tradition of the effects studies. There are many studies including conspiracy theory, the copycat effect and desensitisation. One model of key significance is:

Hypodermic Needle Model (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1970s)

This model sees the media ‘injecting’ values, ideas and information directly into each individual as part of a passive, powerless audience, thereby producing a direct and unmediated effect.

This model is commonly encountered in debates concerning the mass media and violence. It rarely discusses the positive outcomes of a direct effect caused by the media, such as the response to world disasters once the media begins to portray devastation to its audience.

Types of audiencesThe main purpose for any media text is to generate an income for the producer of that text.  MAINSTREAMA mainstream audience comprises the general population, with no particular focus on any gender or age.

NICHESome films appeal to a certain gender, age or particular interests. Fans in this bracket are sometimes known to go to conventions, dressed as the characters from their favourite film or TV series. This is called cosplay and it is not only the science fiction genre which attracts the participants.

Star Trek and Star Wars are among the most popular science fiction characters represented at cosplay conventions.

The Effects Model The consumption of media texts has an

effect or influence upon the audience

It is normally considered that this effect is negative

Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence

The power lies with the message of the text

This model is also called: The Hypodermic Model Here, the messages in media texts are injected into the

audience by the powerful, syringe- like, media.

The audience is powerless to resist

Therefore, the media works like a drug and the audience is drugged, addicted, doped or duped.

The Effects Model contributes to Moral Panics whereby:• The media produce inactivity, make us into students who

won’t pass their exams or ‘couch potatoes’ who make no effort to get a job

• The media produces violent ‘copycat’ behaviour or mindless shopping in response to advertisements

What do think are the flaws of this theory? Discuss and Feedback (5min)

https://youtu.be/nPEn5k55g-o (2 mins) Short intro as to what happened

https://archive.org/details/OrsonWellesMrBruns This is the full radio broadcast

Play (3:15 to 5:30)

Why do mass hysteria situations like this occur?

DISCUSS

Audience theories: the hypodermic needle model

Psychological theories can be applied to explain why an audience would act as they did in 1938.

The best one which seems to fit The War of the Worlds ‘mass hysteria’ situation is the Hypodermic Needle Model.

If you missed the introduction to the radio broadcast, you could quite easily assume that something catastrophic had happened.

Lesson Task: Applying the Hypodermic Needle Model

Watch the following videos what how do you feel after watching the texts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn9oMA1GQ5Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBQ-IoHfimQ

The Uses and Gratifications Model The Uses and Gratifications Model is the opposite of the Effects

Model

The audience is active

The audience uses the text & is NOT used by it

The audience uses the text for its own gratification or pleasure

Here, power lies with the audience NOT the producers

This theory emphasises what audiences do with media texts – how and why they use them.

Far from being duped by the media , the audience is free to reject, use or play with media meanings as they see fit.

Audiences therefore use media texts to gratify needs for:• Diversion • Escapism• Pleasure• Comparing relationships and lifestyles• Sexual stimulation

Lesson Task: Applying Text Gratification

Watch following videos and look at the images what gratification do you think the producer of these texts were trying to illicit from the audience?

• Diversion • Escapism• Pleasure• Comparing relationships and lifestyles• Sexual stimulation

How do you feel? Passive or Receptive?

Islandhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBDC7_BnLH4

Blade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNS22xGezSY

Invictushttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8lxGGx0R04

Reception TheoryMedia theorist Stuart Hall argued that the researchers should direct their attention toward: Analysis of that social and political context in which content is

produced (encoding) The consumption of media content

The essence of the reception approach is to locate the attribution and construction of meaning (derived from media) with the receiver. Media messages are always open and polysemic (having multiple meanings) and are interpreted according the context and culture of receivers.

Hall argued that most texts can be read in several ways but there is generally a preferred or dominant reading that the producers of a message intend when they create a message, as a critical theorist, Hall assumed that most popular media content will have a preferred reading that reinforces the status quo.

Reception models (Can you give any examples?)Dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully shares the text's code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading (a reading which may not have been the result of any conscious intention on the part of the author(s)) - in such a stance the code seems 'natural' and 'transparent‘.

Negotiated reading: the reader partly 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 (local and personal conditions may be seen as exceptions to the general rule) - this position involves contradictions.

Oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: 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, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference (radical, feminist etc.) (e.g. when watching a television broadcast produced on behalf of a political party they normally vote against).

Look at the image. What position do you take in regards to

Dominant (the reader fully shares the text's code )

Negotiated (the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists )

Oppositional (the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code)

Lesson Task: Applying Reception Theory

Lesson Task: Applying Reception Theory

Look at the image. What position do you take in regards to

Dominant (the reader fully shares the text's code ) Negotiated (the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists )

Oppositional (the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code)

Lesson Task: Applying Reception Theory

Look at the image. What position do you take in regards to

Dominant (the reader fully shares the text's code ) Negotiated (the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists )

Oppositional (the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code)

Lesson Task: Applying Reception Theory

Look at the image. What position do you take in regards to

Dominant (the reader fully shares the text's code ) Negotiated (the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists )

Oppositional (the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code)

Lesson Task: Applying Reception Theory

Look at the image. What position do you take in regards to

Dominant (the reader fully shares the text's code ) Negotiated (the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists )

Oppositional (the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code)

David Gauntlett – Producer as Consumer (Prosumer):

“Media Studies students regularly make their own short film productions but are also regular consumers of the media – in doing so they are both producer and consumer blurring the boundaries of traditional media consumption”.

Stuart HallReception Theory

Stuart Hall – Audience Positioning and Dominant, Negotiated, Oppositional Readings:

“Some texts, like The Mighty Boosh may have a number of readings, dependent on audience – a dominant reading could be that it is a postmodern representation of celebrity culture while a negotiated reading could be that it is simply surreal and funny while an oppositional reading could be that it is childish, subversive and offensive”.

The Mighty Boosh was a TV show about Vince Noir and Howard Moon have surreal adventures while working at a Zoo run by the deranged Bob Fossil and pursuing a career as musicians and living with the mystic Naboo the Enigma and his ape familiar Bollo.

Audience address theories

Stuart Hall’s 3 theories of how media audiences ‘receive and understand’ texts:

Preferred readings: when the audience can relate and empathise directly with the media text.

Negotiated readings : when the audience do not directly relate to the media text and have to place themselves into the ‘world of the text’.

Oppositional readings: when the audience and their life experiences have no relationship with the text and are actually resistant to it. This can often lead to an oppositional reading.

Blumler and KatzThe Uses and Gratifications Model

Blumler and Katz – Uses and Gratifications Theory:

“Different audiences gain different pleasures from a media text e.g. Gravity can be enjoyed via diversion or escapism, it can use surveillance to give information to audiences and can also be discussed on forums and blogs as a form of developing personal relationships (common also in video games). Personal identity can be developed with audiences who relate to certain characters more than others”.

Audiences can be identified as Primary, Secondary or Tertiary but also the site or conditions of reception e.g. consuming media as a collective group or individually.

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Audience Engagement: “Watching films in a cinema involve a primary mode of audience engagement as the spectator is immersed with the narrative; while watching a programme at home on television may involve eating a meal at thesame time, texting, using social media or other additional activities. Tertiary audience engagement is using the text as background media like music radio”.

Reception Theory - Jeremy Tunstall

Primary (Immersion in the narrative)

Secondary (Engaged in other activities while ‘watching’)

Tertiary (TV/film on in the background while doing something else)

Applying Audience

Who is this film aimed at (the target audience)?

Why do you think this poster (may) speak to its audience?

Would this poster be affective to its target audience and why?

What model do you think would be most effective with this poster and audience?

Who is the secondary target audience for this poster?

Is there a third target audience for this poster? If so you?

How would this particular audience consume this film i.e. where can the audience be found?

Lesson Task: 3

Lesson task Choose one of your projects and create a table to analyse it in relation to audience answering the questions below: Who are you aiming your project at and why?

How does your product affect the audience?

What was it about your product that addressed your audience?

What was it about your product that particularly worked to ‘speak’ to your audience?

How would your project be consumed by an audience?

If time, do the same analysis with another of your projects

AUDIENCEPreparation for Exam Question 1b: Lesson 3 & 4

Lesson 4: Essay Planning

REMINDER OF KEY CONCEPT POINTS:

Again, you would have looked at the idea of the target audience – who are you aiming at and why.

You should have also taken feedback from real audience in some way that

involves finding out how the audience really ‘read’ into what you have made.

How does your video ‘speak’ to your audience?

You will need to refer to some critics who have written about audience or theories of media audience and attempt to apply those (or argue with them).

Key words: Genre Reception Uses and Gratification theory Encoding and Decoding Dominant/Negotiated/oppositional reading Fan behaviour Active /passive audience For challenge- Dominant ideology, post modernism. Can relate in answer

to an understanding of genre theory

SECTION A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production

1 (b) In question 1(b) you must write about one of your media productions.

(b) Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of audience. [25]

Example Exam Question

How might you now go about planning for this question?

Concept: Audience Project Name: Look at your two productions and choose the best one Summary: This will form the basis of your opening summary for question 1b). Write a description of your project. If you are using the same project for another concept then you can use this but then mention the concept you will be using and how you aim to look at it. Target Audience: Identify the target audience of your project Secondary Audience: Tertiary Audience:

Target Audience (Describe your

audiences)

What are the audience appeals of your trailer

in regards to this audience?

Which Theorist can you apply to this point and

why?

Examples in your work

Target audience described as…

My trailer appeals to this audience because…and then explain why it targets this… … audience identification, realist/non realist representations, narrative themes, focus on youth culture (if relevant) but still ‘retaining the conventions of your genre. Additional appeals could also include narrative action codes, strong characterisation, and aspirational, escapist representations.

Jeremy Tunstall’s primary, secondary and tertiary target audience – primary (see above) but secondary would be older, male, 35-55 who, in terms of audience identification and intertextual targeting focuses on narrative and characterisation. Tertiary – female, 14-19 (intrigue, cool, exciting, star marketing/secondary persona). Blumler and Katz in 1975. This theory suggested audiences are active and gain different pleasures from different media texts.

Identify examples in your work where these appeals and theories can be found.

Secondary audience described as…

Tertiary audience described as…

For example you may want to start with an ‘Essay planning table’which could look something like this.

You now have 20 min to plan your essay on AUDIENCE…

(b) Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of audience. [25]

Now using your lesson plan attempt the question:

….You have 30 mins

Good luck!

HOMEWORK TASK:

Take a look at your media theorists hand-out. Research other theories that may use to apply to your texts. Find quotes for each theorist you research:

Adorno & Horkheimer (Hypodermic Needle Model)

Blumer and Katz

Stanley Cohen (Moral Panics)

Stuart Hall

Jeremy Tunstall