Task 5

Audience Responses

Interpreting the sign correctly and agreeing with it, is what the creator wants. This is having a preferred response. This is apparent in advertising for example, advertisements are produced and sent out to be seen by the public. The creator then wants you to interpret the signs incorporated within the advert then

suddenly you have the feeling that you need that certain product and then you go out and buy the product. It is where audience respond’s to the product the way the media producers want/expect them to. For example a burger king advert, this is made to advertise the food and to entice you in to the products.

When you next pass a burger king you are likely to have the urge to buy one. My other example would be the newspaper headline, which states “sunlight stops breast cancer”. A preferred reading to this piece of media text would be agreeing with the view that sunlight stops breast cancer.

When interpreting signs with a negotiated response there is a combination of your own ideas, experiences and beliefs to be taken into consideration. This is where the audience will take a preferred reading but will sometimes adjust it to reflect their own opinions and consumption of media. The burger king advert could be seen by a negotiated audience and the messages, generated by the advert, would be understood by the audience but their own experiences of unhealthy eating or other peoples may change their perception. They might know somebody that suffered badly from unhealthy eating so the advert might have a bigger impact on their view, changing the message they receive from the advert. A negotiated reader may cut down on the amount of burger kings they eat as a result of the advert and their own experiences. The news article “alcohol linked to skin cancer” will be understood and then the negotiated reader will recognise the preferred reading but unlike a preferred reader, the negotiated reader would probably not fully stop their consumption of alcohol.

When interpreting signs with an oppositional response the reader will understand the preferred reading but refuse to accept the messages conveyed. The oppositional reader will commonly have an alternative view. For example burger king advert, the reader would see this, recognise the preferred reading but then reject everything about the Burger King this may be because they don’t argue with the advertisement or they agree with how the products are made, these types of people will probably be quite conscious about their health or they could be vegetarian.

The film Harry Brown is a “gritty critique on contemporary British society starring Michael Caine as an elderly shut-in who's spurred to action by a senseless act of violence. Harry Brown resides in a desolate public-housing apartment block as his sickly wife lies dying in a local hospital. He spends most of his days in solitude, only getting out to play the occasional game of chess at a nearby pub with his best friend, Leonard. The days of basic human

decency seem to be a thing of the past, because in recent years barbarous drug dealers and gangsters have overtaken the dilapidated complex. Killing is a way of life for these young thugs, and as a result overburdened detectives Frampton and Hicock are essentially relegated to knocking on doors and notifying parents when their children have been killed in the latest fracas, instead of investigating the crimes and jailing the guilty parties. When Leonard is murdered just feet from his own apartment, former Royal Marine Harry utilizes the skills he learned while fighting the IRA to take on the aggressive chavs who have intimidated the police into inaction.” An oppositional reader may argue that there IS a reason behind the way the “chavs” act, the reader may have some sympathy for them rather than the people that were being terrorised.

Participatory media

Participatory is where an audience can help play a role in the process of gathering, reporting, analysing and distributing content of types of media by including blogs, video blogs, hash tagging, social bookmarking, sharing music videos and podcasts. It allows an audience to have a say on TV programmes, debates and news stories. Henry Jenkins was born 4th June 1958 and is an American media scholar and currently a provost professor of communication, journalism and cinematic arts. He is also an author of several books including, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. Participatory media is where the public act as consumers and also contributors to the production or creation of some type of published media.

Examples include:

NBC’s America’s got talent asks fans to vote via tweet.

The objective was to boost viewership for a competition-themed TV show and create more buss on the social media.

The strategy of doing this was, to ask viewers to vote for their favourite acts and help them make it through to next week’s show. Also to remind viewers throughout the competition, and after each performance, to tweet their votes to help decide which acts wind up on top, Making it easy to vote using the hash tag #voteAGT followed by the acts name. Finally to have the host @nickconnon drive home the message by asking the viewers to take out their phones and decide on their favourite act.

Step 1: Promote the vote before the show airs

Step 2: Promote the vote live on air

Step 3: Get talent to participate in the promotion

Another example would be on a radio site, there could be a poll for a song to be played next and people would chose and this would be a way of joining in and interacting with the product.

Cultural competence

Cultural competence means being able to interpret signs and symbols that we use as a visual shorthand to communicate ideas. There are a lot of signs and symbols that we make and attach meanings to, in many different forms, but we only really recognise these signs in our own culture and find it more difficult to understand them when looking at others from a different culture. Overall most media texts require us to have a certain level of cultural understanding to be able to interpret them.

For example; holly (evergreen shrub), to the British society, means Christmas, presents and loved ones. Another example would be if you saw a watch on the internet

Fan Culture

Fan culture is the way that fans have an active influence on the media product and society. This includes fans writing additional stories, TV episodes and alternative endings to their favourite films, TV shows and books. There is a website that contains loads of pieces of fan fiction based on books, comics, anime, games, TV shows, Films and plays. This is where fans can share their stories containing communities and forums.

For example;

Another example would be a television programme called Veronica Mars, it is popular in the USA and the company who made it wanted to make a movie. They attempted to make a movie but didn’t have enough budget to create it but with the extremely wide fan base they had. The fan base started to donate money into the budget and now the movie has been made.