Audience theory

Katz and Lazerfield: Two step flow

- The opinion leaders help the public, in relation to how they interpret the mass media.

- The media solely provide the information, the opinion leaders establish how individuals should interpret the information.

Teenagers and relationships.

1. The mass media present various ideas about relationships and being in love.

2. The opinion leaders e.g celebs broadcast openly about their abnormal relationships.

3. Individuals: teens take this image and try to apply it to their relationships and achieve a particular image.

Stuart Hall: encoding + decoding- different types of readings.

Dominant: the reader fully accepts the preferred reading, interpreting it in a way the author intended.

Negotiated: The reader partly accepts the preferred reading, but changes certain elements to suit them more as individuals.

Oppositional: this is total rejection of the reading, usually based on the certain social position of the individual.

Target audience: the target audience for my music video will be dominant.

Dominant audience (target audience): teens, 18-24, both genders.

Emotions: certain emotions portrayed via black and white scenes: accepts that relationships are heart-breaking and at the top of priority list.

Drugs and rebellion: teens will be accepting of this message as in todays society it is the norm, in relation to how individuals deal with their problems.

The oppositional reading: in relation to drugs, the oppositional reader would be parents and the elderly: strongly against youth and drugs.

The negotiated reading: friends of the drug user, against their friend harming themselves, but never the less it is a social norm and they want them to feel better.

Hypodermic needle model/ the 'magic bullet theory'

- Audiences passively receive info that is transmitted via the media.

- As an audience we are manipulated by the ideas portrayed via media texts.

- this theory can be used to support cases e.g columbine high school massacre, where the hypodermic needle theory  may have provoked violent attacks (klebold and Harris)

- the message is direct, we as an audience dont think as individuals or challenge.

- Teenagers and drug use: the media present younger people with images and ideas related to drugs. This may provoke the hypodermic needle effect, where teens result to drugs to deal with their problems.

Rihanna we found love- existing music video.

Dennis McQuail: uses and gratification (opposite to hypodermic needle)
How the audience use the media, not how it uses them.

Information: seeking advice, satisfying curiousity, general interest, learning/self education, gaining a sense of security via knowledge.

Source of identity: reinforcement for peronal values, values from others/ finding model behaviour e.g celebs/role models in the media.

Social interaction: gaining insight into circumstances of others, identifying with others to gain a sense of belonging, a basis for convo and social action, a substitute companion.

Entertainment: escaping or eing diverted from problems, relaxing, emotional release, filling time, cultural or aesthetic enjoyment.

Information: teenagers seeking advice about relationships and how to deal with heartache. Finding out and being exposed to drugs and also learning that drugs are not the solution to a problem.

Personal identity: teens may gain insight by realising that they are not alone when they go through a bad experience. Reinforcing the value that it is okay to be upset, also that every human will experience heart ache in their lives.

Social interaction: friends (teens) will discuss the rebellious natue of drug taking and slao share envy over the intimate and loving relationship between our two actors. They may also identify with our main character and thus gain a sense of belonging, or gain insight into how harmful drugs can be.

Entertainment: emotional release helping them to deal with their heart ache. Filling time as stereotypically this is a common interest shared amongst teenagers. Escaping/being diverted away from the stresses at school, home or with friends.

David Chandler: Media semiotics and representation

"representatoin refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of reality such as: people,places, objects, events and cultural identities. The term refers to the process as well as its products. For instance into the makers of identity (CARPEGS) representation involves not only how identities are represented within the text but also how they are constructed in the process of reception and production."

- There is never just one representation  because it is perceived in a different way e.g the youths view on teenagers, compared with the elderly.

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David Buckingham: mediation quote

" the media do not just present us with a transparent 'window' of the world but a mediated version of the world. They don't just present reality, they re-present it"

- A process of selection and rejection, based on the ideas of the editor and wider society. This process of select and reject is called mediation.

- manafactured version- based on the different values of certain people.

Mediation occurs:

Rejection: we chose to reject the footage revealing how our main actors boyfriend dies, this was because we wanted to create elements of mystery that appeal to a younger audience.

Selection: We decided to include scenes where there was a clear indication of drug use. We felt as the editors that this is heightened the emotions, also our young and somewhat rebellious audience would favour this excitement.

Arnheim- film as art

- different from literal encounters with reality.

- artificial representation of reality

- a film should always aspire to be different from reality.

- teens highly prioritise their relationships and wear their heart on their sleeves.

- teenagers are rebellious and do participate in drug taking.

Bazin

- film should be reproduced as closely as possible to the real world.

"a recreation of the world in its own image"

- long takes and deep focus photography.

- our video shows glimpses of a 'perfect relationship' and how a teens world is then shattered by her bfs death.

- incorporation of fantasy because real life isnt usually dramatic.

- in the real world the majority of people do not resort to drugs when they have a problem.

Laura Mulvey: the male gaze

- we as the audience interpret the product from the perspective of a heterosexual male.

- e.g camera angles from the perspective of males eyesight

- the female presented as an object.

- we position ourselves in the text as a male objectively staring at the female.

the male gaze is present in the following scenes:

- the opening shot where the female is lying in bed, looking depressed and playing stressfully with her hair.

- the closing shot: we see our female character walk into the distance as we glance behind.

Archetype: a familiar character who has emerged from 100s of years of story telling and fairy tales.

Stereotype: a negative representation portrayed by the media= 'hoodies'

used by the media for marketing/advertising purposes; appealing to a particular social group when selling a product.

Generic type: a character familiar through use of genre.

Character typing: protagonist isnt presented as an individual, they are presented as a collective idea or stereotype.

Archetype
Villain: some may identify the bf as villain- causes heartache.
The damsel in distress: main actress- presented as beaten by love.

Stereotypes
Teenager: falling in love, rebelling at times of life crisis, letting emotions get the better of them, heart before head.

Generic types
Depressed and heartbroken female: most common in drama, romantic comedies or romance films.
The dominant male that sweeps a woman of her feet.

Katie Wales: Intertextuality

"genre is... an intertextual concept"

Intertextuality: is the shaping of texts meanings by other texts

- music videos often revel in intertextuality, using nods to other texts as a way of creating meaning and appeal.

Existing examples of drug use:
- rihanna- we found loe
- clueless-party drug scene

Existing examples of relationships:
-katy perry- teenage dream
-10 things i hate about you

Rick Altman: genre pleasure viewing -GVICE

Genre communities: each genre has its own audience, based around fandom and on a shared recognition of pleasures offered by this genre.- To discuss with friends.

Visceral pleasures: a physical effect upon the audience e.g. feeling repulsed. -to physically feel.

Intellectual puzzles: pleasure of trying to unravel/solve the mystery/puzzle.- to solve the mystery

Counter-culture attraction: release from cultural rules+regulations, audience takes pleasure in actions that break moral or legal restrictions.- to participate in things we cant do in the real world.

Emotional pleasures: films that generate a strong audience response e.g. sad. - to emotionally feel

Genre communities: our specific audience is teenagers aged 18-24. They can relate, discuss and gain pleasure from the topics of: relationships and rebellion which fits in with the house music genre of our video.

Visceral pleasures: this may be provoked by scenes of drug taking, although our actor does not inject the drugs, we have edited our video in a way to make the audience believe this. This may trigger an inward reaction/feeling of unease or sickness.

Intellectual puzzle: how will our main character cope with her bfs death? what will become of her life as she walks off into the distance?

Counter-culture appeal: the audience is able to escape into a world of drama (bfs death) rebellion (illegal drug taking) and also experience intimacy and romance (a some-what perfect relationship before he dies)

Emotional pleasures: teens are stereotypically more in touch with their emotions:the death of a loved one, depression and acts of rebellionas a cry for help:sadness.

David Buckingham- evolving genres.

"genre isn't simply given by the culture, rather it's in a constant process of change and negotiation"

- It's important to recognise that genres shift and change over time, Buckinghams statement acknowledges this.

House music: previously house music was associated with not having a storyline, as its played in lively environments to an enthusiastic audience. We have evolved this genre as we decided to incorporate a storyline. Using the vibrant nature of the music to heighten the emotions of our video.

Daft Punk: their videos are more vibrant, with the incorporation of cartoon characters, they portray a less serious message

Changes in society and desensitisation: as societies and genres evolve people become more desensitised, meaning that images become bolder and overstep the boundaries, more in relation to previous times. I feel our video reflects this as we clearly show you people in todays society and their relationship with drugs.

Christian Metz: Genre stages.

The experimental- goes against

the classic- as you would expect

The parody- mimics with affection

the deconstruction- deconstructs and takes apart some of the conventions, in doing so, develops the genre

the deconstruction:as we take elements from classic house music videos, but we are also experimental with some ideas.

the classic: for example, house music originally appeales to the younger generations. I feel we have made this clear in our music video (storyline and actors) and so we have used elements from trad. house music.

The experimental:we have made our music video more emotive and used more story lines, in comparison to videos e.g. daft punk- where they incorporate cartoon characters and present no real storyline.

Nicholas Abercrombie- exploiting conventions.

'television producers set out to exploit genre conventions'

TV producers re-use conventions, creating formulaic and conventional products that are familiar and appeal to the audience.

e.g teens favour a storyline/genre to feature a stereotypical relationship

our music video exploits genre conventions:

1. young audiences are associated with dance music: we represent the yuonger generation in our video and also exploit conventions by appealing to them.

2. We exploit the stereotypical convention of relatinships.

3. we exploit the stereotypical convention of drug use/rebellion

4. we exploit how teens are overly dramatic and more in touch with their emotions. We also show how teens highly prioritise certain elements of their life over others e.g. having a bf and being in love.