1B Audience

For Audience I am going to use my horror trailer. 

Blumler and Katz (1974) 

Uses and Gratifications theory, for the areas of;  Diversion/Entertainment, Relate to characters, Experience new relationships 

The strongest Point in this Theory that my trailer relates to is Diversion, as a horror situation as portrayed in my trailer is not a typical every day occurrence meaning people would watch it to see a new situation and escape from the normalities of every day life. People could also relate to the main character, May, in terms of how she overcame something and despite being alone found strength and fought back which people could relate to on some levels or learn from.

Stuart Hall

Prefered reading, negotiated reading, oppositional

The prefered reading of my trailer is showing how weak May is and how she over came fears and came out triumphant against the antagonist. The negotiated reading would understand this but see her as naive to even go there in the first place. Oppositional reading would be seeing that the antagonist won as he killed everyone she was with, and hurt her.

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Analyse audience in one of your media productions. 

For my advanced portfolio I created a teaser trailer for a horror film, Get Out,  which used Audience to create the trailer and draw in the audience. Audience is the most important aspect of media, as without an audience there is no product. This therefore means that all products are made with the audience in mind, catering to the products target audience so that the audience can understand and use the product. The target audience I was catering for was both male and females aged between 15 and 25.

Blumler and Katz' (1974) Uses and Gratifications theory states that the audience will use a specific media text in order gain something from it, this could be a range of things including experiencing new relationships and as an escape from everyday life. This relates to my trailer as people could watch it either to escape, experience new relationships or relate to one of the characters. In terms of escapism, as it is a gorey horror, it is not something that would happen in everyday life, and therefore offers a break from the day to day norm. It is also situation that people may want to see to satisfy the need for excitement and adventure. Another area that Blumler and Katz' theory can be applied to mine is the idea of experiencing new relationships is where all the girls are united, and May ends up fighting for the other girls' survival as well as her own. The relationship between the antagonist and the protagonist, May, is another relationship people could experience, with the male antagonist taking a powerful dominating role, and May fighting back. In terms of relating to another character, May is a strong character to relate to, as she starts of really vulnerable and weak, but throughout the situation she becomes stronger and more powerful, not giving in to the protagonist.  With the audience gaining new experiences and going through emotions caused by this film, their urges can be satisfied, and could prevent them from acting violent or going through relationship that are shown in the film.

However, in contrast to Uses and Gratifications theory, the Effects Model states that people are more likely to respond to what they see in the media by acting it out. If this is true, then there are negative and positive repercussions of my trailer. The negative response from my trailer would be people enacting and condoning violence, believing that as in the film it gives them some power and put them in a controlling and dominating position. This would mainly be reflected in the male audience as the antagonist is male, and therefore represents the idea of male dominance. However, there is a positive aspect to take back from the film, the idea of female power. In most films and plots women are seem as weak and rely on men to save them, which is quite a dominant view in the media. My film challenges this convention and puts forward the idea that women can save themselves and override male dominance.

The way in which the audience uses and takes on board the ideas in my film is down to them, as depending on cultural backgrounds and past experiences people will interpret the ideas that have been encoded into the film. This relates to Stuart Hall's (1970's) Reception Model which states that there are three different ways that texts can be received by the audience; the dominant reading, negotiated reading and oppositional reading. In relation to my film, the dominant reading would be the audience accepting that males play a dominant role in society and that women do not need to rely on men. The negotiated would be the audience understanding this and taking away only parts of the idea - such as women can fight for themselves. The oppositional reading would be the audience understanding the ideology put forward but not agreeing with it at all. This theory shows the importance of audience and shows that in the end they decide how to take in the media text, no matter what idea is encoded throughout the film. Therefore, depending on who is watching the trailer, they could either satisfy their urges as Uses and Gratifications suggests or can intensify them, as suggested in the Effects Model.

In conclusion, I think that my trailer effectively works at attracting the target audience, and recognising their importance in the how the film is taken in and what it took from it in terms of the Reception Model. I also believe that my trailer gives the audience a variety of uses in terms of the Uses and Gratifications theory. They can also take a number of dominant ideologies from it including female power and male dominance.