OCR G325 A2 Media Studies Section A 1b Essay Plan: Audience

Analyse Audience in one of your Coursework Productions

“I will be analysing my thriller opening sequence which I filmed and edited as my main task which formed part of my Foundation Portfolio in Media. In class, we studied audience and audience theory in existing Thrillers such as Taken 3, Seven, Psycho, the hybrid thriller Skyfall and Escape Plan. This enabled us to fully understand how theories of audience can be applied to our own productions”.

• Acknowledge that, using David Gauntlett’s prosumer audience theory, in analysing existing thrillers and developing an opening sequence you are both producer and consumer of a media text – one step beyond the traditional audience of thrillers.
• Identify the target audience of your thriller using socio-economic categorisation e.g. B, C1, C2, 16-24, urban/city living (London and the south-east), male skew. Use as may different ways to target your audience as possible e.g. psycho-graphic categorisation - aspirers/ mainstreamers and according to demographics students or ‘first jobbers’, living with parents, single, middle class or at least aspirational working class with a reasonable level of education to understand encoded narrative themes. VALS (values, attitudes and lifestyle) will also be a useful framework here.
• Then apply 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).
• Go on to explain what the audience appeals of your trailer are and why it targets a certain demographic – audience identification, realist/non realist representations, narrative themes, focus on youth culture (if relevant) but still ‘retaining the conventions of a conventional thriller’. Additional appeals could also include narrative action codes, strong characterisation, and aspirational, escapist representations.
• Develop audience appeals by bringing in a secondary audience theory – the Uses and Gratifications Model developed by Blumler and Katz in 1975. This theory suggested audiences are active and gain different pleasures from different media texts. They pin pointed four categories:

Diversion (Escapism) – your sequence, like many thrillers may be dramatic and potentially allows audiences to explore difficult narrative themes safe in the knowledge it is not happening to them (classic audience voyeurism through a third party – central protagonist). Almost cathartic in format.

Personal Identity – audience find characters and situations familiar because they identify with what they see and hear e.g. Daniel Craig’s status and role as Bond. Personal Identify can also involve likening yourself to a character which may be relevant in your thriller.

Personal Relationships – is where you discuss, often virally using social networking and web 2.0 recent thrillers or a latest or forthcoming media release. Your ‘eagerly awaited’ film uploaded to YouTube and virally marketed via your blog allows consumers to develop personal relationships through their interest in the subject and are also interested the genre hybridisation (if relevant) through familiarity and cultural capital.

Surveillance – your film gives audiences information about xxxxxxxxx. It educates them up to a point and raises awareness (in the same way a documentary would).

• Ending on audience effects may be an interesting approach – you could bring inStanley Cohen’s theory of moral panics (if relevant to your thriller’s narrative content) developed further by Martin Barker. Map this onto the topic of your sequence, e.g. a thriller about the London Riots. Are you, for example reinforcing the moral panic of disengaged, urban youth by your representation of cultural stereotypes? Or, does your film challenge these moral panics through an implied narrative e.g. moral outcomes/judgements?. This can be linked with Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding theory and also dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings. Your film explores a classic moral panic – the breakdown of society into anarchy and violence with the rule of law challenged. This is seen through the eyes of a disengaged, isolated protagonist who is marginalized from society. Remember that effects debates may not apply as much as in the above example.

Finally, remember you have only 30 minutes – introduce your production, analyse it using frameworks and theories of audience with a minimum of 2/3 theoretical references, either within the body text of your essay or via quotation.