Friday 5 February 2016

Audience Theory - Final Product


To research how I would construct an effective focus group I looked into audience theory to try and understand who I should select for the group to get a well rounded response from my target audience.This would also further help me change certain aspects of the film to best satisfy the viewer. I knew from my previous survey and audience research that my target audience would be between 16-20 year old meaning that my video had to meet young teens to young adults. This was a vast group in terms of age so I knew that I had to understand audiences in order to appeal correctly.

My research began looking into Halls 'sender and receiver theory', this theory suggested that there are three types of reactions form an audience: Dominant, Negotiated and Oppositional. To further understand these theories I had to understand the meaning behind them:


Dominant - Goes with the most common view of the product. 
Negotiated - Understand both sides of the points being made but doesn't pick a side.
Oppositional - Already has a set view and will not divert their opinion.

This means that my intended meaning could be obsured by aspects of the film people in general are opposing or views that the viewer alreadt opposes. This will impact my casting of the roles, who is in the focus group and look at my intended meaning behind my music video. Furthermore this links with immoral panic over a certain group of people depending on who I cast as the bully. If I show the bully being darker ethnisity it causes people to have an excuse to support the idea of that group of people being violent and can create/support sterotypes. 

Another set of theories that have had an influence over my work has been the 'Hypodermic Needle Theory' and 'Cultivation'. These theories share the idea that the audinece are passive and are just injected with infomation without any reaction or opposition. The 'cultivation theory' focusses more on people grouping together over a product and forming relationships with the characters. I don't fully agree with these theories however it does suggest the power of the media that I am creating and why I should be prepared to censore some of the more controversal scenes.

The 'Users and Gratification theory' looks at the audience being more active and offers a lot of detail into why an audience may react differenrly to a media product. This theory had more influence over my media product because I beleive that it carried more weight.It influenced me because the theory stated that the audeince find meaning and expectation through what they have already experienced: personal relationships, experiences and identity. This will cause me to research into the topic of bullying more and see if I could either improve the message or if I should just scrap it. 


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