Audience & Promo Video Research
We are all engaged with media as members and participants of an audience, and not only that media cannot survive without an audience, but in our days it's quite difficult to live without media.
The Hypodermic Needle Theory
Hypodermic Needle Theory promotes a few basic assumptions: 1. Humans react uniformly to stimuli. 2. The media’s message is directly “injected” into the “bloodstream” of a population like fluid from a syringe. 3. Messages are strategically created to achieve desired responses. 4. The effects of the media’s messages are immediate and powerful, capable of causing significant behavioral change in humans. 5. The public is powerless to escape the media’s influence. Many people now exercise selective exposure–seeking out only the information that supports their worldview. Though the media is still very influential today, its influence is far more complex and nuanced than in the early days of mass communication. People can now interact with the media through social networking sites and can even direct the flow of information to others. [1]
Uses and Gratification Theory
This theory states what people do with media rather than what media does to people. There are several needs and gratification for people they are categorized into five categories.
Cognitive needs
Affective needs
Personal Integrative needs
Social Integrative needs
Tension free needs
The needs are individual in nature, and how you satisfy the need is individualistic. E.g.: That’s why some watch news to relax and some get stressed out by watching news. [2]
Reception Theory
Reception Theories is when producers or directors constructs a text encoded with hidden message or meaning that the producers or directors want to convey across to the audience. If done correctly the audience will be able to pick up the meaning or message straight away, but the audience will need to be reminded of the message through out the film this could be done through character dialogue or actions within the film. [3] Stuart Hall identified three types of audiences reading messages:
Dominant: when the audience is located within the dominant point of view. Within this position, there is little misunderstanding and miscommunication, as both sender and receiver are working under the same rule set, assumptions and cultural biases.
Negotiated: when the audience is able to decode the sender's message within the context of the dominant cultural and societal views. The audience in the negotiated position are not necessarily working within the hegemonic viewpoint, but are familiar enough with dominant society to be able to adequately decode cultural texts in an abstract sense.
Oppositional: when the audience member is capable of decoding the message in the way it was intended to be decoded, but based on their own societal beliefs, often sees another, unintended meaning within the message. [4]
Cross Cultural Consumer Characterization The Young & Rubican's Cross Cultural Consumer Characterization allows us to connote our audience by their personality/behavior which is a more psycho-graphic approach. The model demonstrates a divide of seven different categories. [5]
Audience Analysis
I think that Fantastic Mr Fox cannot settle on a target audience. Based on a story from Roald Dahl, the stop-motion animation style used in the film looks too silly and ridiculous for older audiences. The movie is also inappropriate for children. The character of Mrs Fox is referred as the "town tart" at one point, another character is depicted smoking a cigarette, a few characters use guns on several occasions throughout the movie and the culminative fight at the end of the movie can be frightening for younger audiences. I believe that the film doesn't know its own target audience, trying to be on both ends of the spectrum.
Promo Video Primary Research
The Croydon Council invests a lot in its youth with organisations like the Croydon Youth Theatre Organisation that gives young people access to drama and theatre activities to increase their confidence and life skills.
Croydon has also proved to be very friendly to the LGBT+ young people that live in the area with multiple organisations that support them like the Bridge Youth Club. With 2 shopping centres closely together - Whitgift and Centrale; and a third one to open by the end of the year - the Box Park, Croydon has many spots where young people can socialise like restaurants, cafés, a cinema, parks, several bookstores and a long pedestrian zone with many shops.
[1] C.S. (2012) Hypodermic Needle Theory. Available at: http://www.communicationstudies.com/communication-theories/hypodermic-needle-theory (Accessed: 30 September 2016). [2] Uses and Gratification Theory (2010) Available at: http://communicationtheory.org/uses-and-gratification-theory/ (Accessed: 30 September 2016). [3] Reception theory. (2013) Available at: https://mediafort.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/reception-theory/ (Accessed: 30 September 2016). [4] Martin, J. (2007) Audiences and Reception Theory. Available at: http://juliemartin.org/juliemartin-audiencesreception.pdf (Accessed: 30 September 2016). [5] Cross cultural consumer characterization - Infogram, charts & infographics. Available at: https://infogr.am/Cross-Cultural-Consumer-Characterization (Accessed: 30 September 2016).
