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1. Kieran Jackson
Unit 6 Critical Approaches
PR2- Audience Theory’s
The hypodermic model-
the hypodermic model suggests the audience responses the media text in the same way,
dates around the 1920s, we all respond in the way to different media texts. Political issues,
fashionable items and electronics for example. You can also talk about the early uses such
as the war and how the media was shown to the world.
Encoding and Decoding (Hall)-
the producer encodes the media text, the audience decodes the text, we respond to media
texts in different ways other to other audience theories. Hall said induvial cultural
backgrounds and life experiences. Age, Gender, social background (Class) Cultural
background (Peer/nationally, ethnicity) Political views, circumstances of exhibition (when
you get made towards a media text) these six areas are all the main points within halls
encoding and decoding theory. Three different readings that may be decoded by audience
which shows us the differences between people, we are all different.
 Preferred
 Negotiated
 Oppositional
Uses and Gratifications –
Researches Blumler and katz published this theory in 1974, stating that individuals might
choose and use a text,
 Diversion- escape from everyday problems and routine
 Personal relationships- using the media for emotional and other interaction
 Personal identity- Finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values
of text.
 Surveillance- information which could be useful for living
The 1999 drama is about a depressed man played by Edward Norton suffering from
insomnia he meets a man played by brad pitt and they move in together and soon after they
start to bond over violence and fighting, the release date was November 12, 1999, the
cinematography was by Jeff cronenweth and director by David Fincher. The film had a
budget of $63 million and hit box offices with $100.9 million so it was a success for the year
of the production. The film was distributed by 20th Century Fox, the film was based upon
the best-selling novel fight club before it was created into a film. The films certification of
the film fight club was “18” the film was a very controversial for many reasons but the film
consisted of sex and nudity, violence and gore, profanity, alcohol/drugs/smoking and
frightening and intense scenes, the film was cut and granted different certifications in

2. Kieran Jackson
Unit 6 Critical Approaches
different countries by the BBFC, the film was most known for being cut its scenes which
promoted terrorism the scenes was where one of the character blew up a couple of
buildings and close to the release of the filmin 2001 with the twin towers it was soon cut.
I think the cut version of the film could have been a certification 15(16) but the uncut
version of the of the filmwould be classed as a certification 18. The cuts were made again in
2000 for the DVD version. The BBFC had been working on up a revised set of Guidelines, but
these were not published until September 2000. In 2005, with a new set of Guidelines and a
new BBFC Director, all cuts were waived to pass a DVD at 18.
My personal opinion of the film “fight club” I had a preferred reading of the the film for
many reasons but I do see why the filmwas so controversial and was cut, I loved the whole
concept of the film, the acting, the music and the cinematography, I feel I liked this because
of my certain demographics, I’m a young man and I do like this type of genre, some people
would be held back through their religion and race but I’m not religious.
BBC case study
"A toxic experience ... an inadmissible assault on personal decency ... and on society itself.
It resurrects the Führer principle. It promotes pain and suffering as the virtues of the
strongest. It tramples every democratic decency underfoot."
This quotation was written by Alexander walker who wrote this for the London evening
standard which he related the hypodermic model, the hypodermic model is basically saying
after viewing or reading a media text people all respond the same way and alexander walker
was basically saying after watching the film fight filmhe says we all going to go out and be
violent to others. I don’t personally agree with alexander walker review, I feel this filmwas
more of an encoding and decoding theory where as an audience we decode in our own
certain way because we all different and have certain cultural, age, gender and our social
back ground. The filmdid contain an awful lot of violence but we all decode the media in
our own way. The filmdoes promote violence, pain and suffering but it doesn’t mean as a
viewer we are going to go out and be violent. His review was a negative outlook onto the
film but I thought the film was a good overall success and the amount of violence I feel is
necessary for the films story., the violence shows the realismwithin the film. The theory
were thoughts and feeling are “injected” into the audience it can change the audience views
and they think about certain things, in my opinion I disagree with this theory, basically this
theory believes we will believe media texts that are encoded to us so related to the fight
club because alexander says we were going to become violent and start gangs but I
completely disagree with this because of our individuality we all decode in our personal
ways.
Uses and Gratifications –
Researches Blumler and katz published this theory in 1974, stating that individuals might
choose and use a text,
 Diversion- escape from everyday problems and routine
 Personal relationships- using the media for emotional and other interaction

3. Kieran Jackson
Unit 6 Critical Approaches
 Personal identity- Finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values
of text.
 Surveillance- information which could be useful for living
The filmfight club was an extremely violent film and had an awful lot of negative out looks
on the world, my own experience of the film I would class myself as being in the “ Diversion-
Escape from everyday problems and routine” I feel am I was diverted I loved the film and
would recommend the film, I wasn’t affected by the violence, sexual content or drug use I
just thought the film was so good, it was clever, well written and the cinematography was
so alternative and different which made it easy viewing even though it had intense and
disturbing content. The filmwas very entertaining, personally I love a good fight so the
violence was entertaining for me personally and I loved the massive plot twist within the
film, I feel having a good and successful plot twist makes it more entertaining to watch and
makes you as the audience question yourself.
Audiences responses
I created a survey after watching the film fight club and had to relate the questions to
different theories and see the responses, I created a ten questions and I sent the survey to
ten people to get a fair response. I took the surveys because I wanted to back up what I
have been talking and researching. I hope the survey will give me some information about
people thoughts on the film and their different views which relate to the different theories.
The ages of people were between 17 to
24 so the audience of my survey were
young adults we answer my survey and
who watched the fight club, I could have
maybe asked and sent my survey to older
people to get more of a ranged response.
100% of people were aged 17 to 25. Age
had a big role in this survey

4. Kieran Jackson
Unit 6 Critical Approaches
A very important question for this
survey, is the gender, gender comes
under every theory, this question
had a bit more balance, 70% were
male and 30% were female showing
us this was more of male orientated
response. From the age I can also
see the film is more a male audience
targeted. You can relate to the
blumler and katz uses and
gratification theory male’s response
more likely to be diverted more because stereotypically male like the filmmore. Male
might use as an escapismmore than female and from my survey results it does show that
males do.
I asked the question
of where did people
find out about the
film there was a
varied response
people said, word of
mouth, social media
and people said from
their friends and
some from their
family so there was a
wide range of

5. Kieran Jackson
Unit 6 Critical Approaches
responses.

6. Kieran Jackson
Unit 6 Critical Approaches
this question can relate to the Reception theory, the producer encodes the media text, the
audience decodes the text, we respond to media texts in different ways other to other
audience theories. Hall said induvial cultural backgrounds and life experiences. Age,
Gender, social background (Class) Cultural background (Peer/nationally, ethnicity) Political
views, circumstances of exhibition (when you get made towards a media text) these six
areas are all the main points within halls encoding and decoding theory. Three different
readings that may be decoded by audience which shows us the differences between people,
we are all different.
 Preferred
 Negotiated
 Oppositional
I can see Clearly see from this response, 40 % had a preferred and 20% had negotiated, so
nobody that I sent the response to had a oppositional reading which is good for the film,
after analyzing my results I looked into induvial response and 40& of male had a preferred

7. Kieran Jackson
Unit 6 Critical Approaches
reading they said they liked the visual effects and the style, also people liked the concept of
the fight club which is very stereotypical view towards that male should like violence but
from my response show me more male did have a preferred reading, and the rest of my
response were negotiated. Some of these people said they were negotiated because they
liked the cinematography but disliked the story line. It relates to Stuart halls theory of
reception, decoding and encoding because the media encodes to us and we decode.
This question was “are there any elements of the film that you might use for surveillance
such as music or fashion.” Five people commented on the music for the film and said the
music was of a good taste and it fit the films style, two people commented on the fashion

8. Kieran Jackson
Unit 6 Critical Approaches
and they said they liked the fashion, people said there a balance of different music genres
and they said it fitted in the different scenes nicely. From this response I can talk about how
people were diverted and how we can link the uses and gratification theory, a recap over
the theory is that the uses and gratification is the theory audiences use media to fulfil any
basic needs such as to make them happy or educate them, how we are diverted in different
ways such as escapism, personal identity, personal relationships and surveillance. From my
results people used escapismand personal identity because watched it which got them to
escape for a little while and personal identity would come under the people liking the
certain music and fashion and even the acting.