This document provides guidance and information for a media studies assignment on applying audience theory to a music video. It includes:
1) An overview of two key audience theories - Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model and Richard Dyer's work on star construction - and examples of how they could be applied to a student's music video.
2) Instructions for an in-class activity where students research and present different audience theories to their peers.
3) A prompt for a 30-minute written response discussing how different audiences may respond to the student's music video based on the theories covered.
1. A P P L I C A T I O N O F A U D I E N C E T H E O R Y T O
Y O U R M U S I C V I D E O
A2 Media Studies – Section 1b
2. Feedback from Post Production Essay
Strengths:
Lots of reflection on skills development
Clear sense of progression across the two years
Weaknesses:
Running out of time
Not providing detail of the skill (not describing what you clicked on when using FCP)
Not providing detail of when you did it (not describing the shots/sequence/image that you applied
the skill to)
Not mentioning the name/genre of the music video or saying the genre/form of your AS
production work – the examiner will not have this information so you must say!
Grade boundaries:
A* = 22.5 – 25
A = 20 – 22
B = 17.5 - 19.5
C = 15 – 17
D = 12.5 – 14.5
E = 10 – 12
U = 0 - 9
3. Post essay activity
One of the key areas for improvement is the
level of detail in the ‘what’ and ‘when’ of the
triangulation
Read through your essay and re-write one sentence
that has been identified as needing development
Read through the previous student answer –
highlighting examples of triangulation.
4. M E M O R Y T E S T . . . . .
Re-cap unit so far
5. What is Section 1a about
Skills development across the 2 year A Level
Focus on ‘you’
Will be asked to reflect on one of four skills
Track that across the two years
Link to specific detailed examples from your production
work
Must include AS and A2 (and ancillary!)
Must triangulate your writing
What did you do? When did you do it? What was the effect of
this decision on your production?
6. What is Section 1b about?
Focus on your music video (only!)
Applying a concept to your music video
Must learn two theories related to the concept and link to
detailed specific examples from your music video
Will be asked about ONE concept out of a possible
five:
Representation
Media Language
Genre
Narrative
Audience
8. What is audience?
The people who are targeted by media producers
The people who consume media products
People who form a relationship with the media
product
9. Audience Theory
Lots of ideas around audience theory
Some focuses on how the audience ‘reads’ the text
Some focuses on how the text is constructed in order to
encourage a particular reaction from the audience
Does anyone know of any theories relating to
audience?
10. Audience Theorists
Goodwin (surprise surprise!)
Stuart Hall (theory of encoding/decoding)
Richard Dyer (construction of the ‘star’ on screen)
Paul Willis (pop stars a symbolic vehicles)
11. Audience Theory: Activity
In your group you will be assigned one of the
summarised theoretical ideas around audience. You
must
Re-write this in your own words, so that you have the meaning
clear. Use the internet if you are unsure
Find examples from your music video(s) to illustrate this theory
Present your theory to the rest of the class.
Group 1: Andrew Goodwin
Group 2: Stuart Hall
Group 3: Richard Dyer
Group 4: Paul Willis (theory on reverse of sheet)
12. Individual Activity
Now that you have notes on all four theoretical ideas,
answer the questions on the handout.
Write a 30 minute response to the question:
How may an audience respond to our music
video?
13. K E Y A S S I G N M E N T
U S E O F C O D E S A N D C O N V E N T I O N S I N Y O U R
P R O D U C T I O N O N E ( F I N A L A R E A O F S E C T I O N
1 A )
Easter Holiday Homework