1. Ryan Baxter
Analyse your ancillary productions in relation
to the concept of audience
The concept of audience is very important to the production of a media text. When
being produced, the producer must consider certain factors when thinking of its
target audience, for example this could include age, gender, employment status and
interests. In my A2 coursework I created a poster advertisement, so I had to include
all those factors when designing the advertisement. In particular the factor ‘Genre’
considering my advert was a ‘Rock’ advert so I had to make sure I appealed to
everyone who enjoys the ‘Rock’ genre.
The first audience theory I will talk about is ‘The Hypodermic Needle Effect’, it
originated in the 1920s when mass media first began to be popular. This suggests
that a producer has an intended meaning which is definitely understood by the
audience. If this audience theory actually existed then my audience would replicate
things I include in my advert, hence the word ‘Needle’ in the theory as it is like
someone is directly inserting something into someone, like a needle. Obviously this
theory is very unrealistic; some even say it has become outdated due the amount the
media industry has developed in recent times.
The second audience theory is called ‘Reception Theory’, this model is based on
Stuart Halls encoding model, which is when it is believed a producer of a media text
will encode it and leave it to the audience for them to decode. The actual viewing of
my advert would depend on the factors of a target audience such as age, gender and
interests. I encoded my advert with the connotations of rock magazines to appeal to
my target audience.
My main target audience were Males and Females aged around 18-30 who enjoyed
the ‘Rock’ genre, so I had to make sure I appealed to that audience correctly.
Therefore I used the correct clothing on people in the advert, and make sure I
include an appropriate music style that they will like. In order to make sure I made
the correct decisions, I performed some audience feedback research. This included
handing out questionnaires to males and females aged around 18-30 who like rock
music, so I decided the ideal place to find these people was at a gig at the
Manchester Apollo for blink-182. The results gave me good information on what to
include in my magazine, so I included a lot of dark colours and certain things in the
mise en scene such as cigarettes and alcohol.