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

7. A U D I E N C E
Today’s Concept

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