This document provides an assignment brief for a critical approaches to creative media unit. It outlines the criteria and tasks that need to be completed, including describing audience responses to media products, explaining how audiences respond with examples, and comprehensively explaining how media producers define audiences. It also provides links to blog posts where the learner has uploaded their work addressing the criteria. The tasks involve audience theory, a synopsis and analysis of the film Fight Club, a case study of the BBFC's rating of the film, and a report analyzing a survey about audience responses to Fight Club.

1. Assignment brief – QCF BTEC
Assignment front sheet
Qualification Unit number and title
180 Credit Diploma in Creative Media Production - Unit 6 – Critical Approaches To Creative Media
Learner name Assessor name
Matthew Paul Devney Paul Rossington
Date issued Hand in deadline Submitted on
14/10/2016 25/11/2016 25/11/16
Assignment title PR2: Audience Responses
In this assessment you will have opportunities to provide evidence against the following criteria.
Indicate where the evidence can be found.
Criteria
reference
To achieve the criteria the evidence must show
that the learner is able to:
Task no. Evidence
P3
describe how media audiences respond tomedia products with some
appropriateuseofsubject terminology Task 1 – Audience theory
explained
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M3
explainhowmedia audiences respond to media products with referenceto
detailedillustrative examples and withgenerally correct use ofsubject
terminology
Task 2 Fight Club Synopsis
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Task 3: BBFC Case Study
analysed
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D3
comprehensively explainhow media producers defineaudiences with
elucidated examples and consistently using subjectterminology correctly Task 4–Survey report with
application of audience theory
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Learner declaration
I certify that thework submitted for this assignmentis my own. I haveclearly referencedany sources used inthe work. I understand that
false declaration is a form ofmalpractice.
Learnersignature: M.Devney Date: 25/11/16

2. Audience theories
Hypodermic model- The hypodermic model suggests that the audience respond to a media
text in the same way. Italso suggests that media producers injecta messagestraightinto a
passiveaudience
Encoding and decoding model (Receptiontheory)- theproducer encodes meaning.
Elements of how its produced will conform to conventions of a certain genre. We decode
the meaning to understand this. We each respond in different ways unlike the hypodermic
model because of our individualities.
Our individualities include:
Age
Gender
Social background
Cultural background
Political views
Circumstances of exhibition
3 different readings may be decodedby the audience
Preferred- This is when audiences respond to the product the way media producers
want/expect them to.
Negotiated- This is when a member of the audience partly agrees with part of the product.
e.g Film, documentary, TV programmed.
Oppositional- This is when the audience are in complete disagreement with the product’s
messageor setting.
Uses and gratifications theory
Theory published by Blumler and Katz in 1974 stating that individuals might choose and use
a text for the following purposes, or uses and gratifications.
Diversion- escapefromeveryday problems and routine.
Personalrelationships- using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg:
substituting soap operas for family life
Personalidentity – finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from
texts
Surveillance - Information which could be usefulfor living eg; weather reports, financial
news, holiday bargains

3. Fight club synopsis
An unnamed man played by Edward Norton works in a boring
office job. He is an insomniac looking for release so he joins a
testicular cancer support group. One thing leads to another
and he’s going to a different support group each day of the
week as it helps him sleep. That’s until a woman called Marla
played by Helena Bonham Carter, becomes another fake
attendee of the support groups. On the way home from a
business trip he meets Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt, who
makes and sells soap. The two then start their underground
fight club and soap selling scheme. Before they know it,
underground fight clubs are appearing in cities all over the
country. The two men spiral out of control and form a rivalry over love and
power. There is a sudden twist and Tyler might not be who he says he is.
Source of information: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/
Director:
David Fincher
Writers:
Chuck Palahniuk (novel), Jim Uhls (screenplay)
Stars:
Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf
Released in 1999
Fight Club was not given an age certificate by the BBFC at first but is now an 18
(uncut)
BBFC case study: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/fight-club
20th
Century Fox (film distributor) requested that Fight club be given an age
rating of 18 by the BBFC when it was released in 1999. However, the concerns
of some of the people at the BBFC were that it glamourized violence and they
had fears that it may encourage people to go out and do certain things they see
in the film, bare knuckle fighting for example. In spite of the fact that the ending
of the film clearly shows that the film does not condone the violence we are
shown. Nevertheless, there were varying opinions with some BBFC examiners

4. finding the film stylish and challenging which backs up the reception theory in
which it suggests that we all decode different meaning from everything we
watch.
The BBFC found two scenes in the film too disturbing to make the final cut; they
requested that both these scenes be cut by 6 or 7 seconds to meet the
guidelines that were set. These scenes were the fight between Lou and Tyler
Durden and the fight between Edward Norton’s character and Angel Face. They
felt that both scenes showed the characters taking pleasure from beating their
opponent senseless. After these cuts were in place, the film was then granted
an 18 rating by the BBFC. Nonetheless, in 2005 when a new set of guidelines
and a new BBFC director came into power, the cuts to the film were waived and
the uncut version of Fight Club was an 18.
The late Alexander Walker who reviewed for the London Evening standard for
more than 40 years had a very strong opinion on Fight Club and it wasn’t a
positive one. The first paragraph of his review reads ‘it is an inadmissible
assault on personal decency. And on society itself. At its Venice Film Festival
world premiere in September, it caused well-justified outrage as a movie
phenomenon well in line with the current tentative but threatening revival of
Nazism’. It’s quite clear from this that Walker decoded an oppositional reading
(Stuart Halls reception theory) from the film. He disagrees massively with the
message that the film is giving and even suggests that it resurrects the Fuhrer
principle while promoting pain and suffering. It would be wrong to suggest he is
anything but opposed to the film.
Source: http://kec-asa2filmmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/fight-club-single-film-critical-study_23.html

5. Survey analysis- I carried out an audience survey to find out people’s opinions on fight
club and how they conformed to different audience theories.
The first 2 questions were just to find out who was
answering the survey. I wanted to know the age and
gender so I could understand the responses to the other
questions in the survey. As 80% of the people who
answered the survey were between 18 and 24 and 20%
are between 45 and 54 I can already guess certain
answers, for example, I would expect the younger
people that answered will have found out about the film
either by social media or from a relative such as their
parents. However, I imagine that the older people who
answered first found out about the film from TV adverts
and billboards when it was released.
Of the people I asked half were male and the other half
were female, from this I presumed there would be a
more negotiated response to the film as the female
audience may enjoy the film but find the violence too
much as the film is aimed at a stereotypical male
audience that respond to violent action movies. This
relates to Stuart Halls reception theory that we all
decode media in different ways.
Like I assumed, a lot of the people who answered said
either that they found out about the film from a friend
or relative or on social media. From this I understand
that the people who did my survey were persuaded to
watch the filmby the opinion of the person they were
told about it by.

6. 80% of the people I asked had heard about the
film before studying it in class, owing to the films
popularity and reputation as a classicfilm. This
suggests to me that they have either seen it before
or heard about it and not fancied watching it
therefore their opinion may now have changed.
This links to Stuart Halls theory and the
individualities we have. Our circumstances of
exhibition mean we have heard about the film and
have pre conceived ideas about it without having
seen it, all because of what others have told us.
Fight club contained many scenes of excessive
violence and scenes that were very graphic,
therefore I wanted to find out people’s opinions
on the amount of violent content in the film. 50%
of the people who answered the survey said that
they thought the violence in the film was just right
for the films context, while 30% though it was too
much and the other 20% felt it was right for the
context but they did not like it. I thought this
would be the case as I imagine that the 50% who
thought the violence was right for the context and
did not bother them were the male audience for
my survey. This is because men are stereotypically
more into violent action movies whereas women
may feel some of the violence is unnecessary.
Next, I wanted to find out the audience’s rated
opinion and use it as a guide to what people they
thought of the film. It seems that it was quite
popular with all but one of the people I asked. 20%
of people gave a 10 rating, 30% a 9 and 40% an 8
rating. I can clearly see a positive response to the
film without reading their written review of the
film

7. I wanted to find out people’s likes and
dislikes of Fight club. Most of the responses
were very similar which could back up the
hypodermic needle theory that everybody
responds to a media text in the same way.
Everybody I asked either liked the actors or
the twist in plot at the end of the film and
either disliked the slow start or the amount
of violence.
This question focusing on Stuart Halls
reception theory (encoding and decoding
model). 60% of the responses were preferred-
meaning that they liked the film and what the
directors got across to them and wanted them
to think. 30% had a negotiated reading
meaning they liked certain parts of the filmbut
maybe didn’t agree with all the content and
10%had and oppositional reading meaning
they were completely against the message that
the film was giving.

8. Both of these questions focus on another of
the audience theories, the uses and
gratifications theory which was theorised by
Blumler and Katz in 1974. I wanted to know
whether the audience used the film as a
diversion in any way. 70% of the responses
said no which surprises me as most of the
people I asked I know were diverted from
doing college work by watching the film. Then I
wanted to find out if the audience felt they
would use aspects of the film as surveillance,
meaning they would use information or
content like the music from their films in their
everyday lives. 90% of the audience didn’t
think they would use any of the filmfor
surveillance. The other 10% thought they
would but didn’t say how in the comment box I
left below the question