The audience for the media product would primarily be males over 18 years old due to the graphic and violent nature of the film's content about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Specifically, the audience would consist of educated professionals such as doctors, psychologists, and lawyers from category A demographics who could appreciate the thriller genre and subject matter. Additionally, some local audiences in Milwaukee may find the film sensitive due to its portrayal of real events in their city. The film aims to be distributed globally but especially in the United States due to its subject matter being inspired by an American crime.

1. Evaluation Question 4 -
Who Would be the
Audience for Your Media
Product?

2. The one way that we have selected the audience
for our film is by choosing the rating. The rating of
our film is 18+. This means that only those older than
18 can watch this in theatre or via other devices,
we have chosen this rating so we can include
strong language, gore, violent scenes and mature
themes. 18 is an accurate age because younger
viewers may get lost in the plot and find the film
distressing.
Age of audience.

4. Another aspect of our film that will determine the audience is the
genre of the film. As our film is a Thriller it already sets a type of
audience. This style due to its smart content would most likely
attract ‘Succeeders and Resigned mainstreamers.’ the type of
demographics would be predominantly category A. (Doctors,
Psychologists, Lawyers etc...)
But as the film is being inspired on actual past events ‘The
Milwaukee Cannibal’ Jeffrey Dahmer Class B may also take interest
in the film not specifically because of the genre but because of
their knowledge of the events.

5. Due to the graphic nature of the film, the
predominant gender would be male. When
researching The Milwaukee Cannibal, we
looked a lot into responses on YouTube films
and found the biggest commenter’s were
older males. Women are more likely to be
disturbed by the scenes within the film and
stereotypically go for films like Rom-Com’s and
Drama’s, were not aiming our thriller at males
but through our research it's important to get
the attention on the male population.

6. Location.
Our film would be open to view within all
locations and would be distributed globally,
however people from/surrounding Milwaukee
may find this film sensitive to watch, due to it
being about a copy-cat of The Milwaukee
Cannibal.

7. We would like our film to be distributed by one of
the big six. This is because it's inspired by a
American event therefore they would understand
it more then UK viewers, also would become more
global and popular if distributed in the US.
However some Americans may find it sensitive to
watch or argue it's inaccurate so we will have to
make sure they are informed that is inspired by
the event.

8. Decoding and encoding - Stuart Hall.
Stuart halls theory suggested that in media messages are decoded or
interpreted in different ways depending on the individuals cultural
background, economic standing and personal experiences. Halls idea
was that the audience play a key role in decoding messages relying on
their social contexts. Our audience may decode the messages/ what's
going to happen next similarly as they are category A having similar
cultural backgrounds, economic standing and similar experiences due to
their jobs. Our film is a psychological thriller, the audience will agree that
the murderer is doing wrong by however may question why they feel the
need to do this thinking in more deeply into the context.