The student analyzed their music magazine coursework production in relation to the concept of audience. [1] They discussed applying the hypodermic needle theory to the magazine's front cover using a central image to influence readers. [2] They also discussed how the uses and gratifications theory was applied by using a well-known artist on the cover to entertain readers and allow for social interaction. [3] Finally, they discussed how the reception theory could be applied to a double page story, with the audience decoding what was encoded by the student.

1. G325 Critical Perspectives in Media Exam Preparation
Section A: Theoretical evaluation of Production
There are two questions in Section A, which must both be answered.
Question 1(a) will ask you to DESCRIBE and EVALUATE your skills
development across your production coursework for your Foundation Portfolio
AND your Advanced Portfolio. You will be asked to refer one or two specific
production practices, which could be either:
Digital Technology
Creativity
Research and Planning
Post-Production
Using conventions from real media texts
WE WILL PRACTICE QUESTION 1(a) NEXT WEEK
Question 1(b) will ask you to select ONE production (AS or A2) and evaluate it in
relation to a media concept. The list of concepts is as follows:
Genre
Narrative
Representation
Audience
Media language
Task1: Read the level3/level 4 response to Question 1(b) from last year’s paper,
along with the examiners response. Annotate using Ctrl-Alt M.
(b) Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to the concept of
audience.
The concept of audience is fundamental to the making of a media text. A producer
must take into account the age, social status and gender and interests of a target
consumer in order to adjust the text to make it as appealing to them as possible. For
my A2 coursework I created a horror called ‘The sleepover’. Classification of age
appropriateness is important in audience identification. Films are screened by an
external board and given a minimum age of viewers. Most horror films are rated 18,
due to extreme gore, violence, sex and disturbance – not to mention emotional trauma
which is why I chose to rate my film as 18 as my film was a very conventional slasher
film.
The Hypodermic Needle effect is the first audience theory. 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. In this theory the
audience are completely passive. If this was applied to my text the audience
wouldview the killing scenes and sex scenes and instantly replicate the actions. This 7

2. of course is unrealistic and this theory is often argued to be very simplistic and
outdated, considering how much the media has developed this century. The uses and
gratifications audience theory suggests than an audience consume particular texts in
order to receive something from them. Bulmer and Katz identified four uses and
gratifications as diversion (entertainment and escape from reality), surveillance
(information), personal identity (seeing yourself reflected in the text and learning new
values and personal relationships (seeking emotional interaction and substituting
media relationships for your own). In my coursework, a consumer may use diversion -
the horror trailer is escapist – a route away from reality and they would be entertained
by the mystery and fear of my film. Diversion would also include catharsis that my
trailer would enable, which is using the media as an outlet of emotion – they would
experience horror in the safety of cinema. They would also experience the ‘personal
identity’ stage in seeing themselves in, or, admiring, the good characters – particularly
the ‘final girl’ character and her charming boyfriend, depending on gender of
audience member. They would also have the personal relationships because they
could feel emotion of the fear and sadness of the victims whilst substituting their
emotional relationship with the friendships in my trailer or the main characters’
romantic relationship with her boyfriend. My audience would not use the surveillance
stage as horror films are not intended to be instructional. The most modern and
developed theory of audience is reception theory. This model based on Stuart Hall’s
encoding model, suggests that a producer will encode a text and the audience will
decode it. Their reading is affected by many contextual and personal factors such as
age, social status, gender, current mood and personal experiences. I encoded my
horror trailer as well as I could using beautiful, edgy, feminine characters which
appeal to the female consumers. I used isolated settings which suggest to the audience
that escape isn’t possible (deserted house, woods) this highlighting the experience of
fear and panic that one hopes for when watching a horror film. I used acoustic codes
in the form of a deep male voice over and jumpy, low orchestral score to hope that my
audience will feel tension and suspense. My killer was masked and always appeared
silent and in the shadows, connoting evil and dehumanising him hopefully creating a
response of fear from the audience. My main target audience were males and females
aged 18-30. I used attractive actors to appeal to the audience who would admire /
desire them. The ‘cool’ stylish clothing adds to this. I used the male gaze theory by
Laura Mulvey, showing a victim’s cleavage and the ‘final girl’ theory (hopefully
creating a stronger feminist image to other women) to attract both genders. I used
audience research in the form of questionnaires to find out my audiences preferences
and dislikes in order to make my trailer meet their interests as fully as possible. I also
asked for audience feedback on my first drafts which allowed me to make
improvements based on the opinions of 20 18-30 year olds. They told me to
exaggerate gore and violence more and use more threatening music which I then
incorporated using iMovie so that me audience was tempted to watch my piece. I
aimed my piece at a low social status as my trailer was a version of British teenagers
experiencing the American slasher experience. I used strong language, popular music
for soundtrack and fashionable clothing to hopefully attract this group.
This is a level 3 / level 4 borderline response
Level 4 qualities –coherence, range of useful examples, ability to answer the
question in sustained manner, relating of theory to practice. The understanding
of Hall’s encoding / decoding model in relation to own work. The discussion of

3. ‘effects’ early on is clear and relevant.
Level 3 qualities – the application of audience theories (insufficiently developed
for level 4 – eg the ‘use of’ Mulvey, in the same paragraph as the use of
questionnaires for feedback).
Task 2
In pairs, write a brief summary of the response for each section in the table below.
Identify any areas of weakness in relation to the examiner’s report (these come later
in the essay) and state how you might improve the response. Keep it brief!
Section Summary Improvements needed
(if any)
The intro is very brief and
Intro accurately tells the reader
the film she has analysed
which is ‘the sleepover’
and what conventions she
has used based around the
audience theory.
The first audience theory
Theory 1 she applies is the
hypodermic needle theory.
She gives a small amount
of background information
about this and applies it in
detail to her film ‘the
sleepover’, such as the
replication of the sex
scenes.
The uses and gratification
Theory 2 audience theory is applied
and explained about how
the text must be in a
specific order. She talks
about the 4 uses and
gratifications and applies it
to their own piece of work.
Information also includes
diversion.
The last theory is the
Theory 3 audience of reception
theory. Explaining how the
audience decode the

4. encoded text.
The features she has used
Description of production has been applied to her
and audience responses answer explain techniques
used such as strong
language and also tells us
she has used audience
feedback to improve.
Her general target
Description of target audience is both genders
audience and evaluation of 18-30. After evaluating her
responses responses this is how her
target audience was chosen
after making adjustments
and improvements.
Task 3
Using the above as a guide, write your own plan in relation to either your A2 OR
AS production coursework

5. Task 4 (Homework)
Use your plan to write your own answer for homework, deadline next Monday.
Remember to use the activity completed before Easter on audience, available on
Moodle, to help you.
1(b)Analyse ONE of your coursework productions in relation to the concept
of AUDIENCE. (June 2011)
Audience theory is crucial when making decisions regarding an audience
when presenting a media text. Many things must have thought behind
decisions such as age, gender and social classes. My coursework I completed
and will analyse regarding audience theory is a music magazine I completed
called ‘Volume’. Volume is a magazine which focused on a rock and indie
genre with similarities to magazines such as ‘Kerrang’. I completed a front
cover, contents and a double page spread of the magazine. The reason
behind the audience of both indie and rock was to increase the audience size
which I can target.
In my magazine the hypodermic needle theory could be applied. When
looking at the front cover of my magazine the idea of a mass audience being
‘injected’ with the influence of the main story could attract many people
within the target audience. Using a central image for the main character
involved in my magazine can influence people to read the magazine and find
out more about what they are known to be on the front cover for. However on
the other hand the theory can be seen to be out dated and my magazine may
support this as the influence of a central image may not be as affected as
many competitors will have similar designs and stories.
Another theory applied to the front cover of my magazine ‘Volume’ is the uses
and gratifications theory. One of the four basic models is to identify what is
in front of the audience. This can be met when the central image is a well-
known music artist. Another is to entertain. This is used for escapism, the
audience can read about my magazine which will then take their minds off
every day problems as they can enjoy reading about their favorite artists.
Lastly social interaction can be applied to my magazine because it is
something that can be talked about between friends. The public can discuss
the music magazine and the stories they have read within it.
The last theory is the reception theory. The theory has been created by Stuart
Halls in the 1970’s, a much more recent theory. This can be applied to my
music magazine on the double page spread because the audience can decode
the story about ‘Rachel’ which I have encoded. The text can then go on to
dominant, negotiated or preferred, depending on the audience’s views and
opinions.