Final ORIGIN Magazine

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Prezi [Does violence in movies create violence in society]

Passive & Active Consumption

Active

Active consumption is when the audience engages and discusses media messages that are fed to them and question the media messages through own life experiences. Different people  interpret the message in other ways rather than question it, by doing this the audience would not be as suggestible to tell them what to think. Shows like ‘Free Speech’ on BBC3, like to discuss the youth of today and talk about the issues in society concerning money, behavior and other social attributes as a form of expressing opinion. They get guests like politicians and journalists on the show to discuss these issues, the audience who ask the questions are more active due to the deep discussions they have with the panel than people sitting at home. However people at home can interact with Twitter/Facebook as well as calling in to interact with the panelists and create debates, so Home viewers become less suggestible and more active as they can get involved in debates.

Passive

Passive consumption is when the audience doesn’t engage or question the media message but just accepts it, this what media outlets want to achieve when making a film or show as they want to view to except and not question. To get the audience into this state the story has to be believable, it doesn’t need to realistic as that would make it boring and unrealistic would look not worth the watch.

Reception Study

The Reception Study, provides a means of understanding media texts by understanding how these texts are read by audiences. Theorists who research media through reception studies are concerned with the experience of cinema and television viewing for spectators, and how meaning is created through that experience. An important concept of reception theory is that the media text, the individual movie or television program has no inherent meaning in and of itself. Instead, meaning is created in the interaction between spectator and text; in other words, meaning is created as the viewer watches and processes the film. Reception theory argues that contextual factors, more than textual ones, influence the way the spectator views the film or television program. Other factors include elements of the viewer’s identity as well as circumstances of exhibition, the spectator’s preconceived ideas concerning the film or television program’s genre and production, and even broad social, historical, and political issues. In short, reception theory places the viewer in context, taking into account all of the various factors that might influence how she or he will read and create meaning from the text.

Dominant: [Hegemonic] – Where the leader recognises what a programmes preferred of offered meaning is and agrees with it.
Oppostional: [Counter Hegemonic] – Where the dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons.

Negotiated: Where the reader accepts, rejects or refines elements of the program in the light of previously held views.

The encoding/decoding model:

This is about extending the concept of an active audience further. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the majority of the work was done on the way individuals received and interpreted a text, and how their individual circumstances including gender, class, age etc. Affected their readings. This particular work was based on Stuart Hail’s encoding & decoding model of the relationship between text and audience, this was a published paper in 1973. This has a major influence on cultural studies, and many of the terms it included remain influential in the media. The essay takes up and challenges long held assumptions on how media messages are produced, circulated and consumed; proposing a new theory of communication.

Halls essay impeached all three components of the mass communications model, it argued that meaning is not easily fixed or determined by the sender, the message is never transparent and the audience is not a passive recipient of meaning.

The Hypodermic Needle Theory

The Hypodermic Needle Theory is one of the earliest ways of thinking about how the media influences people, it was developed in the 1920’s and 1930’s after researches observed the effect of propaganda during World War 1 and events including the Orson Welles ‘War of the worlds’ broadcast.

The Hypodermic needle theory is a linear communication theory is a linear communication theory which suggests that media messages are injected directly into the brains of a passive audience. It suggests that we are all put in the same category.

This form of thinking about communication and media influences is no longer really accepted. In the 1930’s many researchers realized the limitations of this idea, and some disagreement with the early media theorists gave the idea any serious attention at all.

The theory continues to take effect on the way we talk about the media, people believe that the mass media has a powerful effect. Many people have discussed about the issue of children watching and playing media outlets that may or may not effect them in the long run, this is frequent in the modern day as media has become much more accessible to people and can be distributed in many forms. Parents worry about the influence of television in violent video games. News outlets run headlines like “Grand theft auto led teen to kill”. This brainwashes the consumer to think that this is completely true, as it’s coming from a particular form of media which is usually seen to be promoting true facts, and hard information.

The Payne Fund Studies which were conducted between 1929 and 1932, and looked at the effect of what movies have on children, contributed to the idea that the mass media has a powerful and direct impact on the audiences.
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Uses & Gratifications theory

The Uses and Gratifications theory deals with the effect of people on the media. The theory describes mass communication, as it provides an approach that is audience centred. It deals with how and why people adopt specific media to satisfy their needs. it can be seen in such cases like personal music selection, we select music not to fit a particular mood but also in attempts to show empowerment or different motives.

During the 1950’s the Uses and Gratifications theory seemed like a breath of fresh air which resisted the pessimism of the effects models. Researchers questioned people as to the specific reasons they watch television. They then came to the conclusion that personality types are set apon an audience to set them into groups, meaning a different selection of people watch television for certain needs.  This theory takes out the possibility that the media can have an unconscious influence over our lives and how we view the world.

The central point of the uses and gratifications is the belief that people use the media to get individual pleasures. Therefore people are not seen as helpless victims of all powerful media and get brainwashed, rather they use the media to fulfil their distinct needs.

Jay G. Blumler and Elihu Katz devised their own uses and gratifications model in 1974 to highlight four areas of gratification in media texts for audiences.:-

 

-Escapism 

A media text which provides escapism, When a particular piece of media partially covers a viewers senses and completely emerges them within the product/piece. For example the purposes of someone playing a video game, such as ‘Grand Theft Auto’,  they would do this to escape reality and forget what is around them by surrounding themselves with a different universe.

– Personal relationships

People create personal relationships with the characters in a media text, they start to develop feelings for them as if they know them. This can become alarming if people start to trust them also, for example if someone formed a relationship with someone in a television series and that particular character died, they would feel as if they’ve lost someone in their life and ‘mourn’. Another example would be if someone trusted a news reporter too much; that they may take everything that they say at high value and not question it in any way, this trust could then be taken and abused by believing everything they say to be true.

-Personal Identity

When a person creates part of their own identity from things they find attractive in people from the media, for example somebody who is interested in the programme “TOWIE”. Usually on the show people are seen to be getting tans, dying their hair and keeping a high standard of a fashionable look, someone would copy this and incorporate this into their lives, like going to tan and getting their hair dyed shocking blonde, as in TOWIE this is seen as being acceptable and you are only “pretty” if you de-value your own natural looks to commit to the usual sexually attractiveness the cast is aiming to give off.

-Surveillance 

The audience gain an understanding of the world around them by consuming a media text, for example print and broadcasting news. For example the television series ‘Big Brother people are put in a house and surveillance, viewers would rather watch them do nothing, live & argue with each other, this makes people feel a sense of control and power. Another example would be ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’.

 

Pros: 

• It could be suitable to all media forms

Cons:

•   It rebukes any effect of the media
•   It is primarily concerned with the viewers and their choice and consumption of media.
•   We want to identify ourselves as active readers rather than passive couch potatoes
• It doesn’t apply to all people

Representation

I believe that the group represented our subject constructively and sensibly. Without being offensive or demeaning in any way.

Design

The colours used in the production of the Magazine are Red, Blue & Black.

Red

Red is an emotionally intense colour, it has a high visibility  and it’s vibrancy impacts well. Another reason why red was used is because it is signifying leadership, courage, love and friendship. All things which are all expected from a father. 

Blue

Blue connotes depth and stability, it symbolises trust, loyalty, wisdom and confidence.  It is usually used to promote products to link in with purity. 

Black 

Black is quite a masculine colour and is usually associated with power and strength. It’s a prestigious colour.

 

 

Font

The font that was used is called ‘Nexa’ and was downloaded from HERE

The reason for this is because this font is very slick and modern, it has unlimited design values to it which means it can be used frequently throughout the magazine and still look aesthetically pleasing without it coming out tacky or predictable.

It’s also easy to read not not complicated in any way.

 

[TASK 2] Contrasting Audience Analysis [Film Posters]

The audience of the Chucky film and who would naturally most likely be interested in this film poster are people who are thrill seekers and people who like to have a little scare every once in a while, if we are talking about ages; I would say around 16-26.

This Chucky poster presents the protagonist, with Chucky being the antagonist and more importantly the main character he is significantly placed head forward on the poster, being the most outstanding thing on the cover. The name of the film ‘Curse’, tailing onto the usual spectral of the Chucky movie line, therefore re-instating the fact that this is a horror/thriller movie.  ‘CHUCKY’ being highlighted through use of capitalisation and boldness only re-enforces the main form of the movie. Also the font is quite violent with the ‘Y’ being shaped like a knife and having a blood splash. Linking back to audience needs, this appeals to them as some people enjoy the theme of a main weapon being used in a movie, it also foreshadows Chucky’s main aim/personality. “Chucky’s back and better than ever”, appeals to the older fans of the series, the die hard people who have followed the franchise of Chucky for years.The colours of the poster presents a serious, strong vibe. A  thriller related tint with an overlay material which relates to an older movie, which emphasises horror aspect and will suit to the audience.

Chucky received a rating of 3 stars (5.6/10) from IMDb, which isn’t necessarily a  high achievement, of course this may be due to the fact that it went straight to DVD, and did not have the full build up/ advertisement effect upon the viewing public.

Contrasted with TED which got a rating of 3 1/2 (7/10) stars from IMDb, not a “massive” jump, although there is a significant difference in viewing ratings and reviews, from both films.

I would say the audience profile for Ted would be people from 15 above. The film poster clearly presents the main character being of course ‘Ted’, presenting a sign in front of him which reads “This is not a F*cking kids movie!!!”. Of course how simpler can it get from this? It’s not for kids. It’s mainly for teenagers & adults.

This poster is very theatrical and comedic, It’s subtle yet stands out amongst most film posters I have seen in 2012-2013. Mainly because of it’s funny aspect. Due to the reason that it’s a motion picture which relates closely to the cartoon franchise of Family Guy, the audience of the film would be people who watch Family Guy also; As the humour is easily relatable.

The main colour scheme is Green & White, not necessarily gender specific colours which signifies it’s audience spans widely across different people. As Ted is such a crass comedy, the designers of the poster clearly did not want to over exaggerate on the comedic aspect, therefore by keeping it as simple as possible with more than enough white space, it brings more attention to it. So..less is more.

People who would be interested in this poster will be those who are interested in a funny movie, people who enjoy laughing and satirical humour. There is something about the character which is just funny, without having to do anything; merely a still image will make someone at least giggle :), This is because of the visual representation of Ted’s facial expression, being playful with having a human like aspect.

With the stance of the bear being like a human it’s clear the movie is a play of a child’s movie which has transitioned and transformed into an adult comedy.

The reason I chose to compare Ted & Chucky is because they are both two movies which intake two children’s toys and play on them in two very different ways, they are easily contrastable as one is horror and one is comedy, this is clearly shown though the posters; therefore is clearly aiming towards 2 specifically different audiences. Neither of them are gender specific so that doesn’t come into play.

[TASK 1] Defining Audiences

 Quantitative audience research

Quantitative research is about asking a variety of people for their opinions in a structured way so that you can produce hard facts and statistics to guide you to get solid statistical results. There quite a few organisations that publish their ratings for particular radio, TV and magazines . These are called BARB, RAJAR and ABC.

BARB does quantitative audience research to determine statistics of how many people tune in/watch a particular programme on television:

The figures which are shown in these images above, determine roughly/exactly how many people are  watching a particular Television Show, it does this by showing the progam itself and the figures of people who were tuned in on that particular day. The producers look at the patterns of views how many people are watching the programmes to get an insight of whether it’s good or bad; What they should change in orderto gain views and to appeal to a wider audience and appeal to the viewers who were nonchalant at first. Some organizations use a technique of gathering data about viewers from their programmes and create a target audience of the majority of  audiences and then based the new programme around their findings. This means they would take a test on people to see what they enjoy, resulting in a hit show that would get an abundance of views. A good example of this would be Netflix & Sky.

RAJAR also use quantitative research to measure radio audiences in the United Kingdom. They create info-graphics which present their research in a graphical way, they also use surveys & table gathering.

RAJAR Ltd [Radio Joint Audience Research] was set up in 1992 to align, design and operate a single audience measurement system for the UK radio industry serving both the BBC and licensed commercial stations.

It was set up by the BBC and the RadioCentre to measure their audiences using the same system. It replaced the BBC’s Daily Survey and Commercial Radio’s JICRAR surve, Rajar is a non profit making organisation. The organisation has a continuous programme of innovation and development to meet its market’s needs.

Rajar uses a creative form of portraying results, by presenting their findings in an infographic form, the data provided by RAJAR show the basic demographic of everyone who listens to radio shows. This technique assists the radio programmers to decide how to build their station or show around their listeners, get an idea of the topics they enjoy listening to just as importantly as the music they enjoy. By Showing how many people use various platforms to listen to the radio can also alter the type of adverts that advertisers  would give to the radios. This information is vital to get the type of audience the radio has so the advertisers and radio stations can fit their products to the demographic listening to the radio. They survey how many people listen to the station in an average week and how long they spend listening.

The listening data is collected by quarter hour. Respondents are asked to write in their listening if they have spent at least 5 minutes listening to a station within this time segment.

Rajar Profile their listeners by:

Demographics

• sex
• age
• social grade
• ethnic origin
• region
• working status
• marital status
• household composition
• household tenure
• employment status

Other media

• media access
• television viewing habits
• internet use
• mobile devices use
• newspapers reading habits

 

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 Qualitative audience research

Qualitative audience research commissions with fairly small numbers of people in order to gain a complex, detailed and in depth understanding of their experiences and response to a particular subject. Just like getting information from a class of people.

Many forms of this include questionnaires in which a group of people  are given a set of significant questions relating to a certain point, where their opinions will be gathered by using a variety of answer choices to determine at the end a collective of results to set them into categories of most popular answers to least popular.

Audience Profiling

Audience profiling is a technique of setting people into groups by giving them a ‘label’ by putting them into categories it is seen as being easier to to determine results and gain more statistics. for example:

AP describes the characteristics of those who read, view, or listen to a particular medium, such as a television channel or a magazine/ newspaper.Some people use Geo-Demographics, they provide a way to classify people by neighbourhood or other small area according to the characteristics of those areas.

Psychographics

Psychographic analysis is a technique that investigates how people live, what interests they have, and what they particularly like.  It is also called life style analysis because it relies on an individual’s activities, interests, and opinions.  It is a technique that investigates how people live and what interests them as opposed to what they are.  Some of the components include:

• Magazines read
• Food preferences
• Activity level
• Hobbies
• Sports and teams followed

A  psychographic system  called VALS which is short for Values And Lifestyles, which was developed by SRI in the 1980s. VALS places U.S. adult consumers into one of eight segments based on their responses to the VALS questionnaire. Socio-Economic status is a measure of an individual’s or family’s economic and social position based on education, income, and occupation.

Psychographic research mostly focuses on behavioural segmenting, by dividing the market into groups based on no so visible characteristics, which are many of the factors that can be used in conjunction with demographic segmentation.

Demographics

Demographic analysis looks at the composition and change of a given population.  Some of the components include:

• Total size
• Gender
• Geographic distribution
• Age
• Household composition
• Education level

This usually works quite well because customers often have wants and needs that are based on these categories.

Regional Identity

Regional identity is the theory that a person’s identity is based  on the country/region that they live in.

People are also collectively grouped based on their sexual orientation, religion or beliefs.

O R I G I N [Video in Magazine – Page 2]