3 Audience Theories The Hypodermic model

This suggests that the audience respond to a media text in the same way. This is somewhat “injected” into the audience’s minds. It can change people’s

understanding and views for a certain subject. For example, the the modern day technology industry or the mainstream media. The media are known to create drama over this theory as things such as this on the left. This gives blame to video games for making people violent and things much worse

such as murderers.

Encoding and Decoding model (Reception theory)The producer encodes text or meaning into a film, for example a horror film will include scary sounds, dark lighting etc. This is then decoded by the audience based on their individual cultural background.

Age, Gender, Social background, Cultural background, Political views and circumstances of exhibition. Preferred, Negotiated, Oppositional

Preferred reading of School of Rock, as it was my favourite film as a child.Negotiated reading of Bronson, as it was fairly violent Oppositional reading of

Uses and Gratifications theoryDiversions – escape from everyday problems. Personal Relationships – Using the media for emotional and other interaction.Personal Identity – Finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from textsSurveillance – Information which could be useful for living

Fight Club

Fight Club was directed by David Fincher the film is a drama and stars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. It involves an “everyday” man who seeks excitement away from his boring white collar job, so he forms a fight club. This leads to a radical terrorist organization with a plan to bring down capitalism. Produced in 1999 a film with a sole objective of destroying and crumbling large cities or corporate companies may not be seen the same way since the tragedies of 9/11. It was distributed by 20th century fox and was given an 18 certificate due to

the pure brutality of the film. The film had to be cut many times before they would allow it to be released.

BBFC Case study

In the review wrote by Alexander Walker he states that Fight Club “resurrects the Führer Principle”. This basically says that people who watch the film are going to be subjected to violence and extreme terrorism. This is due to the hypodermic model essentially “injecting” this information into the audience's brains and making them think that fighting is a good and cool idea. There were cuts made to stop glamorizing organized brutal fist fights. However even with these cuts taking place and the film finally being allowed to be aired, there was still a minority of people that followed through and created underground fight clubs throughout America. Even though this is a very small majority Alexander Walker was correct as to thinking it would affect people and it proves the existence of the Hypodermic model.

“Adults should be free to choose their own entertainment” Blumlers and Katz’s Gratification theory has 4 key principles; Diversion, Personal Relationships, Personal Identity and Surveillance. The BBFC new guidelines correspond to the Gratifications theory due to it allowing people to have their own choice’s. This could be through people wanting to watch the film for the diversion side of it and they just want to become immersed in the film and forget about everyday worries. This meaning that due to there not being anything within the film then it is up to the audience on whether or not they want to watch the film. With all the cuts Fight Club undertook for it to finally get a certificate, the BBFC went under new guidelines where they agreed adults should be able to choose their own entertainment just like they choose their own gratification theories. Just like they choose to watch soaps for an emotional interaction they may also want to watch this film for a similar experience.

Due to there not being anything against the UK law the film was granted a certificate and adults were able to watch the film, they could use the film for surveillance and look into the songs or fashion that was used within the film and purchase CD’s or clothing.

In my own opinion I really enjoyed the film, I thought it was different, fresh and had a great story. It was indeed very violent but I think it was just enough and not to brutal to go over the top, it fit the film. It gave me a real sense of diversion as the characters played by Brad Pitt and Edward Norton really made me feel immersed in the film. As well as being diverted and taken away for the duration of the film I also feel as though I used the film for surveillance. After the film I did research into the songs used for the soundtrack and I really enjoyed the band that was used. Other than the music I wasn’t really interested in anything else such as the fashion.

Survey Results

I conducted a survey to find out a range of opinions on how people found the film, I asked males and females, different cultures and ages. I hope to find a variety of answers and hop to gain an understanding for people’s personal opinions on the film.

Even though I tried to ask an equal amount of males to females there was still a male majority. With the audience only being 25% female. This could affect my overall results as male and female’s opinions may vary. However, this could also reflect the targeted audience of the film and reflect how the film was aimed towards a male audience rather than a female/multi gender one.

I asked whether or not people had a Preferred, negotiated or

oppositional reading of the film and a very large 75% of the audience

had a preferred reading.

I also asked why they thought they had this reading and here are a couple of reasons why

people answered with a “preferred reading”. As you can see the film either incorporates something within the plot that the viewer enjoyed or the film was a specific genre that the viewer favours. As mentioned before

I asked the audience if they felt as though they were diverted by the film in anyway. I got an equal response as to those who did and those who didn’t. People that said no gave reasons similar to below –

This shows that the people who said no didn’t feel fully immersed into the film, as though it wasn’t captivating enough. On the other hand those who said yes gave answers similar to this -

This telling me that those who were diverted by the film, the main reasoning behind it was due to the actor’s performances and style of the film as a whole. This means that they really felt grasped by the film and for the duration of so paid full attention and didn’t have anything else to worry about.

A huge 87% of the people who watched the film had already heard about it before class. This means that those people who had heard about it were going to watch it with pre conceived ideas. This means that that large majority are going to have different ideas of what the film is going to be about and their judgements on the film may be reflected by this. Fight Club is a very popular film and has good reviews so if someone goes into it thinking it’s going to be the best thing they have ever watched they may either be end up getting very disappointed/let down.

Are there any elements of the film that you might use for surveillance? e.g Fashion/Music?

This question aims to find out whether or not people watched the film and then went out to look for the band who provided the music or the fashion used within the film. I got a variety of results but the majority of the audience didn’t. However, an answer stood out to me as the respondent did use elements of the film and there answer is below.

From this answer we can tell that this person enjoyed the music that was used in the film and following through to find who the composer was. They also read ad watched other work by the author of the screenplay as their work would have been similar to fight club. This is interesting to know as films do influence people in certain ways from a straight up no to surveillance to a person who went out of their way to find work related to the film.

The last question I asked was whether or not they would recommend the film to a friend/family member. !00% of the audience said that they would recommend it. This clearly shows that everyone who watched the film enjoyed it enough to think that others would like it too. What’s interesting about this is this would be letting people know about the film by word of mouth. Another question that was in my survey asked the audience how they heard about the film.

As you can see Word of Mouth was the key element in how people had heard about the film. These two questions correspond with each other

because we found out that 100% of people would recommend it to a friend and the way in

which people heard about the film was either from a friend or a family member.

In conclusion I can use all of these survey results to get an understanding for why people enjoyed/didn’t enjoy the film. Things such as gender can come into effect for other questions. For example, with an audience of 75% male the reason that there was a preferred reading of 75% also could be because of this. The gender difference could also be the reason that 87% of the audience knew about the film beforehand and this is because males are stereotypically more likely to talk about a film which involves fighting than women. However, there are things that don’t go injunction with one another as cleanly as these and that is the diverted question where it was an even split of those who felt diverted and those who didn’t.