Audience Investigation

By Shannen Leader

What is an Audience?

An audience is a specific group that a genre is targeted towards. For example the target audience

if for 15/18years over and most probably more favourable to the male gender rather than females.

Former media executive states "“Give the people control of media, they will use it. The corollary: Don’t give the people control of media, and you will lose. Whenever citizens can exercise control, they will.” As the audience we take on a lot of power as separate individuals and as a group. Now it has expanded into not just a movie screen or television but how we react to applications, the device we preview it on, the place we watch the film or even the time

The assembled spectators or listeners at a public event, such as a play,

movie, concert

Audience Theorist

Feminists say that the majority of Horror movies characters are often the women that are abused, raped and tortured. Over the years certain films have been banned due to this for example ‘I spit on your grave’ 1978.

The original model for audience was the effects/hypodermic model which stressed the effects of the mass media on their audiences. This model owes much to the supposed power of the mass media - in particular film - to inject their audiences with ideas and meanings. Such was the thinking behind much of the Nazi propaganda that was evident in Triumph of the Will and similar films. It is worth noting that totalitarian states and dictatorships are similar in their desire to have complete control over the media, usually in the belief that strict regulation of the media will help in controlling entire populations. The effects model has several variants and despite the fact that it is an outdated model it continues to exert influence in present debates about censorship and control in the media.

Audience theories that link to the Horror genre

• Carol Clover - Her theory dwells on the acts of violence perpetrate by the active male monsters against the passive women victims. Clover refers to the 1992 movie ‘Men, Women and Chainsaws’ which is a Horror experience where you cheer on the final girl as she dispatches the monster. Her theory explores the relationship between a predominately male horror audience and the female victim/Heroine. Of particular interest of her eye of horror the terrible place, weapons and the sexual transgression.

• Julia Kristeva talks about the perverse pleasure deprived watching sickening images to the point of making oneself feel physically sick.