Emma Sutton

Audience Theory

For this task I will be talking about the different 3 different audience response theories. I will also be talking about Fight Club; what it’s about, why it was banned when it first came out, a negative response it got form a film critic, and using results from a survey, the audience responses to the film today.

Hypodermic Model

Dated from the 1920s this theory suggests that the audience manipulated by creators of media texts and that they all respond to the text the same way without trying to challenge the data.

An example of this is the Marketing of Technology. Today people are buying a new IPhone as they are popular and they look good despite the fact that they have the same features as their past IPhones. People feel like they need to have the latest IPhone.

Encoding and Decoding (Reception Theory)

The creator of this theory Stuart Hall argued against the Hypodermic Model saying that the audience reads the meaning if the media text differently depending on their individual cultural backgrounds and life experiences.

How it works is:

The Producer encodes the meaning into the media text.The audience decode it depending on their background.

This includes things such as:

Age Gender Social Background Cultural Background Political Views Circumstance of Exhibition

The audience can then state their opinion and it includes these three answers:

Emma Sutton

Preferred-When the audience agrees with the media textNegotiated- Doesn’t agree but also doesn’t disagreeOppositional- doesn’t agree with the media text

Uses and Gratification

Created by Blumler and Katz in 1974 this theory states that individuals choose to use the texts for different purposes, or uses and gratificattions.

Diversion- escape from problems and daily routinesPersonal Relationships- using media for interactionPersonal Identity- finding oneself in the media text and learning values and behaviours from the textSurveillance- Useful information for living. Example- weather reports, holiday bargains.

Fight Club

Fight Club released on 12th November 1999 is a film about about a depressed insomniac (Edward Norton) who meets a strange soap salesman called Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), he then lives in a run-down abandoned house with him after his perfect apartment is blown up. They then create a strictly ruled club that isn’t to be talked about where men who are bored of their mundane lives go to fight each other. The film was directed by David Fincher and had a budget of 63 million USD.

Alexander Walker is a well-known film critic who went to see the film at the Venice Film Festival. He had an oppositional reading of the film comparing the film to Hitler and the Jews in the death camps. The theory that can be used for this is the Hypodermic Model. He says that anyone who watches this film will become violent themselves.

The BBFC have more of a negotiated reading of the film. Due to the time Fight Club came out the level of violence didn’t work to their guidelines and they then couldn’t give the film a certificate unless they made major cuts. The BBFC then got a new director and new guidelines the film could then got a certificate of 18 which it asked for upon release. It also mentions in the case study that ‘adults should be free to choose their own entertainment. This suggests the theory Uses of Gratification as its saying that they can use the film however they want and if they want to watch it they can.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/fight-club -BBFC Case study

Emma Sutton

Survey Results

I created a survey after watching Fight Club asking the audience what their views of the film were, whether they enjoyed the film or not. I then applied audience response theories to the results.

The results of this question are they mostly younger people. This could possibly mean there is a more preferred/ negotiated reading (Hall) of the film. There is one older person so this could mean that they have a different reading of the film this is because views of violence are different to younger people than older.

Although most of the respondents are young they are also mostly female so this could mean that they are more oppositional reading (Hall) due to the film being violent and more male dominated.

Emma Sutton

I asked this question I wanted to know how they found out about the film as it could influence their reading their opinions. With these results this could determine what the audience think as they might have read opinions of the film before they watched it so they could sway their opinions cause if they were given a negative opinion of the film from a friend then they might think negatively of the film as they have been influenced to think like that. The theory that applies to this is Stuart Hall’s Reception theory.

For this question I asked to see if people have heard about the film before they had to study it in class. From the results only 1 person hadn’t heard about it before this means that most the rest of the respondents have heard of the film.

From this question the ratings are different. From the results most of the respondents were positive by giving the film an 8 -10 but however some gave it a lower rating, the lowest being a four. From these results those that gave it a high rating have a preferred reading and those that gave it a lower rating are more oppositional or negotiated reading (Hall).

Emma Sutton

Because Fight Club was banned and had to make lots of cuts of the violence back when it first came out as the views of violence were different to what they are they now. So this is to see what audience’s views of the violence are today. From the results the majority thought that the violence was right for the subject and only one person though that the violence is too much. The person who thought the violence was too much probably has oppositional reading (Hall) with film being predominantly violent.

For this question I liked to see what the audience liked and disliked about the film. This applies to Hall’s Reception theory because not everyone liked the same part of the film.

Even though the most of the respondents are female they still had a preferred reading of the film so this probably means that the younger female audience are liking more violent films. This question applies to Hall’s Reception theory because they are stating an opinion and they have different readings of the film.

Emma Sutton

Although the results from this question are mostly no they were still diverted by the film because they enjoyed it. The one that felt diverted by the film is probably older as they have a better understanding of the views. The respondent mentioned the political subtext which is related to Halls Reception theory as the respondent liked the political side.

For this question I liked to see what the audience took from the film and the majority liked the music. The theory for this question is Use and Gratification (Blumler and Katz) as it is seeing how they use the film. One respondent used the film to introduce them to other media texts from the screenwriter.