Genre- fantasy

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow wanted to understand what motivates people. He believed that people possess a set of motivation systems unrelated to rewards or unconscious desires.Maslow (1943) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. When one need is fulfilled a person seeks to fulfill the next one, and so on.

The media says we need something to gain love and happiness, we need objects to gain these desires. The media uses the less important needs to convince the public that that by for example buying a car will give you one of the lesser needs, vitality, creativity, playfulness, meaningfulness. A washing machine to succeed in having a family, a cheese burger to gain love etc. They present to us all of these things in adverts. A washing up liquid advert will usually have a woman in the kitchen, singing and being happy and then a child runs in a a husband comes home etc.

Passive audiences- hypodermic syringe theory (1923)

The Frankfurt school, set up in 1923, were concerned about the possible effects of mass media. They proposed the “effects” model, which considered society to be composed of isolated individuals who were susceptible to media messages. The Frankfurt school envisioned the media as a hypodermic syringe.

TV and video games act on audience like a direct drug injection. The audience is seen as passive and addictive. The media makers ‘inject’ a kind of ‘instant fix’ into the viewer. This theory places emphasis on the importance of the text as influencing the audience.

With similarly emotive imagery the hypodermic needle model suggests that media messages are injected straight into a passive audience which is immediately influenced by the message. They express the view that the media is a dangerous means of communicating an idea because the receiver or audience is powerless to resist the impact of the message. There is no escape from the effect of the message in these models. The population is seen as a sitting duck. People are seen as passive and are seen as having a lot media material "shot" at them. People end up thinking what they are told because there is no other source of information.

Blumler & Katz (1924)Entertainment- escaping, or being diverted, from problemsrelaxinggetting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoymentfilling timeemotional releasesexual arousal

Information- finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the worldseeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choicessatisfying curiosity and general interestlearning; self-educationgaining a sense of security through knowledge

Personal Identity- finding reinforcement for personal valuesfinding models of behavioridentifying with valued other (in the media) gaining insight into one's self

Integration and Social Interaction- gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathyidentifying with others and gaining a sense of belongingfinding a basis for conversation and social interactionhaving a substitute for real-life companionshiphelping to carry out social rolesenabling one to connect with family, friends and society

Diversion (escapism)- audience uses media as emotional release

Audience pleasures • Visceral- physical reaction, for example: saw• Voyeuristic- spying on others, for example: I’m a celeb• Puzzle solving- solving a mystery, working things out, for example: Broadchurch• Disruptive- chaos, for example: the impossible• Vicarious- living via other people, for example: casualty • Aesthetic- beautifully made text, for example: about time

Psychographic segmentation divides a market into groups based on social class, lifestyle and personality characteristics based on the assumption, that the types of product and brands an individual purchases, will reflect the persons characteristics and patterns of living.

Social class- single most used variable for research purposes and divides the population into groups based on the occupation of the ‘chief income earner’ (CIE), as such it can be seen as socio- economic scale. In the UK, the national readership survey provides the following standardised grouping

The social economic scaleSocial grade Description of occupation example

A Higher managerial, administrative or professional

Company director

B Intermediate managerial, admin or pro

Middle manager

C1 Supervisory, clerical, junior admin or pro

Bank clerk

C2 Skilled manual workers Plumber

D Semi and unskilled manual workers

Labourer

E State pensioners with no other income, widows, casual and lowest grade earners, students

unemployed

lifestyleLifestyle- classifying people according to their, values, beliefs, opinions and interests. No one standardised lifestyle segmentation model, instead market research firms and advertising agencies.

For example- young & rubican, called cross cultural consumer characterisation (4c’s for short)

• Resigned-rigid, strict, oriented to past• Struggler- alienated, struggler, disorganised, little skills,

alcoholics, junk food• Mainstreamer- domestic, conformist, conventional, passive,

family brands• Aspirer- materialistic, acquisitive, affiliative, image,

appearance, fashion• Succeeder- strong, goal orientation, confidence, work ethic,

stress relief, stability• Explorer- energy, experience, challenge, adventure,

indulgence, younger• Reformer- freedom from restriction, personal growth, social

awareness, anti materialistic, intolerant of bad taste, curious, tolerance of complexity, Fairtrade, recycling, small local

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

It seems to be that fantasy films do cover most audience pleasures, changing from each as they seem to need to reach the audience in many different ways, such as disrupting the calm in peoples lives and in harry potter it is is very clear as there are many scenes where calm is disrupted and happiness is changed, the audience is shocked by the content.

My favourite genre is fantasy, this is because it brings such freedom to any movie, a normal situation can be turned into something magical, everyday life can become extraordinary, for example harry potter, which brought about a whole chapter in my life and has effected me to this day. Fantasy extends your childhood imagination and works on things you can only dream about. Fantasy can be anything and can occur at any time, for example pirates of the Caribbean a seemingly normal movie about pirates and damsels in distress turns into a story about living skeletons, octopus men and the fountain of youth, all occurring from a normal situation. The definition of fantasy is, the creative imagination; unrestrained fancy.

Harry potter and the deathly hallows part 1 fits into many audience theories, firstly in Maslow's hierarchy of needs harry potter fits into physiological needs this is because during the film, harry and his friends are living in the woods, travelling about and struggling for shelter. The basis of the film is how they have lost their previous lives, Hogwarts has been taken over and dismantled, it is no longer what it used to be it has been broken the pupils in it are struggling for safety and security. Really the film covers most of Maslow's hierarchy, slowly building and switching from the lower needs to the higher needs.