Industry and audience power essay

This week's work has explored media industries and whether the internet has given audiences more or less power in the media.

This is a crucial media debate and over the course of the GCSE you need to develop your own opinions on these questions. We will be using this particular topic to start developing our essay writing skills in preparation for the longer, high-mark exam questions.

Blog task: industry and audience power essay

Create a new blogpost called 'Industry and audience power essay'. Then, use the following guidance to help you write the essay on your blog:

Essay question: “The internet has given audiences much more power than ever before.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Word count: 500-800 words

Optional essay plan
You may find the following useful. However, you do not have to follow it exactly and will be credited for alternative or original responses that are convincing and highly effective.

Introduction (50 words): Thesis Statement (setting out your argument)

• Introduce the question and how it will be answered. Summarise how the internet has changed the position of the audience (consumer) in relation to the producer. 
• Explain what your own argument is: do you think that the internet makes the audience more powerful or less powerful and why? 

Music Industry: (150-250 words)
What changes have happened to the music industry since the rise of the internet?

Advantages for audiences:

• What are some examples of how audiences have benefited from the rise of digital media in the way that they access and consume music? Think about downloading and what platforms users are using to access music. 
• Think about ‘bedroom bands’ and subscription services such as Spotify and Apple Music. How do these services and opportunities help the audience? 

Disadvantages for audiences:

• What are the benefits of word of mouth advertising (and re-tweets, shares etc) for the producers? 
• What might happen to music artists if audiences are unwilling to pay for their music?
• What are the issues for audiences in having so much content available to them?

Film and TV Industry (150-250 words)
What changes have happened to the film and television industry since the rise of the internet?

Advantages for audiences:

• What are some examples of how audiences have benefited from the rise of digital media in the way that they access television and film? Think about downloading and new platforms for film and television.  
• Think about piracy and Apps such as Showbox: what do they offer to the consumer? 
• What about subscription services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. How do these services and opportunities help the audience? What content is available to them? What about when they can watch?

Disadvantages for audiences:

• What potential issues are there with ‘binge-watching’ TV series?
• How might watching TV shows and films on a small screen (e.g. phone) affect the viewing experience?
• Why are companies producing less interesting films and TV shows? (E.g. sequels and reboots)

Newspaper Industry (150-250 words)
What changes have happened to the news industry since the rise of the internet?

Advantages for audiences:

• How has the internet changed the way audiences can access news?
• What is Citizen Journalism and how has it given the audience more power over reporting and receiving the news?

Disadvantages for audiences: 

• What is fake news? Why is this a problem for audiences?
• Are there any problems or concerns with citizen journalism? 

Conclusion (50 words)

• Have you answered the question with a clear conclusion? Have you demonstrated that the internet makes the audience more powerful or less powerful and why?

Complete this essay for homework - due Wednesday 12 December. Remember: the word count MINIMUM is 500 words. 

Audience: Effects theory

As well as studying target audience and reception theory, we also need to explore WHY audiences enjoy using and interacting with the media and what effect the media has on them.

This means learning a range of audience theories to add to our work on Stuart Hall's Reception theory. 

Audience theory: key notes and terminology

Passive & Active

Passive: This is the view that audiences passively take in information from the media and that these messages have the same effect on everyone.

Active: This is the more modern and generally accepted view that audiences interact with and make conscious choices regarding the media they consume.

Hypodermic Needle Theory

This is the suggestion that audiences are always passive and therefore take the intended message from the producer as if it was injected into their minds. This assumes no individual difference in audience members. 

Two-step flow theory


This is the theory that consumers form their opinions based on opinion leaders like newspapers, politicians and, nowadays, celebrities.

Uses and Gratifications - Blumler & Katz

INFORMATION/SURVEILLANCE: learning information that you did not already know or that is useful for living (e.g. documentaries; weather or traffic). 

IDENTITY: personally relating to something - seeing your lifestyle on screen.

DIVERSION/ENTERTAINMENT: escapism and being entertained away from your normal life.

RELATIONSHIPS: social interaction, caring about characters or celebrities, forming relationships e.g watching a soap opera for a long time because you care about what happens to long-standing characters.

The 3 Vs

VISCERAL PLEASURE: Physical thrill of watching something e.g hairs on the back of your neck in a horror film, sport, big explosions. 
VICARIOUS PLEASURE: Experiencing something through the characters. 

VOYEURISTIC PLEASURE: Watching people e.g hidden camera shows / elements of reality TV like Big Brother.

Audience theory: blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called ‘Audience Effects Theory’ and complete the following tasks:

1) Write a definition of a passive audience: 

2) Write a definition of an active audience: 

3) Write a definition of the hypodermic needle theory: 

4) Write down a media text for each category of Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory and WHY it fits that particular audience use/gratification: 

INFORMATION/SURVEILLANCE:  
 > Why:

IDENTITY:
 > Why:  

DIVERSION/ENTERTAINMENT: 
 > Why:

RELATIONSHIPS:
 > Why: 

5) Re-watch the clip from Blue Planet above and write a paragraph analysing how elements of the clip offer the audience pleasures or gratifications (use media terminology from Uses and Gratifications theory and the 3 Vs - notes outlined above). 

Extension: To take this further, select a media text of your own choice, embed it in your blog and write another detailed paragraph analysing the audience pleasures in that product.

Finish for homework if you don't complete it in the lesson - due next Thursday.

Audience: Reception theory

Reception theory is an important media theory exploring how audiences respond to media texts.

Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist who looked at the relationship between the text and the audience. He suggested that meanings are fluid and open to interpretation depending on context and the consumer’s experiences as individuals as well as communities.

Hall states there are three readings to any media text:

Preferred reading

The meaning the producers intend to communicate. This builds on the idea that producers can position the audience in a certain way and influence their reading so they accept the intended message by using recognised codes and conventions (such as stereotypes).

Negotiated reading

Somewhere between the preferred and oppositional reading. The message is modified (partly accepted and partly rejected) depending on the individual experiences of the audience (e.g their age, gender or social class).

Oppositional reading

The oppositional reading goes against the meaning the producers are trying to create. The audience reject the intended message and construct an opposite reading instead. This can be due to their own social, political or moral beliefs and values. 

Reception theory: blog task

Create a new blogpost called 'Reception theory'.

1) What is the preferred reading of a media text?

2) What is the oppositional reading of a media text?

Re-watch the trailer for the film Harry Brown:

3) How does the Harry Brown trailer position the audience to respond to the teenage characters in the film?

4) Why might young people reject this reading and construct an oppositional reading of the trailer?

Look at this McDonald's advert:

5) Write a 200 word analysis of the McDonald's advert using preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings.

6) Now find your own advertisement and write a 200 word analysis using preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings.

Extension task: 

Watch the rest of the Plan B TEDx lecture about his plan to help disadvantaged young people through film and music. Do you agree that he presents a positive view of young people?


Finish for homework if you don't complete this during this week's lessons - due next Thursday.

Audience: Demographics & Psychographics

The first aspect of the Audience key concept we need to study is how media companies target and classify audiences.

In order to do this, we need to learn about audience demographics and psychographics. These are two crucial aspects of how audiences are classified and identified by media companies. 

Notes from today's lesson on Audience

Demographic classification:

• Age
• Gender
• Education
• Social class
• Race/ethnicity
• Job/profession/earnings
• Home (city/village/countryside)

Social class classification

Advertisers have traditionally classified people into the following groups:

• AB – Managerial and professional 
• C1 – Supervisory and clerical 
• C2 – Skilled manual 
• DE – Unskilled manual and unemployed

Audience profiles

Advertisers these days are interested in more than just a social class classification. Now they try to sell a brand or lifestyle.

So you also need to think about the kind of brands your audience will be interested in.

Armani and Porsche? Banana Republic and Apple? John Lewis and The Times? Nike and PlayStation? Peppa Pig and Haribo?

Psychographics


Media companies use audience profiling to create a more detailed picture of their audience. One method is called psychographics and involves looking at the audience's personality, interests and the brands and lifestyle they enjoy.

Audience profile Photoshop task

Create an audience profile for a magazine of your choice using Photoshop.

First, use demographics: Age, gender, education, social class, race/ethnicity, job/profession/ earnings, home (city/village/countryside).

Then write some statements that your target audience agree with. Look at the NME example for inspiration. Statements such as 'It's important to look good' or 'Enjoy life and don't worry about the future' work well for this part of the profile.

Then use brand logos that the audience will use or enjoy and build them into your profile.

NME magazine example:

Make sure you save your audience profile in your folder on the Media Shared drive - we will be adding to it in future lessons as we learn more about audience!

GCSE Media assessment: learner response

Well done on completing your first GCSE Media Studies assessment - it's an important first step in identifying our strengths and weaknesses in the subject so far.

The first part of your learner response is to look carefully at your mark, grade and comments from your teacher. If anything doesn't make sense, ask your teacher - that's why we're here! 

Your learner response is as follows:

Create a new blog post called 'October assessment learner response' and complete the following tasks:

1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

2) Read the mark scheme for this assessment carefully. Write down the mark you achieved for each question:

Q1:
Q2:
Q3: etc.

Where you didn't achieve full marks, write WHY you think you missed out on the extra marks. Use the indicative content suggestions in the mark scheme to help with this.

3) Did you get any media terminology wrong in the assessment? Make a note of it here for future revision:

4) Identify one of your stronger questions. Why did you do better on this question?

5) Identify one of your weaker questions. Why did you score lower on this particular question?

6) Re-draft your answer to Q9 and type it out in full. Use the mark scheme to identify anticipated content you can add to your response and make sure your typed re-draft is a top-level answer of at least three paragraphs. 

If you do not finish your learner response in the lesson your work is returned, this needs to be completed at home by your next lesson.