Audience Theory

Audience is a fundamental part of film as an industry and commercial market, revolving around the relationship and understanding between the producer and consumer of the product. Films can have a mass audience, like a summer blockbuster, or a niche audience, like a regional independent film. However audiences aren't just determined quantitatively, other variables can include nationality, gender, age and ethnicity. In this post I am going to explore and review different audience theories and their relevance to my own short film, and use this research to determine an audience for my own product. 

Relevant Audience Theories

Reception Theory

Reception theory emphasises the importance of individual interpretation. It sees the meaning as not something which lies inside the text or the product, but as something which is shaped by the consumer's individuality and experiences. Therefore it sees meaning as an abstract and personal idea, to which there is never a definitive answer. 

Encoding/Decoding Model of Communication-Hall

Seen as a strand of reception theory, Hall proposed this model in 1973. It focuses on how meanings are encoded within a text through verbal (words/signs/images/videos) or non-verbal (gestures/expressions/body language) symbols which the audience then decode. However unlike Reception Theory, there is an intended meaning to be decoded and failure to understand it highlights either a lack of agreement between consumer and producer, or the lack of clarity in the product itself. There are three types of decoded positions:

1. Dominant-Hegemonic Position: The audience decode the meaning exactly as it is intended. 
2. Negotiated Position: Audiences acknowledge the dominant meaning, but do not necessarily accept it the way the encoder intended.
3. Oppositional Position: Audiences acknowledge the dominant meaning but reject it based on their own experiences and ideologies. 

I like both of the above theories, I think it gives both the producer and consumer power over the product. The producer will create an intended meaning, and the audience will decode it and take different feelings away from it. I hope to replicate this interpretative philosophy in my own work.

Uses and Gratifications Theory- Blumler and Katz

The Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT) is seen as an expansion of Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs from 1970. It explores why people indulge in the media and what they use it for. It sees audiences as active consumers who consciously choose media products which fulfil certain personal requirements, like the desire to enhance knowledge, to relax, to establish social companionship (mainly through social media), or as a form of escapism. UGT is an assumption that audiences have control of their media consumption, shaping their individual needs into an expression of identity. For example I am currently watching the TV show Vikings as a way of escaping contemporary pressures and immersing myself in a different culture in order to relax, so I am overlapping multiple uses of this model. 

Because it is such a broad theory, it will only apply to my short film through the sub-category of entertainment media, which focuses on how we emotionally engage with the visual story/characters unfolding on screen. However, this theory is about how audiences interpret and engage with the media as individuals, not how the producer wants them to engage with it, so I'm afraid this is not as relevant as the other two I have presented. The Reception Theory and Encoding/Decoding revolve around an understanding and acceptance of the relationship between media producers and consumers, whereas the UGT solely analyses consumers. 

Hypodermic-Syringe Model-Adorno

Quite the opposite of the Uses and Gratifications Theory, the Hypodermic Model expresses that audiences are passive consumers, and that the mass media use their influence to compel audiences into accepting the message being delivered. Again this is not really applicable to my own production; it is focusing on the media at an institutional level and analysing the media from a sociological/capitalist perspective. Perhaps when I make my poster and my magazine review page this theory will hold more value because the marketing of a film does operate at an institutional level.  That being said, for now the only aspect of the Hypodermic-Syringe Model worth taking away is that I will want to convey my own distinct message in the film, but I am less concerned with enforcing one singular meaning, and would rather the audience interpret my intended message uniquely, like most philosophical films allow. 

Obstinate Audience Theory

This proposes that audiences are active consumers and select what messages to pay attention to. In a way this could be seen as intelligent and cautious, actively engaging with the media and being selective, or alternatively it could be naive and stubborn, disregarding certain messages because it doesn't conform to your ideologies. For example some people may disregard the film Spotlight due to its subject matter and exposure of the Church's child abuse, undermining a religious institution, or think that films like American Sniper and Lone Survivor glorify American warfare, whereas others see it as honouring a real-life hero. Although I think that this can't be imposed on my work, I think that it has underlying similarities with the Reception Theory and how audiences will shape their own viewpoint on situations. 

Rejected Theories

Two-Step Flow Model-Katz and Larzasfeld

The Two-Step Flow of communication revolves around a hierarchy. Information from the mass media is interpreted by an opinion leader, who's ideas and opinions are valued by other people. The original information is then delivered to the other people through the opinion leader, who delivers their interpretation of the information. The Hypodermic-Syringe Model would be an example of a One-Step Flow, where the information is directly passed from the institution to the consumers. But here it goes from the institution to a consumer, where it is then filtered to a wider audience. A relevant context is how film critics see films before their official release. A One-Step Flow would be where a film is released in cinemas and consumed by the audience, but a Two-Step Flow will be where the critic watches the film and expresses his opinion about it to the readers before it has become available for their own interpretation. 

I am going to discard this theory because it focuses on the way information is received by different layers of audiences, and is about informative manipulation beyond the hands of the producer, which makes it insightful but pointless to me. 

Primary/Secondary/Tertiary Audience Engagement-Turnstall

Turnstall analyses the level of attention that audience's maintain when viewing a media product. Primary Engagement will be classified as audience's going to the cinema to watch a film or having a movie night with friends, where the sole intention is to engage with the film. Secondary Engagement could mean watching a TV show on Netflix while chatting to your friends on your mobile, multitasking. And finally Tertiary Engagement displays the film as a piece of background amusement, to which little focus is paid. As you can probably see this is not relatable to my own task because it expresses a psycho-analytical investigation into audience's mindsets, and doesn't achieve anything but state the possible contexts in which the viewers engages with the media. 

Ideological State Apparatus (ISA)-Althusser

Althusser was a marxist and saw mass media as a capitalist way of gaining conformity from audiences. Apparently the mass media operates in a way that transmits the dominant ideology to the audience, who internalise it and become cooperating members of the system. The reason why I rejected it is because although I still agree with Althusser regarding media like the news, advertisements and newspapers, when it comes to film I think that the credibility of the ISA has been made quite redundant. Through indie film and the more free expression of ideas and stories in the 21st Century I feel like this approach has become dated and is a true analysis of the past, but no longer applies to the present. 

With certain theoretical studies offering useful insights, particularly the Reception Theory and Hall's Encoding/Decoding, I believe I am ready to start looking at audience on a personal basis, accepting the broader theories but acknowledging that they may not be useful to me in deciding a target demographic.