Glossary. Use these words in the right context.

De La Salle AS Media Studies Glossary

Anchorage - how meaning is fixed, as in how a caption fixes the meaning of a picture

Audience – viewers, listeners and readers of a media text. A lot of media studies is concerned with how audience use texts and the effects a text may have on them. Also identified in demographic socio-economic categories.

Binary Opposites – the way opposites are used to create interest in media texts, such as good/bad, coward/hero, youth/age, black/white. By Barthes and Levi-Strauss who also noticed another important feature of these ‘binary opposites’: that one side of the binary pair is always seen by a particular society or culture as more valued over the other.

Catharsis – the idea that violent and and sexual content in media texts serves the function of releasing ‘pent up’ tension aggression/desire in audiences.

Censorship – Control over the content of a media text – sometimes by the government, but usually by a regulatory body like the British Board of Film censors.

Code – a sign or convention through which the media communicates meaning to us because we have learned to read it. Technical codes – all to do with the way a text is technically constructed – camera angles, framing, typography, lighting etc. Visual codes – codes that are decoded on a mainly connotational level – things that draw on our experience and understanding of other media texts, this includes Iconography – which is concerned with the use of visual images and how they trigger the audiences expectations of a particular genre, such as a knife in slasher horror films.

Consumer – purchaser, listener, viewer or reader of media products.

Context – time, place or mindset in which we consume media products.

Conventions – the widely recognised way of doing things in particular genre.

Denotation – the everyday or common sense meaning of a sign.Connotation – the secondary meaning that a sign carries in addition to it’s everyday meaning.

Diegetic Sound – Sound whose source is visible on the screen

Non Diegetic sound – Sound effects, music or narration which is added afterwards

Enigma – A question in a text that is not immediately answered and creates interest for the audience – a puzzle that the audience has to solve.

Feminism – the struggle by women to obtain equal rights in society

Gaze – the idea that the way we look at something, and the way somebody looks at you, is structured by the way we view the world. Feminist Laura Mulvey suggests that looking involves power, specifically the look of men at women, implying that men have power over women.

Genre – the type or category of a media text, according to its form, style and content.

Hegemony – Traditionally this describes the predominance of one social class over another, in media terms this is how the controllers of the media may on the one hand use the media to pursue their own political interest, but on the other hand the media is a place where people who are critical of the establishment can air their views.

Hypodermic Needle Theory – the idea that the media can ‘inject’ ideas and messages straight into the passive audience. This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages. Used in advertising and propoganda, led to moral panics about effect of violent video and computer games.

Ideology – A set of ideas or beliefs which are held to be acceptable by the creators of the media text, maybe in line with those of the dominant ruling social groups in society, or alternative ideologies such as feminist ideology.

Indexical sign – a sign which has a direct relationship with something it signifies, such as smoke signifies fire.

Image – a visual representation of something.

Institutions – The organisations which produce and control media texts such as the BBC, AOL Time Warner, News International.

Intertextuality – the idea that within popular culture producers borrow other texts to create interest to the audience who like to share the ‘in’ joke. Used a lot in the Simpsons.

Media language – the means by which the media communicates to us and the forms and conventions by which it does so.

Media product – a text that has been designed to be consumed by an audience. E.G a film, radio show, newspaper etc.

Media text – see above. N.B Text usually means a piece of writing

Mise en Scene – literally ‘what’s in the shot’ everything that appears on the screen in a single frame and how this helps the audience to decode what’s going on.

Mode of Address – The way a media product ‘speaks’ to it’s audience. In order to communicate, a producer of any text must make some assumptions about an intended audience; reflections of such assumptions may be discerned in the text (advertisements offer particularly clear examples of this).

Montage – putting together of visual images to form a sequence. Made famous by Russian film maker Eisenstein in his famous film Battleship Potemkin.

Moral Panic – is the intensity of feeling stirred up by the media about an issue that appears to threaten the social order, such as against Muslims after 9/11, or against immigrants, or against ‘video nasties’ following the Jamie Bulger murder.

Multi-media – computer technology that allows text, sound, graphic and video images to be combined into one programme.

Myth – a complex idea by Roland Barthes that myth is a second order signifying system ie when a sign becomes the signifier of a new sign (2^ndyears only this one!)

Narrative code – The way a story is put together within a text, traditionally equilibrium- disequilibrium, new equilibrium, but some text are fractured or non liner, eg Pulp Fiction.

News values – factors that influence whether a story will be picked for coverage.

Non-verbal communication – communication between people other than by speech.

Ownership – who produces and distributes the media texts – and whose interest it is.

Patriarchy – The structural, systematic and historical domination and exploitation of women.

Popular Culture – the study of cultural artefacts of the mass media such as cinema, TV, advertising.

Post Modernism – Anything that challenges the traditional way of doing things, rejecting boundaries between high and low forms of art, rejecting rigid genre distinctions, emphasizing pastiche, parody, intertextuality, irony, and playfulness. Postmodernism favours reflexivity and self-consciousness, fragmentation and discontinuity (especially in narrative structures), ambiguity, simultaneity, and an emphasis on the destructured, decentered, dehumanized subjects! This is tricky!

Propaganda – the way ruling classes use the mass media to control or alter the attitudes of others.

Reader – a member of the audience, someone who is actively responding to the text.

Reception Theory (Hall) - Preferred Reading the interpretation of a media product that was intended by the maker or which is dictated by the ideology of the society in which it is viewed. Oppositional Reading – an interpretation of a text by a reader whose social position puts them into direct conflict with its preferred reading.Negotiated Reading – the ‘compromise’ that is reached between the preferred reading offered by a text and the reader’s own assumptions and interpretations

Regulation – bodies whose job it is to see that media texts are not seen by the wrong audience (eg British Board of Film Censors) or are fair and honest (EG Advertising Standards Association)

Representation – The way in which the media ‘re-presents’ the world around us in the form of signs and codes for audiences to read.

SFX – special effects or devices to create visual illusions.

Shot – single image taken by a camera.

Sign – a word or image that is used to represent an object or idea.

Signifier/Signified – the ‘thing’ that conveys the meaning, and the meaning conveyed. EG a red rose is a signifier, the signified is love (or the Labour Party!)

Sound Effects – additional sounds other than dialogue or music, designed to add realism or atmosphere.

Stereotype – representation of people or groups of people by a few characteristics eg hoodies, blondes

Still – static image.

Sub-genre – a genre within a genre.

Two Step Flow theory - the idea that ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population.

Uses and Gratifications – ideas about how people use the media and what gratification they get from it. It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives.

Ad Industry, things to remember.....

Production

Dove:
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a worldwide marketing campaign launched 
by Unilever in 2004 that includes advertisements, video, workshops, sleepover events and the publication of a book and the production of a play. The aim of the campaign is to celebrate the natural physical variation embodied by all women and inspire them to have the confidence to be comfortable with themselves. 

Dove's partners in the effort include such marketing and communications agencies as Ogilvy & Mather, Edelman Public Relations, and Harbinger Communications (in Canada). Part of the overall project was the "Evolution" campaign.

Consumers were asked to make judgment about a series of photos of women who didn't fit the glossy mag mould. Was a plus-sized woman oversized or outstanding? Was a woman with small breast half empty or half full?

Halo:
Halo 3 is a 2007 first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie for the Xbox 360 console. The game features vehicles, weapons, and gameplay not present in previous titles of the series, as well as the addition of saved gameplay films, file sharing, and the Forge map editor—a utility which allows the player to perform modifications to multiplayer levels. Microsoft spent $40 million on marketing the game, in an effort to sell more game consoles and broaden the appeal of the game beyond the established Halo fanbase.

On the day before its official release, 4.2 million units of Halo 3 were in retail outlets. Halo 3 grossed US$300 million in its first week. More than one million people played Halo 3 on Xbox Live in the first twenty hours. 

Gola:

Sports brand Gola Classics launched a print based ad campaign celebrating its British heritage.

Created by Huddersfield agency Sharp, the new ads feature models striking sporting poses at iconic London locations including the London Eye, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square and the Houses of Parliament.

The campaign comes with the new tagline 'Born in Britain' and carries the message that Gola's sportswear has been made on these shores since 1905.

Background/Context

Dove:
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty was conceived in 2004 after market research indicated that only 2% of women consider themselves beautiful. The campaign's mission is to "to create a world where beauty is a source of confidence and not anxiety." It was created by Ogilvy & Mather Brazil.

Halo:
Halo 3 is the third game in the Halo Trilogy and provides the conclusion to the events begun in "Halo: Combat Evolved".
While Halo 2's release had set industry records, the mainstream press was not fully involved in covering the game; part of Microsoft's strategy was to fully involve casual readers and the press in the story. 

Gola:
The Gola brand was born of humble beginnings in a small factory in 1905. Since then the brand has experienced a rollercoaster ride, surviving two World Wars and various other trials and tribulations to blossom in the 1960s and 70s as the pre-eminent sportswear brand. Today Gola keeps true to its roots and has become one of the most enduring and endearing sportswear and fashion brands in the UK. The 2012 campaign was launched at the time of the London Olympics and the 2013 campaign builds on that with the recurring theme of Britishness.

2011: Sharp Co Create.

The SHARP Agency has enlisted students to help create a new advertising campaign for Gola.

The Huddersfield agency was briefed to "communicate the Gola Classics brand in an aspirational way" following a pitch.

It then brought in a group of students from Huddersfield University to work out ideas that would resonate with young audiences.

Marketing/Promotion

Dove:
Relies on Scientific evidence as the language of persuasion. This is a particular application of the Expert technique. It uses the paraphernalia of science (charts, graphs, statistics, lab coats, etc.) to "prove" something. It often works because many people trust science and scientists.  It’s important to look closely at the "evidence," however, because it can be misleading.  
Dove 'researched' women's attitudes to themselves.

Also uses Plain folks.  (A type of Testimonial – the opposite of Celebrities.) This technique works because we may believe a "regular person" more than an intellectual or a highly-paid celebrity.  It’s often used to sell everyday products like laundry detergent because we can more easily see ourselves using the product, too. The plain folks technique strengthens the down-home, "authentic" image of products like pickup trucks and politicians. Unfortunately, most of the "plain folks" in ads are actually paid actors carefully selected because they look like "regular people.”

The Dove marketing campaign also provoked parodies such as this as some women found the ads patronising.




Halo:
While Bungie often partnered with other companies to create advertisements, they also produced their own video documentaries, or "ViDocs", detailing the behind-the-scenes development of aspects of Halo 3, including redesigning enemy Brutes, additions to multiplayer, and other game features. The first ViDoc was released shortly after the game's announcement and was a "making-of" style video, while the final ViDoc made its debut on September 20, 2007.

Gola:
Relies on Nostalgia. This is the opposite of the New technique. Many advertisers invoke a time when life was simpler and quality was supposedly better ("like Mom used to make"). Politicians promise to bring back the "good old days" and restore "tradition." But whose traditions are being restored? Who did they benefit, and who did they harm? This technique works because people tend to forget the bad parts of the past, and remember the good. See the folk music video.

Also relies on Timing. Sometimes a media message is persuasive not because of what it says, but because of when it’s delivered. This can be as simple as placing ads for flowers and candy just before Valentine’s Day, or delivering a political speech right after a major news event. Sophisticated ad campaigns commonly roll out carefully-timed phases to grab our attention, stimulate desire, and generate a response. Launched at the time of the Olympics. Couldn't use the Olympic logo due to IP laws.

Also uses Beautiful people. Beautiful people uses good-looking models (who may also be celebrities) to attract our attention. This technique is extremely common in ads, which may also imply (but never promise!) that we’ll look like the models if we use the product.

Regulation: Be sure to know what the ASA does when tackling a question on this.

Dove:
Women in some quarters found the campaign offensive.

Halo:
The game is rated "M" for Mature for blood, gore, violence, and mild language by the ESRB. Europe's PEGI rating system gave the game a "16+" rating, which serves as a guideline rather than as a rule. 

Gola:
The campaign could be said to be none representative of Britain because of the London centric nature of the posters. London is NOT Britain. There are no ethnic minorities represented. There is very rarely a clear blue sky in London! These aspects of the campaign could have drawn criticism.

Global implications

Dove:
Dove continues evolving to keep up with the changing world. By using advertisements with women from all age groups, the brand has a broad enough reach that all ages have developed trust and loyalty to its products. Two of the main ideas that keep Dove going strong are developing adaptive ways to market the brand while also keeping a smaller product base. By lowering their original amount of 1,600 brands to just 400, they were able to select master brands and categorize the remaining products under those to avoid confusion. 


Halo:
Halo 3 was released on September 25, 2007 in Australia, Brazil, India, New Zealand, North America, and Singapore; September 26, 2007 in the UK and Europe; and September 27, 2007 in Japan all exclusively for the Xbox 360.
The Halo 3 website indicates that it expects a global audience by asking it's users to state what part of the world they live in before entering.
In addition, the game has been  localized into 17 languages.

Gola:
Gola 'Born in Britain promotes Britishness to a mainly British audience. The campaign was launched in Berlin though which indicates ambition to sell to a European market.
The company hoped to ride the wave of patriotism brought by the Olympics.

Distribution/Exhibition

Dove:

The first stage of the campaign centred around a series of billboard advertisements, initially put up in the United Kingdom, and later worldwide. The spots showcased photographs of regular women (in place of professional models), taken by noted portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz.

The series received significant media coverage from talk shows, women's magazines, and mainstream news broadcasts and publications, generating media exposure which Unilever has estimated to be worth more than 30 times the paid-for media space

Halo:
European and US Distribution.
Internet sales as well as major retailers.

Gola:
http://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Manchester/Antwerp-Mansion/Born-in-Britain/11754166/

TV Industry, things to remember....

Targeting

Who is the target audience for the production? (age, race, gender, social class)

Why will the production appeal to this target audience?

What uses and gratifications will the target audience get from the production?

An active audience is one that actively engages with the text.

They do not simply accept every media message.

They question what they see and develop their own interpretation of a media product based on their

life experiences, education, family and cultural influences. Theories such as “Uses

 & Gratification” and “Postmodernist theory” assume that audiences are active.

A passive audience does not actively engage with a media text. A passive audience is one that does not question the message that the media is sending and simply accepts the message in the way the media outlet intended. ‘Top down’ theories of media influence tend to assume that audiences are passive. Theories such as “Hypodermic” assume that audiences are passive.

The Big Bang Theory

TBBT deals with the issue of geeks and their role or acceptance in society.

Write about what the word geek means, what are the positive and negative aspects of representation of  geeks within BTTB. Give examples. Use the episode we have looked at.

The Walking Dead

Zombies. Shamblers, moaners, walkers, undead, the risen, biters, crawlers, uglies. 

Mindless masses of once living humans craving human flesh.

How does this relate to messages that are given through the show?

Talk about moral panic here, do the young people imitate the comics. Do zombie fans expect or even want gore? Remember the complaints about too much sitting around the farm? 
Compare to other texts, Shaun of the Dead (comedic but includes violence) and Romero’s Night of the Living Dead where the violence was understated.

Life on Mars

Post Modernism and Passive and active audiences

Positioning

The Big Bang Theory
Positive and negative representation is relevant here: 
The general conception of nerds is that they are not good socially, especially around females, but the character Leonard from the hit comedy has no such problems. Leonard wears superhero shirts, wears glasses and possesses a comb over haircut, but he still manages to attract a girl who is deemed to be extremely attractive by himself and other people. It shows that people can look like nerds or/and like nerdy things such as computer games and comic books and still excel socially. 

 Nerds are known to lack physicality and be the victims of bullying.

'Words like Nerd and Geek have been reclaimed in recent years. It used to be an insult, now it just means you're into your stuff. That you're proud of what you love, it's about being enthusiastic. It's a liberation.' Simon Pegg

The Walking Dead
How does TWD use a range of shots to position the audience?

Life on Mars
Preferred, negotiated and oppositional reading with regards to Gene Hunt. (Stuart Hall)
Intertextual references. Historical context. 

Debates 

The Big Bang Theory
How does TBBT deal with the issue of a) Aspergers Syndrome b) Selective Mutism?

The Walking Dead

• Deviance (as referred to in Stanley Cohen 1972 - Moral Panic), actions or behaviors that violate social norms; 
  • media plays a part in defining and shaping social problems and perceptions of threat. 
  • This media representation and subsequent societal reaction may INCREASE the deviance and threat. “An initial act of deviance, or normative diversity (for example, in dress) is defined as being worthy of attention and is responded to punitively. 
• Do zombie fans expect or even want gore? Or, should zombie stories be homogenised (made uniform or similar) to fit a larger audience? Consider society's attitude to deviance.

Life on Mars

Consider the issues of Sam Tyler’s identity and his political correctness from 2006 and how this clashes in particular with Gene Hunt. Consider also how Sam's ethics and police methods clash with Gene Hunt's: a scientific approach verses instinct.

Teachers blame LOM for homophobic bullying

Responses

Consider:

Encoding/Decoding

Reception Theory. (Prefered, oppositional, negotiated reading. Stuart Hall)

Uses and Gratification theory. Blulmer and Katz

The Big Bang Theory
A humorous show with some intelligence.
Math-with-pictures, physics, fans might have a special appreciation of some visually nuanced humor attempts.

The Walking Dead
How has TWD has been encoded to gratify both passive and active audiences.

Life on Mars
How does the programme consciously show politically incorrect behaviour and attitudes for audiences to judge them in our time:

Important words about audience

demographic, profiling, uses and gratifications, target audience, preferred  reading,

dominant reading, viewing figures, fragmentation, niche audience, star image, watershed.

Music Industry, things to remember...

GENRE - Signifiers, Conventions, Iconography

Music videos have genre characteristics.

Certain features are expected out of a video depending on the genre of the music, for example girl bands/artists are expected to have dancers and close ups of the singers, whilst a Indi band are expected to have performance shots of the band and cut to a fast beat.

Theorists in Semiology tell us that the meaning a code communicates is always culturally determined.  This means that we learn codes and symbols as we grow up according to our society and culture.

Nirvana: Genre Metal/Punk/Pop = GrungePunk musical Characteristics present within Nirvana
• Singing style (elements of shouting and screaming)
•Instruments and effects used
•Simple musical structures (verse chorus verse,mostly containing a bridge)
•Some elements but not as purist as punk on Anti-establishment ideology
•Smashing instruments•Sloppy musicianship•Use of bar chords

Importance to industry (helping in creating a subculture)Grunge Fashion
•Clothing commonly worn by grunge musicians and fans consisted of clothes that was purchased from or looked like they were from charity shops
•Most common was checked/flannel shirts 
•A look that appeared un-kept (ripped jeans, baggy T-shirts, longish hair, anti superficial) 
•Grunge fashion was very anti “Flash/show off”

Miley Cyrus: Miley Cyrus is known for one genre - Pop, although if we study her work carefully, we discover that she plays and experiments with genre in different and interesting ways. 
New, emerging artists are often pigeonholed into clear, identifiable genres as these are safer to sell to audiences (who can recognise the genre codes to match with their preferences). Record labels are less likely to back more experimental artists as they are more of a commercial risk. 

• Cyrus remained fixed in this genre for a while e.g. with 7 Things

• The Climb features lots of country iconography, from the style of her guitar and the shot of her on a horse alongside a man in a cowboy hat. Her appearance had shorn the ‘Barbie’ look and she now appeared more worn and ‘lived in’ – again attempting to fit into the country scene and an older audience, following her Father. 

Cyrus was signed to Hollywood Records (a subsidiary of the Disney Corporation – for whom she had a television contract for performing as Hannah Montana). It was important, therefore, that she have a ‘wholesome’ image that were in line with Disney’s core values. However, when she turned 18, she was able to be marketed as a more adult version of pop. 

• Can’t Be Tamed appeared to feature more dance-beats and the video was more akin to a Beyonce release (including bondage clothing and sexualised dance moves – including pole-dancing on the bars of her cage) than an episode from Hannah Montana. The lyrics were also more adult. a clear move into the adult pop genre. 

Cyrus then took a few years out of the music scene. When she re-emerged, she was keen to shed the Disney image that had dominated her previous career. 

• Her image in videos such as We Can’t Stop and Wrecking Ball show a change in direction for Cyrus’s image. Perhaps because, by this point, she already had an established fan-base, she was able to play with genre codes.

Videos became controversially sexualised – lack of clothing and highly suggestive dance moves and actions (e.g. licking the head of a sledgehammer in Wrecking Ball). Less choreographed dance moves replaced with images of rebellion (e.g. outrageous parties in We Can’t Stop and the punk hairstyle that dominated the cover images on the Bangerz album.

In some ways, her experiments with genre represent what is in vogue at the time and are a form of identifying with rapidly changing fads and styles. "It is critical to each record company to continuously find new talents since the life of a 'hit' record is only from 60 to 120 days.

Her move to the image of a more ‘soulful’ musician came complete with an intertextual reference to Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2U music video, where she is shown crying in a close-up (referenced in Wrecking Ball).

Olly Murs:
Olly Murs the runner up in the Sixth Series of X-factor is arguably one of the competitions massive success stories, charting with hits such as "Please Don't let me go" and "Busy". 

Through his publicity material Olly is seen as casually dressed which reflects his music and personality, he is an artist who does not take himself seriously. This quality of his helps fans to easily identify with him as a normal boy next door type.

Olly has written an autobiography.
in which he invites you behind the scenes of his life with hundreds of brand new and exclusive photos.
'My life has been a non-stop roller-coaster of extreme emotions, crazy days, unexpected highs and yet my life hasn't been without its low points too. I've tried to imagine myself sitting down with you explaining what I was thinking and feeling during those times. I hope this book will give you a behind-the-scenes view of my journey into a place where I finally found what had been missing in my life for all those years: music.'

Olly uses the persuasive techniques of association, warm and fuzzy and plain folks to attract his audience.

Endearingly written with disarming honesty and filled with exclusive new and unseen photographs on and offstage, Happy Days takes you closer to Olly than you've ever been before

Us the iconography you looked at in Olly's videos if you are describing Genre here.

NARRATIVE - Structure - Conventions - Key Codes

Music video conventions; Andrew Goodwin Theory.

Illustration - Amplification - Disjuncture

Nirvana:
Heart shaped box video evokes a sense of mockery towards religion and modern day culture, perhaps a signifier of the “Grunge” scene that existed in the Seattle area of Washington U.S.A in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Miley Cyrus:
The fact that sheʼs shed the persona of Hannah Montana can be considered creepy and encourages much discussion on social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook.

See the PPt on Miley and the Male Gaze. Use this when you discuss Miley and Narrative.

Olly Murs: Olly usually seems confident and serious about his music but laid back, look for the key codes on his album covers and memorize for use in the exam.

REPRESENTATION - People - Places - Events/Issues

Nirvana: Kurt is rock's James Dean 

Miley Cyrus: Rep of women

Olly Murs: Strong family values

Audience responses

REPRINTED FROM EXPLORING THE MEDIA – ED BARBARA CONNELL

Audience Responses

Christine Bell

In this Section

• The ways in which audiences can be described.

• How audiences are constructed by the producers of media texts.

• How audiences- are positioned.

 The ways in which different audiences respond to, use and interpret texts. Our main area of focus is the relationship between the text and audience which is fluid and changing. In this postmodern, media-saturated world it is no longer acceptable to suggest that there is only one way of interpreting a text and only possible audience response. Audiences are not mass. They are comple and sophisticated in their responses. It is important also to consider the social and cultural experiences that affect audiences’ responses to a range of texts. In this section, the initial focus will be on the range of possible responses and not necessarily upon audience theories. However, the analysis of the response may lead to an exploration of relevant audience response theories.  It is important to move away from the idea that the meaning within texts is already embedded and unchanging and that all audiences respond to messages in title same way. Audiences are made up of individuals who bring social and cultural experiences to their interpretation of any text which may alter the messages they receive from the text. Audiences are not unquestioning consumers as has been suggested by theories in the past:.

 ‘Far from being turned into “zombies”, it has grown increasingly clear that audiences are in fact capable of a high degree of self-determination in the nature of the responses that they make to the products offered to them.’

(Stewart et aI., 2001, p.251)

 Audience Positioning

Stuart Hall, in his research [19731, suggested that texts were 'encoded' by the producers of the texts to contain certain meanings related to the social and cultural background of the creator of the text. However, once the reader of the text 'decoded' that text then the meanings intended by the producer may change. Hall then went on to suggest three main perspectives involved in the way in which an audience responds to a particular text. This involves how the audience ispositioned by the text and its subsequent response,

1. Preferred or dominant readings - this is where the audience interprets the text as closely to the way in which the producer of the text intended. If the social and cultural experience of the reader of the text is close to that of the producer then there is little for the audience to challenge. If you were a nurse you may well agree with the situations and narratives addressed in Casualty because they are within your breadth of experience.
2. Negotiated readings - this is where the audience goes through some sort of negotiation with themselves to allow them to accept the way in which the text is presented. You may agree with some elements of the text and disagree with others. This may mean the way in which you are positioned in a film where you are asked to empathise with a character you do not like, yet you are enjoying the film generally. You may need to adjust your viewpoint in order to get the most out of your viewing.
3. 3. Oppositional or resistant readings - this is where the user of the text finds themselves in conflict with the text itself due to their beliefs or experiences. For example, a narrative in a soap opera thatviews a woman who is having an affair sympathetically will encourage a resistant reading in a person whose culture is against adultery:

These perspectives,allow you to begin to understand thai one text cannot have a static meaning that is communicated in the same way to a mass audience. This concept should also allow us to challenge 'effects' theories that suggest that this is the case including the 'hypodermic needle' response which puts forward the idea that mass audiences are affected in a particular way by the contents of, and messages within, a specific text. What affects the way in which an audience responds to a text?

 Different audiences will respond to the same text differently according to:

• Gender - the relationships between the audience and text according to gender are complex. Men and women will respond to certain media texts in different ways. Certain research has shown that women prefer television programmes like soap operas that deal with narratives concerned with relationships and have strong female characters. Men, on the other hand, apparently prefer more factual programmes related to news and current affairs. However, there are obvious problems with such research as it is generalised and the men / women asked may respond in a way they think their questioner expects. It is commonly accepted that men too watch soap operas particularly those likeThe Bill. It is
• Also easy to say that women would respond to 'lads' mags' like Nuts and Zoo in a disapproving way - but how then to account for the women who send in their photographs to be published in these magazines or on the website?
• Situated culture - this concerns how our 'situation' - our daily lives, routines and relationships - can effect how we respond to media texts; where we are and who we are with has an effect upon our media consumption. Watching a film surrounded by friends or family will be a different viewing experience to one where you view a film alone. This response will change again if you are watching the film at home or at the cinema.

 Cultural experience - this is how our culture - our upbringing, experiences and beliefs - affect our response to a text. This also relates to how our understanding and our view of the world are shaped by our media experience. We may have never visited New York but our media consumption of film and television programmes have constructed a view for us. We may never have been in hospital but we feel knowledgeable about a range of medical procedures because our viewing habits include Holby City andER.

How texts construct and position audiences

Here we need to take a more complex approach to texts which go beyond basic content analysis. Texts can be said to construct an idea of their viewer / reader. This can be applied to an analysis of magazines where the magazine constructs an idea of Men's Health man or Glamourwoman. Here we can return to the work done on representation and consider the representations constructed by the magazines and the view of the world and related messages that they communicate to readers. Magazines offer discourse.

 The discourses of magazines make their topics and subject matter appear normal and make assumptions about the lifestyles and interests of their readers – hence the construction. McDougalllMcDougal, J. [20061 The media Teacher's Book]

suggests that discourses contained within the pages of Men’s Health include:

• Quick-fix problem solving.

• New male sensitivity.

• Male superiority / manipulation.

• Get a six-pack in six weeks.

• Male narcissism and society.

• How to look good.

• How to understand your girlfriend’s needs.

• If you understand her needs you will get what you want.

 Further evidence of the fact that magazines construct audiences can be found by looking at the press packs for magazines where reader profiles are set out. The reader information provided on the Men’s Health website states:

‘Who is the Men’s Health reader?

1. Late-20′s to mid-30′S, predominantly ABC1, a performance-driven achiever, self confident, open minded and adventurous,

2. Advanced in his career with the benefits of success translated into spending power.

3. Older and wealthier than the other major UK men’s lifestyle magazines with an appreciation of quality and an aesthetic eye:

In this way it can be seen that the producers of the magazine construct an idea of their audience and the articles in their publication will mirror and attract this ‘ideal man’.

 New Audiences – the interactive users

Our focus so far has been upon how different audiences respond to texts and what affects that response. It has been clear that audiences are complex and changing. With the advent of new technologies and formats including computer games and websites, audiences have become interactive users of the media who are in control and active in their choices, In a video / computer game the user can view the action from first- or third-person boint-of-view and can make choices about the narrative and the actions of the characters. Often the domain orthe male, as discussed earlier in this section, the computer game allows the male ambiguous control over female characters that have been created to be manipulated by him: ‘The terrain of computer games has become the site of erotic spectacle; in it the virtual heroine, as Mulvey described, plays to the male, holds his gaze, and is utterly and completely in his control.’ (Action Chicks, ed. Sherrie A Inness,2004)

Some analysts say that games interact with the user on a range of levels because of the immersion in the artificial world created and therefore the messages encoded in the game are more powerful and elicit a more profound respo.nse than in other formats that involve the audience. The experience of ‘gaming’ is therefore a more heightened one.

The ideas of autonomy and control can also be applied to the users of internet websites, where there is a wealth of information and experiences at your fingertips. But everyone will use the internet in a different way. Learning Point: The ways in which audiences are offered opportunities to use texts and become active is changing how we analyse audience responses.

The internet and web pages offer good examples of David Giuntlett’s idea of the ‘pick and mix’ audience. Here the audience uses texts -it ignores some aspects of them and choose the aspects that suit it at that time. The next time people play or search they may ‘pick and mix’ a different menu – the flexibility is there enable the user of these formats to do this.

Having come around to the concept of using the media to satisfy the needs of the audience at that moment, it may be time to give some consideration to an audience effects theory, ‘Uses and Gratifications’. This is one of the more useful theories as it assumes an active Irather than passive) audience and emphasises what the of media texts do with them rather than what the media does to the audience. However, the theory must be used with reservations as not all audiences have the needs suggested or use the media in this way. Blumler and Katz disagreed with earlier theories which placed the audience as a passive mass who could be influenced and would act upon messages communicated by the media. The Uses and Gratifications theory suggests that individuals and social groups use texts in different ways and the audience is no longer viewed as passive receiver.

 The identified needs of the audience were later refined as:

• Entertainment and diversion – as a form of escape from the pressures of everyday life.
• Personal relationships (social interaction – identification with characters and being able to discuss media texts with others.
• Personal identity – the ability to compare your life with that of characters and situations presented in media texts.
• Information/education – to find out and learn about what is going on in the world,