Q4. + Q5. Who would be the audience for your media product? How did you attract the audience?

For our media product we think that the primary audience for the opening sequence would be teenagers, possibly from a suburban background. We think that this would be the case because we are basing our characters around that sort of age range and from that kind of background. We have done this because we think that an audience of teenagers would relate to this film a lot more than adults would because the protagonists of the film are also teenagers. We tried to include the uses and gratification model so that our audience would be able to watch the opening and use it for their own pleasure or as a means of escape and hopefully to relax while watching it. We also wanted our audiences to be able to relate to the opening sequence and if it were  full film to be able to emotionally identify with the characters, hence the reason for using both sexes from different backgrounds in the opening. The secondary audience that we thought might be interested in the opening would be young adults, we thought that they might be able to relate with some of the more complex choices that the characters were making.

We also try and connect with the audience by using the costumes and the scripts for the characters, for example when we chose the costumes for our characters we made sure that they were all modern clothing that people would recognise or relate to something that they might wear. We made sure that the clothing was brought from recognisable shops such as H&M and Primark so that the clothing brands could be seen as something that suburban teenagers would be able to afford.

The Uses and Gratifications Model

This theory suggests that the audience are active when consuming a text, film, or television program. The audience use the media for their own pleasure, for example, diversion, escapism or for information.

And because the audience is in control of their experience with media, they are able to use it for relaxation, emotional satisfaction, and help with issues of personal and social identity.

Reception Theory

This theory considers how texts are encoded with deeper moral meanings, and how they are understood by the audience. Audiences will either understand the deeper meaning/message, or they will misunderstand or reject the idea. The audiences view is described as either:
Dominant- where an audience understands the meaning and generally agrees with it
Negotiated- where an audience neither agrees, nor disagrees with meaning, or holds no interest
Oppositional- where an audience understands the meaning, but rejects it, maybe because of cultural, political or ideological views they hold.