Month: May 2015

I suppose that we can not discuss audiences without first discussing how audiences, essentially, control media content. In terms of the production of film and television, audiences have a major influence regarding what should be viewed or not.
For example, to make a film, funding is needed to create the project. This would require examination regarding  whether the idea in the first place would be popular with audiences. This sometimes mean that creative choices are limited, because something more controversial would lead to a refusal from audiences to view the created production. However, this is interesting, because something that is controversial would cause popularity with viewers, with wide discussion about a media project increasing interest in a media product.

An example of this would be the controversial comedy film, The Interview (2014). This film was controversial, due to the comedy being directed towards the dictator of North Korea during more turbulent times in the diplomatic relationship between North Korea and the United States. Eventually, the film was banned in the US, which caused a public uproar regarding the freedom of speech. Many critics believe that this reaction caused the films popularity, due to reports from critics that the film itself was an ‘average’ comedy. But due to the massive exposure of the film, there was more of an audience than initially thought, increasing the expectations of the box office.

With such a broad area of ’text’ it was a struggle for our group to come up with a solid idea for a text. Originally, we had the idea to create a blog relating to different media texts and the special relationship that individuals can have with them. For example, someone’s favourite television show, movie or book can create something special in an individuals life. But, upon group discussion, we realised that it would be a complex idea for our group, leading us to decide against this idea. Upon class feedback, we then decided to focus on how individuals gain access to the news. This would of been similar to our original idea, as we would have interviewed individuals who access the news differently. For example, someone who prefers television and someone who only access news and current events via their twitter/social media accounts. This idea, however, was also seen to broad during class discussion, which led us to the idea of the project. Inspired by the changing world of journalism, we decided to focus on the recent increase of twitter being used as sources by mainstream media. Today, tweets are being used as primary sources in news coverage, with screen shots being used in online and television reports. It is also used as eye-witness accounts, and has proven to be a very useful source for journalism. However, there has been countless examples where mainstream media has used social media to report incorrect news stories, due to an individual lying on social media. Sometimes, this has lead to major events. For example, television and internet media reacted swiftly when a fake tweet claimed that the President of the United States had been shot, leading to mass economic losses, due to the Dow Jones plummeting. However, the White House press secretary released a statement, stating that these claims made on social media were false. We based our made up news story on this. We decided to use a family dispute as the focus, based on an international custody dispute between an Australian mother and an Italian father over their four daughters. This led to a highly publicised case, in which the media was criticised for being too involved in such a private matter, such as displaying footage of the girls distressed as they were being physically taken away from their mother. We decided to choose a fake kidnapping case, in which the mother exploits the media to give her more of a case in gaining full custody of her daughter. We chose to record the story in a number of different media formats, such as twitters, internet news sites, current affair reports and traditional newspaper stories. We hope to reflect how the media uses the format of news, as well as the public reaction from such story. In this, our aim was to highlight how social media as a news source should be used with caution, and more research should be done by journalists before printing a story. Another example of this happening involved controversial blogger, Belle Gibson. Her claims that whole-foods and natural diet cured her of cancer was found to be untrue, only after she gained media attention and social media awards for her story. She admitted that it was untrue, and publications admitted that they should have done more research in to her claims, instead of only using her story as a source.  Overall, I feel that my group has worked well with the constructive criticisms made during the tutorials.

This week’s focus was on the idea of “audiences.” I think that the most clear explanation of audiences  to me, related to the discussion of “who cares about audiences.” Regarding commercial broadcasters and cable networks, I think that there extensive researchers into audiences and how to gain popularity though that research is interesting. Media productions would not be made as widely as they are today if it was not for the extensive reseraching into audiences and what the want to see most in a media product.

I also found the theory into “active” audiences interesting. I do believe that audiences are active when they take in the message of media texts, and I also believe that this reaction varies on the personal experiences and reactiosn of individual audience members. The work of social theorist, Roland Barthes, researches this extensively, with his overall theory stating “all media texts have an effect of audiences, some of the time.” It may be simplistic when said in those terms, however, it is true. A person gaining and interpreting information from a media text will spur different reactions, depending on outside factors. This includes if the individual is emotional due to circumstances outside the media text.

In context of this week’s readings, they both seem to question the importance of the audience. Jay Rosen’s shares his more complex view of audiences, regarding them as  “the people formerly known as the audience.” Rosen explores the changing face of audiences, as the general idea of media changes due to increasing technologies. An example of this instance would be from “printing presses” to blogging in general. The Henry Jenkins reading is similar in his explanation that there must be a change in what people view as “audiences”. However, Jenkins focuses more on the changes of changes and cultures, whilst Rosen focuses more on the general idea of change in media.