Audience Essay

When it comes to the audience in media there are two aspects which should be taken into consideration, whether it is a mass audience or active audience theory. The mass audience is the one which can manipulate many people and they all listen to what they are told but active audience are the individuals who think about what they are being told and interpret it. Horror films are designed to scare the mass audience but make the active audience interpret what they are viewing. They can be used as a form of escapism for some people as they overlap fantasy as well as being out of their comfort zone whilst watching. 

The hypodermic model suggests that the mass audience are injected with the information which they do not chose to interpret but take literally therefore they are seen to be brainwashed by the media. The effects model is used by high authority people to make the audience in a drugged like state to show their control over them. This in some ways can be seen within my horror movie due to the fact that the teenagers are being killed off due to old views therefore it can be interpreted that the director is trying to use this hypodermic effect to tell people to condemn all teenage behavior. 

Reception theory is the theory that suggests there are 3 views, the dominant, the negotiated and the opposition. The dominant view is the the one where the audience interprets the message in the way that the producer wants. The negotiated is where the audience see it in the way that the producer wants but also has a second opinion on it and the opposition view is when they do not agree at all with the dominant view. In my horror trailer this can be applied as the dominant view would be that it is scary, the negotiated view would be that it is scary in some parts and not others and the opposition view would be that it is not scary at all. 

Cultivation theory, this was suggested by Gerbner who said that the more time that people are exposed to media the more 'cultivated' they are when it comes to their perceptions of reality. His theory suggests that the more people concentrate and watch the media, the more mainstream out views will become meaning that there will never be a change in views. This related to my film trailer due to the fact that people would think that there is a lot of violence going on in the world if they were exposed to this form of media text for a long time and their view of reality would be that it is violent. 

The copycat theory suggests that people will copy what they see in the media therefore many killings in the world could have been triggered by the media. For example, the high increase of underage gaming means that children are more exposed to open killing on games such as GTA and even SIMS due to the fact that they can kill people and get away with it. The theory suggests that people will copy what they see and the most recent example is the child play 3 killings that were though to be triggered from that. This does not relate to my movie trailer as I do not want to be giving across the message that people should go out and kill teenagers for their antisocial behavior.

Finally the catharsis theory suggests that the large amount of exposure to violence is justified by the concept of catharsis. By watching the tragic events within a characters life it is said to cleanse our own meaning that it will do good for individuals as well as society to be cleansed. The main point about catharsis theory is that the imaginary aggressive behavior does not actually have to be competed in real life but only in the make believe. This relates to my film trailer due to the fact that people can be cleansed by watching my film as they will constantly be seeing tragic moments for my characters.