revision

- 5 points of regulation for the BBFC
Strong threat and horror
Must not endorse discriminatory behaviour
May be strong language
No restraints on nudity in non sexual context
Drugs may be shown not endorsed

intro
5 points/para

The film i have chosen to study is the 2014 action, adventure, comedy text 'Kingsman: The Secret Service'.  

LO4: Audience Research

Starter:

RAJAR - Radio Joint Audience Research
NRS - National readership survey
BARB - Broadcasters audience research board

Section A
Analyse the data collected by the organisations.

LO6: Starter

Starter:
1) Passive and active audiences
2) Hypodermic syringe theory, uses and gratifications, encoding/ decoding - audience background and individual experience plays a part on how they read a text.
3) GTA 5 etc

BBFC - British board film classification
Provides age rating or certificate/ protects the public from violent or inappropriate content.
Used to be called British Board of Film Censors. - Blocking/ prevention = Protectionism.

Changed its name in 1984 - From early 80's home video was present, video recording act (1984) brought in to prevent/reduce  'video nasties' 

Passive/ Active audience theory LO6

The main point of the article is that the bbfc has incorrectly given the Dark Night Rises a 12A film certificate apposed to a 15.
I agree with this as within the film there is heavy use of dark themes which are not seen to be suitable for younger audiences in addition to the sadistic nature of the protagonist portrayed in the film.

Passive audience theory
Hypodermic syringe theory - implies that media has a negative impact. Mass audiences  believe everything they see/hear (Adorno and Horkheimer). Started the rise of consumerism.
The model does not hold much positivity for the audience, however its is a good method for media producer, politicians and also towards the use of marketing.
1957 vance packard 'hidden pursuaders' book

When the 'mass media' demonise groups, people or products that they believe become a threat to society, values and interests it is called a 'moral panic' (Stanley Cohen 1972)
The group/ products are refereed to as 'folk devils'

Violence in the media?
Anderson (2007) that high exposure to fast paced violent games can lead to changes in brain function when processing violent images, including dampening of emotional responses to violence. This is known as desensitisation.
Ferguson (2012) showed no long term link over three years.

Media which affects society
Facebook results in:

Comparing yourself to your Facebook friends is depressing

Your mood is affected by what your Facebook friends post 

Lurking or feeling ostracized on Facebook hurts your self esteem 

Breaking Bad - Blamed for drug use and anti social behaviour
GTA 5 -  Banned in thailand/ violent attacks.
Marlyn Manson - Violent music inspired violent attacks/ blamed for social deviance.

Representation
Who is being represented?
All representations are mediated (Hall, 1980)

Is there use of stereotypes/ counter types (perkins, 1979) Not all stereotypes are negative.
Representations of women - Are they objectified (Mulvey 1975)
Representations of men ( Earp and Katz, 1999)
Representations of gay people (Butler, 1993) - are they stereotypical.

Alvardo (1987,  Hall (1995) - ethnicity, exotic, dangerous, humorous pited.
Turton (2014) - Youth are seen as hooligans, trouble causers, black and Asian boys.
Llyod (1995) girls as double deviant- trouble causers but shouldn't be because they are women.



Kingsman - The film was criticised for the church fight scene which featured a large amount of senseless violence.

So perhaps you did have fun seeing Colin Firth dispatch a church full of racist, anti-semitic, abortion-damning, atheist-scorning, potentially inbred humans who just happened to be Christians too. And perhaps you felt wrong about feeling that way when the last body hit the floor. (http://www.flicks.co.nz/blog/a-man-of-100-words/does-the-church-scene-in-kingsman-cross-the-line)

Active Audiance theory
Other school of thought - we are able to filter and adapt to content in media (Gauntlett, 1995)
We have uses and gratifications(McQuai, 1972) theory - people use media for their own purposes?
Provides a more positive outlook on the effects of media.

Hall (1980) encoding/ decoding model
Preferred reading - by audience depending on their background but accepts the dominant viewpoint/ story.
Negotiated reading - partially agrees with meaning
Oppositional reading - meaning understood but don't agree and think opposite.
Aberrant - gets the completely wrong meaning entirely.

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/browse/Kingsman_The_Secret_Service

LO4 Understand the target audiences of media products + Audience Theory

LO4 Understand the target audiences of media products + Audience Theory

Starter:
Demographic - Specific characteristics or variables of a target audience eg. age, gender etc.
Conglomerate - A company that owns subsidiaries.
Horizontal integration - A conglomerate can market a media product through its subsidiaries.
Audience - The people who view a media product.
Independent - A company that's not owned by a conglomerate or own subsidiaries. Often only works in one sector.
Niche - A small specific target audience/ specific small demographic.
Mass - A large/ mainstream target audience.

John Hartley (1987)
All media products have 'invisible fictions' before they are made.

Ien Ang (1991)
All media producers have 'imaginary entities' in mind before there production.

LO4: Uses and gratifications theory

Denis McQuail (1972) - Uses and gratifications theory
There are four reasons why people consume or gain pleasure from media products.

1. Surveillance - To find information about the world. Eg. documentaries
2. Escapism - Escape to a fantasy world/ ideal self/ break from reality.
3. Building personal identity - Shaping yourself/ personality based on the fictional characters/ used a role models.
4. Building personal relationships - Which means a media product provides a topic of conversation.

Kingsman offers the gratification of escapism as it provides a life which is not seen by many whilst also being heavily exaggerated for dramatic effect. This is because the themes of spy's is seen throughout and this is not seen regularly in the public eye consequently resulting in a natural intrigue and air of suspicion allowing them to escape from reality and have an insight into the life.

Kingsman Audience

Kingsman
Age: The age range for kingsman is aimed at 12 - 60, this is because the film is entertaining and has both comedic and action scenes therefore making it appeal to a larger audience. Additionally, this would appeal to older audience as it has nostalgic aspects due to it sharing similar themes to that of older spy movies.

Gender: The majority audience for this film is largely male dominated (60/40 split), this is because within the film there is heavy use of guns, violence and actions scenes which is often synonymous with this demographic.

Social grade: 60% ABC1

LO4 Understand the target audiance of media

1) What is audience research and how can it be conducted?

Audience research is gaining data about the audience for a product which also allows a product to be targeted/ media institutions to find a gap in the market , this can be conducted through things such a surveys. Organisations such as BARB, NRS, RAJAR carry out this.

NRS - They collect audience research for print and advertising trading in Britain. The NRS collect data through grouping audience through their age, gender, income and ethnicity.

BARB - Is responsible for delivering the united kingdoms television audience measurement systems.
Cover five questions when collecting data :
Who is watching?
What are they watching?
When are they watching?
Which screen are they watching on?
How did the content get to the screen?

RAJAR - RAJAR is the official body in charge of measuring radio audiences in the UK.

Primary Research - Survey, questionnaire, interview, textual analysis.
Secondary Research - Information that you gather eg. Internet search, books/journals, newspapers, documentaries.

LO3 Theories of representation

Starter
1) Theorists which discusses gender representation: Vladimir Propp

Representation - How the media shows us things about society - but this is through careful mediation.

Kingsman Plot: The main plot follows a spy organisation which recruits a unrefined yet promising street kid into the organisations ultra competitive training program, just as a world wide threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.

KT1: Tim O'Sullivan et al (1998)
FOR representations to work, there has to be a shared recognition of people and places. All representations therefore have ideologies behind them.
Ideology refers to a set of ideas which produces partial and selective view of reality.
The partial repersentation of the current youth and possible gang culture.

KT2: Richard Dyer (1983)
Audiances should question the repersentations they see in media texts.

KT3: Laura Mulvey (1975)

Male gaze.

Women are objectifies in media texts and passive objects.

Audiances are positioned to view the women from the point of view of a hetrosexual male.

Within my chosen film there is little use of females however the sidekick styled character of the antagonist is seen to be objectified and follow this theory, this is achieved through the use of the  micro elements in the mise en scene, most noticably the costume

KT4: Stuart Hall (1995)
Western/ white cultures continue to misrepresent ethnic minorities as in the media due to underlying racist tendancies.
E.g. non white as 'the other', evil, barbaric

Edward Said (1987) -Common reprsentaion of ethnic minorities, especially affro carabian  Seen to be: Hummorous, exotic, danger ...

John Berger (1972)
'Men act and women apear'
- "Writing in 1972, Berger insisted that women were still ‘depicted in a different way to men - because the "ideal" spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him’" - http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/gaze/gaze08.html

This theory is also similar to that of Laura Mulveys theory of the male gaze.