Identifying an Audience

Identifying an Audience

 

With anything there is always a wide range of audiences with many different perspectives when viewing a piece of material, these audiences have many different opinions that can be positive, negative or just befuddled with what they’re looking at. Modern audiences have a lot more independence and scepticism then it comes to being spoon fed information, they will often take it upon themselves to prove newfound information as fact themselves rather than take the word of the media. When technology was new and unexplored many audiences took what they were given and had little eccentric opinions on subjects.

 

The War of the Worlds radio broadcast in 1938 was a perfect example of audience reception being incredibly confused and panicked. The broadcast essentially described an alien invasion and without much guidance other than the radio broadcast itself the majority of the public was understandably confused and terrified by the catastrophe. At this point is completely alien for the media to purposely lie to the public, it was unknown to them to say anything except for fact. This ended up becoming an aberrant reading of the situation, as in truth the broadcast was an audio play which was not supposed to be taken seriously as a genuine announcement, and it was instead an original storytelling which had gone on air. Mass media had confused the public due to their broadcast which was completely unlike their other broadcasts which would just display the truth on air, so audiences took this new knowledge as truth.

 

There are four different ways a person can interpret material, reading them in several different ways, either understanding the media, not understanding it or interpreting it completely differently. This stems from Stewart Halls’ encoding Theory, which states that there are many different ways to read the same text due to varying perspectives and ideologies.

 

Preferred Reading – This is what the director of the material wants the audience to think, it is the reading which is intended to the public and the message that is supposed to be grasped.

 

Opposite Reading – This is the opposite of the preferred reading, where the message is received exactly opposite of what was intended, which often spurs confusion.

 

Negotiated Reading – A negotiated reading is similar to the preferred reading. The audience grasps the message however they develop their own opinion on the matter based on their own knowledge and get a different message to what was originally intended.

 

Aberrant Reading – This is when the message is interpreted in the completely wrong way, this may be due to a general lack of knowledge on the audience’s part however they do not manage to grasp the message whatsoever and develop a completely abnormal conclusion.

 

Another example was displayed in 1957 by Panorama, BBC; this displayed a short documentary on the harvesting of Spaghetti as a crop, which we know is not the way Spaghetti is created. This documentary follows the hypodermic needle theory, which generally states that the media can manage to brainwash the public audiences by saying certain things as facts to very passive audiences which take what they are given and they are lead to believe this things as truth. The documentary kept a very serious tone and went through the process of how spaghetti is harvested from crops before it is dried and then professionally prepared and served as food. These lead many audiences either confused or sceptic, the scandal was generally received by a negotiated audience. The audience understood that the documentary was a joke and knew that spaghetti was not actually grown on trees based on their own knowledge on the subject, these lead too many opinions and realised that the whole thing was simply a joke by the BBC. Despite this, the audiences were very passive and could have easily believed this to be fact as they are commonly lead to believe that everything on television is known as fact and it was uncommon to question that up until that point. BBC did a similar joke in 2008, with a short documentary styled advertisement about a unique group of penguins who could fly, displayed through the use of computer editing. This was a lot more recent than the spaghetti farm joke and audience at our time period are a lot more active rather than passive, meaning they are much more sceptical of the information which is commonly spoon fed to them and they are more inclined to go by things based on their own knowledge and findings rather than what other people say. Very few audiences found aberrant readings of the advert, not many actually believing the hoax to be true.

 

An advertisement was released by T-Mobile depicting the royal wedding in a much more modern and relatable image, simply named “T-Mobile Royal Wedding”. The advertisements had the royal wedding scrap the traditional ceremony and had many people who would have originally been walking down the aisle gracefully energetically dancing to a very up-beat song and outrageously expressive dance moves which would definitely not normally be in a formal wedding ceremony. The advert depicted the royal wedding in a different light in order to try and communicate a level of modern relevance and humorous portrayal of T-Mobile as a company. The advert attempted to make the royal family relatable, making them seem very light-hearted and energetic which would be empathised by young audiences. There were many ways to interpret this advert shown by various audiences. The preferred reading of the advert was to recognise that T-Mobile was attempting to portray itself as a very modern service which panders towards modern people of generally young ages by taking a very relevant stance on the royal wedding and making it seem very unique and funny. A negotiated reading would be one that understood the general idea that T-Mobile was using the royal wedding as a gateway to make themselves more relevant through a parody however doesn’t really understand how T-Mobile is relevant in any way to the advert so doesn’t understand it overall. An opposite reading would be one that takes moral offense to the advert, believing it may be parodying the traditional wedding ceremony in such a way that it is in offensive taste and it is a direct mockery of the royal family to portray them in such a way. This kind of interpretation might be existent in people with very conservative views and are protective of the monarchy, probably people over the age of 60 who have been alive long enough to appreciate the traditional forms of the country. Finally an aberrant reading would be one that fails to understand the message of the advertisement, potentially based on their lack of knowledge and may accidently interpret the advert as real footage of the royal wedding and not understand the relevance of the advertisement. Due to this advert being released in the time it was released it was easily exposed to viral advertising, the advert poked fun at the royal wedding which was a very relevant topic and so people who may have found it online or saw what company it was made by would be inclined to share it with others or talk about T-Mobile since they created the advert. Viral advertising is practically the golden result of any commercial or professional advertisement as it is insanely likely that the advertisement will gain viral popularity if it is interesting enough to be shared in such a way, gaining professional and also unprofessional attention.