Audiences and institutions

1. Audiences and institutions L.O- To understand the key points for section B

2. Section B, Audiences and institutions expects you to have an awareness, supported by case studies, of the film industry. • The types of questions that you can expect are as follows • Discuss the issues raised by an institution’s need to target specific audiences within a media industry which you have studied’. • ‘The UK film industry, what must it do to flourish?’ • ‘Discuss the ways in which media products are produced and distributed to audiences within a media area which you have studied’. • ‘What is the impact of New Media Technologies on the film industry? • You will have 45 minutes to answer this question.

3. For the exam you will need to: • Understanding how media institutes currently operate • Understand how the media target their audience • Understand the key areas of: • Production • Distribution • Exhibition • Consumption • Understand how new media technologies have had an impact on these key areas • Know and show awareness of the difference between the USA and Uk film industry

4. Key terms • Proliferation – the increase of films in a genre or the use of technology, etc.Are your focus films in a particular genre? Are they benefiting from new technology, including software in their production, editing and distribution? Are they available for downloading from the Net. • Synergies – this involves the benefits of working within a larger organisation or working in co-operation with other companies. Does, for instance, Film4 benefit from being part of being Channel 4? Disney is one of the biggest examples of synergy • Cross media convergence – how does the institution and its film(s) benefit from the coming together of other technologies, i.e. the internet, digital downloading, television, cinemas, mobile phone promotions, Youtube, play-station 4, digital games, etc. Think about the work we did on web 2.0- this is an example of media convergence, using things like youtube to show work

5. Discourse- A way of speaking, thinking and understanding that becomes powerful and appears natural. The ways in which we come to understand the world through ways of talking, thinking and writing that become dominant • Ideology- A dominant set of ideas presenting itself as common sense or truth. Power relations are reinforced through ideology • Web 2.0 – the second phase of the internet where the focus has shifted from people receiving information and services, to people creating and sharing material • Vertical integration- when a media company profits from all aspects of production, distribution and consumption/exhibition

6. Media in everyday life • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWNXg7Vt-ig • Thinking about what David Gauntlett has said, what is the impact of the audience of the way that the media produce and distribute their products?

7. The audience –What does the concept mean? • Previously the audience had been easier to identify (see work sheets) • However the audience could now be seen as a much more fluid concept • The audience as producers • Remix culture/ sweded videos and fan montages/ remix culture • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAvkFS_cgk&feature=player_embedded • http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&ref=nf&gid=189974734041

8. Using the magazines create a detailed audience profile for these magazines • Who is the audience for these magazines? • What are the uses and gratifications for this?

9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8D9ksRJ5PY • Proliferation of youtube parodies

10. Uses and gratifications 1960’s • Diversion- escape from everyday life • Personal relationships • Personal identity • Surveillance • Information/learning/personal identity/integration and social interaction/ entertainment

11. Readings of the text • Reception theory- based on the idea that no text has one single meaning • We decode the texts we encounter in individual ways • David Morley- he said there are three main types of reading for any media text • Dominant (hegemonic)- the reader shares the programmes codes and accepts the preferred reading • Negotiated reading- the reader partly shares the programmes codes but modifies it in a way which reflects their position and interests • Oppositional (counter hegemonic) the reader does not share the programmes code and rejects the preferred reading bringing an alternative frame of interpretation e.g a feminist reading of a lads mag.

12. Distribution • BFI screen online • Film distribution association (FDA) • http://www.launchingfilms.com/databank/factsandfigures.php?name=Top+20+films+in+US+cinemas

13. Exhibition • James Cameron's 3D film changing the way we watch films? • How much did Avatar really cost? by Vanity Fair • The articles above are important for understanding the issues around technological convergence and how it affects the ways we consume films. They also reveal the growing significance of 3D films and the newly developed cameras that help make them.It seems only 10% of British cinemas can effectively show this films!"In the UK alone, only around 320 out of 3,600 cinemas are digitally equipped, while in the US the ratio is even worse (2,500 out of 38,000). "So there is a big problem looming," admits Peter Buckingham, head of distribution and exhibition at the UK Film Council. "You are looking at about a minimum of £80,000 to get yourself into a 3D position. Even with the hike in ticket prices and the potential hike in audiences, that's quite a stretch for the smaller venues. The danger is that, in this digital switchover, a number of cinemas may well be left behind."

14. Convergence • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeYLjhWTZVM&feature=player_embedded- Avatar music • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hYJrADaRc4&feature=player_embedded • Convergence film • Convergence in the future • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hYJrADaRc4&feature=player_embedded