Audience Theory

What is audience theory?

Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies. Some suggest that audience is constructed by the rhetoric and the rhetorical situation being addressed. Others believe that writers and speakers can specifically target their communication to address a particular audience. Others try to combine these two approaches and this would make the audience 'fictionalized'.

There is a wide range of media theories about the audience's role in any kind of situation to do with the media.

The Hypdermic Syringe model:

This is also known as the hypodermic needle model and is a model of communcations which can also be referred to as the "magic bullet" perspective. This model is an intended message is directly received and accepted by the receiver. This model came about in the 1930's.

The theory implied that the mass media had a powerful and direct effect on its audience. The mass media in the 1940's and 1950's were perceived as a powerful influence on behaviour change. Various factors contributed to the strong effect theory of communication. This includes:

- The rapid rise and popularization of radio and television
- The emergence of persuasian industries, i.e. Advertising and propaganda.
- Hitler's manipulation of the media during WWII to brainwash the German public and gain their support for the Nazi Party.

What's included in our treatment..

We have made a treatment about our song "Charmer" by Kings of Leon which we pitched infront of an audience to gain audience feedback to see if our ideas are realistic, achievable and effective.

We made a document to hand out to our audience which included details of our initial ideas and included pictures for the visual concept of our video. Some of the things we needed to include in our treatment were:

• Background on song
• The basic narrative or concept of our video - performance, narrative or concept
• What ‘feel’ we want to provide for our audience
• How we will achieve this
• What are the codes and conventions of our genre
• In what ways are we conforming to or subverting them
• What themes are running through our video
• How we will use costume and make up to convey our messages
• The location

Here is a video of our treatment presentation:

Band Brand

We had a group meeting on Friday regarding our "Band Brand". This will be the image that will be created around our band. The image created would be directed at a potential target audience so it is important it fits well with the band. We have thought about various aspects that the band would revolve around and thought of words to describe them. Here's a wordle showing various words that could be used to describe our band's style.

Wordle

www.wordle.net

The website above is a really creative and effective way of displaying work. The website enables you to enter different words into a box and then forms a word cloud. Words that are said more often in the text you have entered appear bigger on the wordle. They may also look bolder and this makes them stand out. Here is an example from the website of a typical wordle.



A wordle could be very useful to us in media when looking at various things such as audience feedback or our band brand. It will make the most used words appear most and this will give us a clearer idea of what is being portrayed of our band.

You can edit wordles to the way you would like them to look so you can make them bright or dull depending on the look you desire. There is also the option tocan 'randomize' wordles and this will give you a random wordle.

Permission email

It is important that we request permission from the producers of the song, following some research we found that the producers are Angelo Petraglia and Ethan Johns. By emailing them this proves that we are not trying to claim the song as our own.

Here is the email we have sent the producers of the 'Because Of The Times' Album in order to request permission to use their song 'Charmer' for our a2 coursework.

"Dear Sirs,

Our names are Molly Wing, Aimie Condon, Sarah Isaacs and Charlotte Boag and we are media studies students at Enfield County School and we are currently in the early stages of producing a music video and promotional digipack alongside that. The reason for our email is to request your permission to use Kings of Leons' song 'Charmer' that you produced for our chosen video song. We have no intention of selling our video and we can assure you there will be no copyright issues at akk as it will solely be used for educational purposes.

If there are any issues please feel free to contact us.

Yours Sincerely
Molly Wing, Aimie Condon, Sarah Isaacs and Charlotte Boag."

Treatment Presentation

Here is the presentation..

Kings Of Leon - Charmer Treatment

Treatment Document

Kings of Leon Treatment

Here is our Treatment Document for our chosen song, Kings of Leon - Charmer. This was handed out amongst our audience whilst the presentation was carried out.

Kings Of Leon

The Band:

Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar - Caleb Followill
Bass - Jared Followill
Lead Guitar - Matthew Followill
Drums - Nathan Followill

Kings Of Leon are an American rock band who formed in Tennessee, USA in 1999. It formed of 3 Brothers, Caleb, Jared and Nathan Followill and their cousin, Matthew Followill. The band's music began as an upbeat blend of blues and southern rock. However the band can now be considered a variety of genres as their sound often changes, they are now referred to as more of a rock or alternative band.

The band achieved real success in the UK where they became hugely loved by the public. They had 9 top 40 singles, and received 2 BRIT Awards in 2008. All three of their albums also reached the top 5 in the UK Albums Chart. Their third album "Because of the Times" also reached the #1 spot. When they released "Only by the Night" in September 2008, they achieved chart success in the USA too. The singles 'Sex on Fire", "Use Somebody" and "Notion" all reached #1. Their fifth album is yet to be released on October 18th in the UK.

Let you go - Chase & Status

I saw this music video a while ago, and thought it was really good. It is purely narrative and has no performance aspects in it. The camera shots are often changed to the beat of the music which I think is very effective in the story that the video portrays.



It is based on 'Patrick Chase', a character with his own reality talk show, similar to the likes of 'The Jeremy Kyle Show'. It puts him across as being a good man, yet the second half of the video contradicts this. There is a point where he brands one of his guests 'disgusting and pathetic' for his useage of drugs. As the music video continues it begins to show his true personality, which is very different to the liked man 'Patrick Chase' seems to be as he receives standing innovation from his audience. The personality it begins to reveal shows him as a drug-user, a cheating man on his family and having a generally wild lifestyle in comparison to his showbiz personality. The beat of the song goes well to the hidden life he leads and I think it's very effective.