Audience Theory

The Cultural Studies Approach Perspective on Audience

This was developed by David Morley within the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, BCCCS and attempts to understand how the media might be powerful and influence audiences but also encourages researchers to understand the active nature of certain audiences. 

There are three readings that the audience can take:

• Preferred (dominant) reading - the audience recognize the values being offered by the text and accepts them as natural and correct. 
• Negotiated reading - the audience recognize the values in the text as legitimate and accept them in general but adapt their reading of the text to fit with their experiences and interest. 
• Oppositional reading - the audience understands the values in the text but disagrees with them and rejects them. 

Application of this theory to our music video:

How might audiences read the values expressed in your video and print work in a preferred, negotiated and oppositional way?

Preferred - The audience will sympathize with the soldier in our video and feel happiness when he arrives home to his girlfriend.

Negotiated - Audience will relate to how the soldier is feeling as they perhaps miss any loved one for whatever reason, whether it be that they are working away or living apart. 

Oppositional - The audience may think negatively about the reason he has had to embark on such a long journey home and assume that he was told to leave the army for negative behaviour. This would mean that they dislike the character and his story.

What are you going to do to to encourage the target audience to take a preferred reading?

We will show the soldier's emotion as much as possible throughout his journey including when he arrives home where will show clear happiness that he is back with his girlfriend. We will also use close ups of the character's expressions to show his emotion and use long shots in his journey scenes to show how long and far he has to travel in order to spark sympathy within the audience. Sympathy throughout the journey will be key along with related to his happiness and relief when he arrives home. 

 

What kind of person might take an oppositional reading?

Someone who has a negative view on war and on our country fighting may have a oppositional reading of this video as they don't sympathize with the soldier or the war in general. I personally think this will apply to the minority and most people will take a preferred or negotiated reading from our video.