Audience Consumption and Reception
From the Study Design
Outcome 1 - Key skills points 6 and 7:
(6) Discuss the relationship between media narratives and audiences.
(7) Discuss audience engagement with, consumption and reading of media narratives.
Outcome 1 - Key skills points 6 and 7:
(6) Discuss the relationship between media narratives and audiences.
(7) Discuss audience engagement with, consumption and reading of media narratives.
The Concepts
The main concepts behind audience reception and context are the physical space or platforms that they engage with the film on or in and what prior knowledge/experience/prejudices, etc. the audience brings with them when watching a film.
For example, the physical space could be a cinema, phone, etc. but discussion of these examples don’t allow for a great deal of elaboration or sophisticated responses. Low-scoring students would write things like, “If audiences watched this film in a dark cinema instead of a bright lounge room they will be engaged with it more.”
For example, the physical space could be a cinema, phone, etc. but discussion of these examples don’t allow for a great deal of elaboration or sophisticated responses. Low-scoring students would write things like, “If audiences watched this film in a dark cinema instead of a bright lounge room they will be engaged with it more.”
How To Write About It
The better examples are ones that reference prior knowledge or experiences. This can include discussing the genre/style of the film and how audiences familiar with, or who are fans of, that genre/style will be satisfied or able to recognise the content, or will have certain expectations and reactions, and thus be engaged with it more when those expectations are met. The sample answer below takes this approach, referencing the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs the World...
The aspect ratio swells and contracts during the dream sequence scene destabilising the sense of reality. This destabilisation of the reality is akin to a cut scene in a video game, where the aspect ratio will often contract to highlight that the scene is separate to the current narrative. Audiences familiar with the video game genre are further immersed in the narrative as they recognise this technique and will understand that this is an important point that will most likely have consequences later, as cut scenes in video games always relay important story elements. Indeed, this sequence foreshadows the important awakening Scott will have later in the film where, via temporal frequency, this dream sequence is revisited, but with a very different outcome. Video game audiences will also be further receptive to, and immersed in, the scene because of the referential homage to Final Fantasy VII via the composition and framing of the sequence.
The aspect ratio swells and contracts during the dream sequence scene destabilising the sense of reality. This destabilisation of the reality is akin to a cut scene in a video game, where the aspect ratio will often contract to highlight that the scene is separate to the current narrative. Audiences familiar with the video game genre are further immersed in the narrative as they recognise this technique and will understand that this is an important point that will most likely have consequences later, as cut scenes in video games always relay important story elements. Indeed, this sequence foreshadows the important awakening Scott will have later in the film where, via temporal frequency, this dream sequence is revisited, but with a very different outcome. Video game audiences will also be further receptive to, and immersed in, the scene because of the referential homage to Final Fantasy VII via the composition and framing of the sequence.
Genre & Audience Expectation
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Audiences who are fans of, or at the very least familiar with, particular genres will have expectations based on this knowledge/previous experience with films of that genre, on what will be included in the film. Audiences familiar with action films, for example, will have an expectation that there will be a big, strong, tough hero who is going to save the day. Films like Scott Pilgrim vs the World subverts that expectation, however, by having Michael Cera as the action hero who saves the day.
The issue with expectations of course, is that they can make films predictable, because audiences are familiar with the conventions of the genre. Horror movies, for example, have the oft-used trope of a character bending over in front of a mirror and then when they stand back up again there’s a killer/monster behind them for a classic jump scare. Consequently, film makers try to toy with these expectations, for example by having the conventional mirror shot with the music building as the character bends over… the music gets louder, the audience gets more tense because they know what’s coming, but then the character stands up and the music abruptly stops and there’s nobody there. Because these tropes get used regularly, the film makers try to make their films more unique by having nods to the convention but then changing it so that the audience is familiar with what’s going on but is still surprised. |
Experiences, Prior Knowledge and Empathy
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Other key factors are those of background knowledge of the audience and audience experience/empathy. A 2015 film that has highlighted these factors is that of the Oscar nominated Bradley Cooper film, American Sniper. Based on the novel by Chris Kyle, the eponymous American sniper, the film has polarized audiences. There are a number of categories that viewers of the film fall into: those who don’t care about the “true” background information, because they simply enjoy the film as an engaging action/war movie, those who believe that the movie is racist because it largely focuses on the killing of Arabs people in the second Gulf War, those who enjoy the film as a patriotic, inspiring movie celebrating an American war hero and those who believe that Chris Kyle played a little fast and loose with the truth who lied about a lot of the events in his book that the movie is based on.
Depending on knowledge, experience or empathy, an audience’s enjoyment or engagement with the film will vary greatly. The filmmakers themselves, director Clint Eastwood and actor/producer Bradley Cooper claim the political message of the film has been hijacked and that their main focus was not to celebrate killing, or any of the other claims, but simply to create a character study on the effects of war on the human psyche. Staunchly anti-war advocates are offended by the film because they feel it is a blindly patriotic, flag waving glorification of American soldiers killing Iraqis. A former American governor, Howard Dean, claimed that people that go and see the movie are “very angry” and probably members of the Tea Party (an ultra-conservative political party in the US). In his article, American Sniper: Lies and War Propaganda to Divide a Nation, American author, Brandon Turbeville, states, “Chris Kyle was a murderer…a war profiteer and a liar.” In his article, Why the Left Hates American Sniper, however, Rabbi Schmuley Boteach claims, “Let armchair warriors condemn heroes like Chris Kyle and the Hollywood producers who have immortalized his heroic story. Let them stand over campfires and sing kumbaya…American Sniper is a film of soaring patriotism and an ode to our courageous military.” Clearly, these differing people, with their different standpoints and background understandings and political leanings, are going to consume and receive the messages of a film like this in very different ways. |
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The Environment
In simple terms, audience reception is the way in which each individual audience member watches a film: how they engage with it, their ability to like/understand/appreciate it and the reception context is the various factors that contribute to, or limit, this engagement/enjoyment, etc.
Factors, or reception contexts, that contribute to audience reception and consumption include: surrounding environment, technology used, time of day, background knowledge of the audience, audience experience and empathy.
Consider this scenario:
You’re a huge horror movie fan. You’re excited about seeing the latest horror movie being shown in the cinema. It’s received great reviews, is claimed to be, “the scariest movie this year,” by critics and the trailer for the film looks amazing. None of your friends like horror movies, but you don’t care and you go to the cinema by yourself, excited to see it as soon as you can. You get there with plenty of time, buy your ticket, buy yourself a drink and a big tub of popcorn, turn off your phone and settle into your seat. The ads are over, the trailers are over and the movie is about to begin. The lights go down, the cinema is dark, there is silence, the distribution company’s logo comes up on the screen and fades away again to leave a black screen. Then…the strings of the orchestral score gradually build, starting with the low notes of a cello and transitioning into the higher strings of the violins.
A harsh stab of violins sound and the film’s name bursts onto the screen. As it starts to fade away, the sound of pouring rain can be heard increasing in volume and the first image begins to appear on the screen…a dark, desolate night and a singular car is edging along a remote road. Large, ominous looking fields of corn sway over both edges of the road, almost towering over and closing in the road. All you can see is corn for miles, then blackness. The pouring rain can be seen in the flickering headlights of the car as it shunts along this road.
Cut to inside the car and a flustered, nervous looking woman in her twenties is squinting through the deluge hitting her windscreen, trying to see where she’s going. She is edging along the road slowly, trying to see the narrow road. Cut to the camera shooting from the backseat of the car, over her shoulder, out the windscreen to show what she faces. A little bit ahead, just as the reach of the headlights is starting to give way to the darkness, what appears to be the silhouette of a large man steps out into the middle of the road.
The sound of the car engine slowing down can be heard as it comes to a stop just short of the large figure standing in the middle of the road. You grab another fistful of popcorn and edge down into your seat. The large silhouette slowly turns toward the car. His arms are hanging pendula by his sides. In one of the large hands hanging by his side, he appears to be holding something. The woman in the car can’t tell what it is yet, but the flicker of her headlights reflect off part of the object which appears to be metal.
Now, imagine you’re watching the same film, but with a completely different scenario. You were just as excited to go, like you were in the previous scenario, but you weren’t able to get to the cinema and then it was gone before you got a chance to see it. Instead, you waited for it to come out on iTunes.
Your laptop’s broken, you have an older television, so your only option is to watch it on your phone. You’ve got family staying with you, so you’ve been kicked out of your bedroom. The only place left is the couch in your lounge room adjoining the kitchen. You cue up the film on your phone and press play. Your mum and dad are cooking a big dinner in the kitchen for your visitors. They have the exhaust fan on the rangehood firing, the curtains are wide open so there’s plenty of light blasting into the room, your family who are visiting have a newborn baby who your aunty is currently bouncing in her arms, pacing back and forth in the lounge room in front of you, saying, “Shush, shush, shush,” over and over as it screams its little baby lungs out.
You crane forward a bit more to try and see the dark picture through the light reflecting off your screen. You can’t for the life of you find your headphones. Your volume’s up full, but you can still barely hear the film over the rangehood fan, the fan on the oven, the food sizzling on the hotplates, your aunty’s shushing and the baby’s screams.
You can see from these two contrasting examples that your appreciation and engagement with the same film is going to be starkly different. From the contributing factors listed previously, surrounding environment, technology used and time of day are going to play a large part in how you engage with the film. Even slight changes in the second scenario would change the way the film was consumed: waiting until night time, so it’s dark outside, and indeed inside if you turn the lights off, would at least change the way the horror film affects you. Maybe by that time also, your aunty and the baby have gone to bed. Your parents are no longer cooking, so it’s quiet. These changing factors would at least enable you to engage with the film a little better, even if you’re still watching it on your phone in your lounge room, instead of in a darkened cinema with no interruptions, but many factors such as these can play a large part.
Factors, or reception contexts, that contribute to audience reception and consumption include: surrounding environment, technology used, time of day, background knowledge of the audience, audience experience and empathy.
Consider this scenario:
You’re a huge horror movie fan. You’re excited about seeing the latest horror movie being shown in the cinema. It’s received great reviews, is claimed to be, “the scariest movie this year,” by critics and the trailer for the film looks amazing. None of your friends like horror movies, but you don’t care and you go to the cinema by yourself, excited to see it as soon as you can. You get there with plenty of time, buy your ticket, buy yourself a drink and a big tub of popcorn, turn off your phone and settle into your seat. The ads are over, the trailers are over and the movie is about to begin. The lights go down, the cinema is dark, there is silence, the distribution company’s logo comes up on the screen and fades away again to leave a black screen. Then…the strings of the orchestral score gradually build, starting with the low notes of a cello and transitioning into the higher strings of the violins.
A harsh stab of violins sound and the film’s name bursts onto the screen. As it starts to fade away, the sound of pouring rain can be heard increasing in volume and the first image begins to appear on the screen…a dark, desolate night and a singular car is edging along a remote road. Large, ominous looking fields of corn sway over both edges of the road, almost towering over and closing in the road. All you can see is corn for miles, then blackness. The pouring rain can be seen in the flickering headlights of the car as it shunts along this road.
Cut to inside the car and a flustered, nervous looking woman in her twenties is squinting through the deluge hitting her windscreen, trying to see where she’s going. She is edging along the road slowly, trying to see the narrow road. Cut to the camera shooting from the backseat of the car, over her shoulder, out the windscreen to show what she faces. A little bit ahead, just as the reach of the headlights is starting to give way to the darkness, what appears to be the silhouette of a large man steps out into the middle of the road.
The sound of the car engine slowing down can be heard as it comes to a stop just short of the large figure standing in the middle of the road. You grab another fistful of popcorn and edge down into your seat. The large silhouette slowly turns toward the car. His arms are hanging pendula by his sides. In one of the large hands hanging by his side, he appears to be holding something. The woman in the car can’t tell what it is yet, but the flicker of her headlights reflect off part of the object which appears to be metal.
Now, imagine you’re watching the same film, but with a completely different scenario. You were just as excited to go, like you were in the previous scenario, but you weren’t able to get to the cinema and then it was gone before you got a chance to see it. Instead, you waited for it to come out on iTunes.
Your laptop’s broken, you have an older television, so your only option is to watch it on your phone. You’ve got family staying with you, so you’ve been kicked out of your bedroom. The only place left is the couch in your lounge room adjoining the kitchen. You cue up the film on your phone and press play. Your mum and dad are cooking a big dinner in the kitchen for your visitors. They have the exhaust fan on the rangehood firing, the curtains are wide open so there’s plenty of light blasting into the room, your family who are visiting have a newborn baby who your aunty is currently bouncing in her arms, pacing back and forth in the lounge room in front of you, saying, “Shush, shush, shush,” over and over as it screams its little baby lungs out.
You crane forward a bit more to try and see the dark picture through the light reflecting off your screen. You can’t for the life of you find your headphones. Your volume’s up full, but you can still barely hear the film over the rangehood fan, the fan on the oven, the food sizzling on the hotplates, your aunty’s shushing and the baby’s screams.
You can see from these two contrasting examples that your appreciation and engagement with the same film is going to be starkly different. From the contributing factors listed previously, surrounding environment, technology used and time of day are going to play a large part in how you engage with the film. Even slight changes in the second scenario would change the way the film was consumed: waiting until night time, so it’s dark outside, and indeed inside if you turn the lights off, would at least change the way the horror film affects you. Maybe by that time also, your aunty and the baby have gone to bed. Your parents are no longer cooking, so it’s quiet. These changing factors would at least enable you to engage with the film a little better, even if you’re still watching it on your phone in your lounge room, instead of in a darkened cinema with no interruptions, but many factors such as these can play a large part.