Audience Positioning Unit 1 Representations

1. AUDIENCE
POSITIONING
LO: How should I be structuring responses to higher mark questions.

2. Audience Positioning
Key Points:
In the construction of media texts, the producer
creates the representations to be seen from a
certain vantage point.
Elements that can help us define how the audience has been
positioned:
• ?... Think of examples

3. Elements that can help us define how the
audience has been positioned:
• The position of the camera (distance from
the subject / angles used / point of view shots
or unseen onlooker)
• The mode of address (direct, objective,
authoritative, familiar, familiar participant)
• Objectification (Male / Female Gaze)

4. Mode of
Address
DIRECT OBJECTIVE AUTHORITA
TIVE
FAMILIAR FAMILIAR
(PARTICIPANT)
Audience
Relationship
Semi Formal
(Informative)
Formal (but
equal)
Formal /
Submissive
Informal /
Friendly
Illusion of
Social
Interaction
Audience
Role
Acquaintance
/ Client
Listener Learner Friend Friend
egging on
contestants
or taking part
Example Consumer
Affairs ie.
Watchdog
Documentary
ie.Wildlife
Documentary
TV News Game Show /
DocuSoap /
SitCom/ Soap
Opera
Game Shows
ie. Pointless /
The Chase /
TheVoice

5. Who is the intended audience?
How have the audience been
positioned?
What is the preferred/dominant
reading?
Think of another audience group
who could read this poster
differently.

6. Who is the intended target audience?
Males / 18-30 / American (English speaking
WesternWorld) / B, C1,C2 / Gamers /
Action Fans
How have the audience been positioned?
Male Gaze – bare leg takes centre frame / Direct
gaze of the subject to draw in the audience /
audience submissive to Lara as she is physically
above us showing her power and dominance
What is the preferred/dominant reading?
-Weapons, powerful bike – Lara as Action Hero
-Determined expression – Fearless adventurer
-High leather boots, tiny shorts – Sexy
-Straddling a motorbike – Sexually powerful

7. Think of another audience group
who could read this poster
differently:
Eastern Religions:
Offended at the state of undress
Feminists:
Offended that an intelligent female
adventurer be depicted with hardly
any clothes and focus on certain
body parts

8. ReceptionTheory – Stuart Hall
Key Points:
Media texts and the messages within them can be decoded / interpreted
in different ways by audiences.
Dominant/Preferred Reading
The audience accept the preferred interpretation of the media text in line with
producer intentions.
Negotiated Reading
The audience understand what the preferred representation is but bring their own
ideas to the table.
Oppositional Reading
The audience disagree with the intended message, interpreting the representations
contrary to producer’s intentions.

9. Open, Closed, PolysemicTexts
Key Points:
Some texts are more open to interpretation than others
Open
A text that is open to alternative interpretations / encourages multiple interpretations.
Closed
A text whose messages have only 1 intended meaning / discourages alternative ways for
the message to be decoded.
Polysemic
A text that purposefully has more than one meaning / whose messages are intended to
have levels for different interpretations.