Lesson 2 - Audience responses and audience positioning

LESSON 2

Reception theory  - refers to how the audience receives or interprets the ideology of the producer. While producers will do everything possible to ensure that audiences agree with the ideology 

Audiences agree with the ideology (PREFERRED READING), audiences may only partially agree (NEGOTIATED READING), completely reject the ideology (OPPOSITIONAL READING), or just totally misunderstand what is going on (ABARENT READING)

The ideology of women and Adbusters magazine:

Woman - singular, straightforward, and patriarchally hegemonic representations of women and society

Adbusters - atypical, anticapitalist, and subversive representations of everything, to communicate what an awful world we live in (and that it's our responsibility to fix it)

Further examples of audience negotiation:

- The preferred reading is for the audience to see a beautiful, clean, and attractive woman living a luxury lifestyle bathing using breeze soap. This has been done to present the idea to women that if they want to be like her, they must buy the product.

- Negotiated reading would be that this advert makes the audience feel that if they don't use this soap then they are unhygienic and in order to be seen as attractive to men they must be pretty and able to take care of themselves. Reinforces the idea of patriarchal hegemony.

- The oppositional reading of this advert would be that it has created a sexualized representation of women. Being naked therefore will attract a heterosexual male audience to the magazine. Reinforces the idea that women must look attractive in order to attract men

- An abarent reading would be that this was targeting men in order to make them want to be clean.

- The preferred reading of the page from Adbusters would be to make the audience feel guilty about everything that they do as it is making the world worse and they would be better off just dying.

- The negotiated reading of this article would be that although Adbusters have mentioned all of these worrying ideas, they haven't actually spoken about any solutions except 'create alternative models of consumption this still gives no real answer to change the world. Makes the audience question how they are actually supposed to do anything.

- The oppositional reading would be that this straightforwardly tells the audience to kill themselves. This is potentially very harmful to some audiences would are already depressed. 

- The preferred reading from the double-page spread from Adbusters would be to show the binary opposition between a high-end fashion design and homemade shoe. This is to present the idea that the fashion industry is exclusive and harmful to people in developing countries. This, therefore, makes the audience feel guilty as if they are the problem 

- A negotiated reading would be that the high angle shot on the model of the left creates the impression that we are indeed looking down on those less fortunate than us

- A oppositional reading would be that this presents a racist and stereotypical representation of someone from Africa as it uses similar connotations to a charity advert

- An abarant reading would be that this is Louboutins new advert for their new product

Further examples of audience positioning

In this picture of the assumed African person wearing homemade shoes made out of bottles, the audience is positioned in a birds-eye view, high angle shot above their feet. This gives the impression we are looking down on this person as they are less fortunate than us. There is an assumption created by the producer that we (the audience) are comfortably wealthy. The empty bottles worn by the model symbolize their lack of water. The red logo creates attention to the brand identity 'Red soles' symbolize African people's bleeding feet. Creates a feeling of guilt in the audience.

The audience is placed right in front of a man who is assumed to be at war. The dark green colors of camouflage worn by the man create the impression of war and violence. The mid-shot of the cover model emphasizes anger and hate in his facial expressions which are further anchouraged by his clenched fist. The angry/raging facial expressions leave the audience feeling threatened and scared. This uses a deliberately confrontational and upsetting mode of address and the audience are forced to observe and try to understand a stereotypical representation. 

The audience are positioned in a mid-shot whilst observing a beautiful woman getting attention from a  man. It looks as we have been positioned in a high class event, in a busy public place, closely to to the characters. The women has been situated to the target audience as she is conventionally attractive, encourages the audience (women) to want to be like her. We can see a proairetic code of the women applying foundation. The Mise en scene of the guy smiling shows how impressed he is, it is suggested that he is her boyfriend. From wearing this product the women has managed to gain male attention and is attractive. Encourages the audience to want to buy the product in order to get this.   

'Because you're a woman you want a soap that can promise you absolute freshness'  Positions the audience to be women and reinforces the idea that to be a women you must be clean, attractive and hygienic. This shows the expectations of beauty at this time and reinforces patrichal hegemony. The word 'You' is a direct mode of address to the audience, shows this advert is talking to whoever is reading personally, and directly. The caption anchors the image.

'Theyre like snow capped volcanoes' Reffering to British women and that they are sweet and innocent on the outside but sexually passionate and daring on the inside. Positons the audience (women) as being subordinate to him as he holds power and dominance over them and can control them due to his social status. His expensive looking suit helps reinforce this image as well as his old age, and gender being male.