Gratifications

Looking at film audiences

 

You can analyse any text by seeing which gratifications it offers, and

this can help you understand why the text was

a) a mainstream or niche success

b) why it appealed to one specific audience and not another.

 

Uses and Gratifications	RoboCop	Selfish Giant
Who is the audience for your film? Primary and secondary audience Niche or mass audience	Mass audience, mainly primary and very mainstream.	Niche success, wasn’t in cinemas for a long time. Mainly DVD sales therefore secondary audience.
Personal Identity ·         Finding reinforcement for personal values ·         Finding models of behaviour ·         Identifying with valued other (in the media) ·         Gaining insight into one's self	·         What it means to be human. ·         Helping people in need. ·         What it means to be police, how a human is different from a machine and general human nature.	·         People in a lower/working class background can identify, have been through the same issues. ·         People can relate to the friendship and loyalty present in the film, and a role model out of it.
Information  (also known as surveillance) ·         Finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world ·         Seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices Satisfying curiosity and general interest ·         Learning; self-education Gaining a sense of security through knowledge	·         Realise how crime is in the inner city, albeit in a light hearted way. ·         Setting represents somewhat the place in real life. ·         Action movie, not meant to inform due to make it appeal to mass audience.	·         Insight into an environment not covered a lot in the conventional media. ·         Knowledge of the challenges people less fortunate than them face. ·         Education about others in general.
Entertainment ·         Escaping, or being diverted, from problems ·         Relaxing ·         Getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment ·         Filling time ·         Emotional release ·         Sexual arousal	·         Main objective of the film is to entertain and fill time, nothing more complicated than that. ·         Escapism, draw people away from real life issues via science fiction.	·         Not really escapism, identifies more problems not removing them. ·         Emotional attachment to characters. ·         Cultural insight.
Social Interaction and Integration ·         gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy ·         identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging ·         finding a basis for conversation and social interaction ·         having a substitute for real-life companionship ·         helping to carry out social roles ·         enabling one to connect with family, friends and society	·         As it appeals to mass audience, people want to interact with each other about it as they’ve all seen it. ·         Can talk about what it meant to them, and how they enjoyed it. ·         Not sophisticated though.	·         Empathy towards the two main characters, felt by all the audience. ·         The role of family, connection with eachother. ·         Talk about it with fellow views due to heavy empathy. ·         More sophisticated discussions than a blockbuster, reflective of target audience and success.