Media studies- key concepts

Introducing Audience

These days every individual goes through a day with encountering a media product. Individuals these days wake up to the sound of the radio, play a walkman while walking to school/college, passing billboards on the street and also watching television or going to the cinema to watch a film in the evening. Therefore shows we are all part of the audience for these different kinds of media products. Some people have seen media audiences as being easily manipulated masses of people who can be persuaded to buy products through advertising, or to follow corrupt leaders through propaganda, also there have been fears that the contents of media texts can make their audiences behave in different ways to become more violent.. On the other hand there have been other critics who have seen the media as having much less influence and working in more subtle ways.

Historical background

The arrival of the media changed a lot of this: while films are often watched in
Theatre sized audiences. The vast majority of our times with the media are spent on our own or in small groups so in one sense the media can seem to split people up – you have probably heard the worry from parents that since the arrival of video games and portable televisions,
children don’t go out as much as they used to.

Institution Case Study

Vertigo Films was created by producers Allan Niblo who is the producer of Human Traffic and South West 9, James Richardson who is the producer of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, director Nick Love who is the screenwriter and prior to company formation, director of Goodbye Charlie Bright and The Football Factory, distributor Rupert Preston who was the distributor of Chopper, Chasing Amy and Bride of Chucky,and entrepreneur Rob Morgan. The company was formed for the express purpose of distributing. Vertigo Films was set up in 2002 with the specific purpose of making two low-budget, commercial British movies: The Football Factory and It's All Gone Pete Tong.

In its first year in 2003, Vertigo produced The Football Factory, which entered the UK Box Office at number 3 and has now sold over one million copies making it the most successful independent UK film on DVD ever and It's All Gone Pete Tong which went on to win several awards including Best Film at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2004. The budget for the British film Football Factory was £500,000.That year three more partners joined the company which changed the organisation in different ways such as Nick Love, whose Vertigo produced films The Business went on to beat The Football Factory's commercial success on its release in 2005. Vertigo Films is a vertically integrated UK Development, Finance, Production and Distribution media company founded in July 2002.Vertigo Films is looking to raise up to £4m in a private share placing to fund new films and the development of a TV distribution business.

Tv series- The Simpsons and Movie-The Simpsons movie

Movie text-is a 2007 American animated comedy film which was produced by FOX entertainment based on the animated television series The Simpsons.

The movie is basicly a about a band that is called Green Day which are are killed when the pollution in the lake erodes their barge. At a memorial service, Grampa has a prophetic vision in which he predicts the impending doom of the town, but only Marge takes it seriously. Lisa and an Irish boy named Colin, with whom she has fallen in love, hold a meeting where they convince the town to clean up the lake.
Meanwhile, Homer adopts a pig from the Krusty Burger. Homer stores the pig's feces in an overflowing silo which Marge tells him to dispose of safely. However, Homer gets distracted and instead dumps the silo in the lake, re-polluting it. Moments later, a squirrel jumps into the lake and becomes severely mutated. Nearby, Flanders and Bart discover the squirrel during a hike, and the EPA captures it. Russ Cargill, head of the EPA, presents five options to President Schwarzenegger to keep Springfield's pollution contained; he randomly picks the action of enclosing Springfield in a giant glass dome. When the police discover Homer's silo in the lake, an angry mob of townspeople approach the Simpsons' home and set the house on fire, but the family escapes through a sinkhole and flees to Alaska.
Cracks start to appear in the dome and Cargill, not wanting news of what he has done to become widespread, plans to destroy Springfield. In Alaska, the Simpsons see an advertisement for a new Grand Canyon to be located on the site that was Springfield. Marge and the kids decide to go and save the town, but Homer refuses to help the people who tried to kill them. The family abandons Homer and leaves but are captured by the EPA and placed back in the dome. After a visit from a mysterious Inuit shaman, Homer has an epiphany and believes he must save the town in order to save himself.
As he arrives at Springfield to do so, a helicopter lowers a bomb suspended by rope through a hole in the dome. Homer climbs to the peak of the dome and descends the rope, knocking the escaping townspeople and bomb off. Homer grabs the bomb and a motorcycle. After reuniting with Bart, they cycle up the side of the dome and Bart tosses the bomb through the hole, seconds before detonation. The bomb explodes, shattering the dome. The town praises Homer, who rides off with Marge on the motorcycle into the sunset. The townspeople begin restoring Springfield back to normal.



Tv series text-is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of the middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its titular family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield, and lampoons many aspects of the human condition including American culture, society, and television.



The tv series and the movie are both linked becuase some of the characters that are in the tv series are as well in the movie such as Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Homer and Marge which are the main characters in both the movie and the tv series, the tv series and movie are organised by FOX Entertainment, the town Springfield is also set in both the movie and the tv series and the genere of both the movie and tv series is a comedy genre.




Here is a link to the trailer for The Simpsons movie:


Here is a link to a clip for the Simpsons tv series:

The sound in the opening scene of the Simpson's is non digetic this is done to show the childish narrative as the music also links to the audience which is 7 to 25. The age group is so vast because in the opening part of the scene the whole family is brought in which creates a secondary audience of a traditional family; also this scene brings in a patriarchal family as we see the character Homer who appears to be the head of the house hold. The colours that are used for the characters are yellow which again brings childish narrative which also can link to audience, also all the characters are yellow to portray one unit, so the audience can familiarise the characters.

The shopping scene brings in the traditional stereotype of a house wife as the character Marge is doing a stereotype of a housewife which is shopping and looking after her kids. 2oth Century Fox is the institution for The Simpson's, 20th Century Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch who is a media tycoon. The musical scene where the character Lisa is playing a musical instrument which represents the character as more intellectual; which moves away from the traditional family house hold as we can see the son Bart who comes across as a rebel with the stereotype use of a skateboard.

The clip where Homer is driving, and he suddenly pulls out a green coloured chemical from his back shows that he is reckless and immature this moves away from the patriarchal family which makes us focus on the mum; Marge as the leader of the family bringing in feminist ideologies, as it can be said that she is bringing power to women (independent).The character Bart is also seen as wreck less as he rides through stop signs breaking the law with the police, this can bring in the uses and gratifications of identity as people can identify themselves as this character.

The ending of the scene creates enigma as the audience are unaware of why everyone is such in a rush to get home, when the character Bart jumps on the car and the other main character Homer jesters at him in a angry but comical way, this shows that those two characters will be in conflict. The scene where the character Marge drives through almost running over Homer represents how these two characters have issues with one another. Finally they all sit on the sofa creating the ideology of a traditional suburban white family.

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