Audience Essay-Wigley

“Audiences are becoming increasingly powerful in shaping media output”
Write in reference to your case study, how far is this true?

My case study is based on “Fantasy drama”. The three texts I will be looking at are “The Vampire Diaries”, “True Blood” and “Misfits”.  Each of the three text work on all three platform, some more than others and they all relate the genre I am looking at. My first two texts “The Vampire Diaries” and “True Blood” generated from the platform print via, the books series. It then moved onto the broadcast platform through its TV program that is shown every Tuesdays at 9pm. For Vampire Dairies and the timings and dates very for True Blood. The each also works on the emedia platform as they have their own websites.  Misfits however started off as a broadcast and then moved on to emedia via its E4 website, it has not developed much on the print platform but it is working on all three platforms.

One way in which my three texts allow me to agree with this statement is through the emedia platform in which they each work on. Each of my text work on the emedia platform and through this platform they allow the audience to help shape what happens within the text. For example they all have websites which have registered fans and these fans are able to leave comments on the text itself. These comments can be anything, they can say if they liked the adapted storyline from the books or if they disliked them. They can suggest bits from the books the intuition should put into it and also for misfits they can suggest different power for different characters and different things they wish to see in the programs. So through this we can agree that the audience are becoming powerful in shaping the media outputs.

Another way in which we can agree that the audience are becoming increasingly powerful in shaping media output is YouTube. Each of my three texts has User Generated Content (UGC) . Fans upload pictures and video that they have made, these video help to portray some of the ideologies that the text presents. Also on YouTube, the intuitions themselves upload speak peaks or “testers” of clips for future episodes and if they get many likes and view they know this is what the audience want, if there are mainly dislikes then they don’t normally show it.

However audience theories show us that the audience don’t have much power and the power still remains in the hands of the intuitions. My three texts consist of three of the audience theories; Cultivation theory, Desensition and copy cat theory. I believe these theories all fit each of my text because, the shows are showing fantasies coming alive and therefore audience might start to believe that there are vampires, werewolves and abnormal powers. Also each of these texts have explicit content and violence within them. This relates to the Desensition theory as some people may believe that it is alright to act in such ways like sexual violence as well as physical. These theories show that the audience are being controlled by the intuitions and that this is how they are reacting to the programs and books, as the books to have quite detailed imagery.

In conclusion I believe that the statement is to correct to an certain extent, I still think that the intuitions have the most power, however the audience have gained a lot more power of how to shape the media outputs than they used due to the change in technology and more interactivity.