Audience theory analysis

The Hypodermic needle model that Adorno suggests states that a message is injected into the a passive audience. This clip shows this by making the audience believe all teenagers are fun, energetic and happy. The theme song could be taken as though its being sung to the audience directly.

The text would have an encoded message according to Hall’s Encoding/Decoding theory. He believes that a producer would encode a text to an active audience, giving them a preferred reading that they audience will see. In this sequence it shows that the programme is fun and exciting, which in an open sequence is what you want as it makes the audience want to keep watching. They have done this in the extract by using upbeat music, bright editing and making the actions of the characters very overdramatized, giving the extract it’s preferred reading.

Blumler and Katz’s gratification model says that an audience has a list of “needs”. These needs are diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance. There is diversion within this sequence as it gives the audience an opportunity to see what it is like for other teenagers, and it makes them relative. The target audience would be able to relate to the characters and think they could be just like them, but at the same time, it takes them away from their everyday routines. Personal relationships within the extract makes you as a viewer, want to be friends with these characters and be a part of the fun and excitement they always appear to have. Personal identity gives the audience something they can relate to. They can get used to what the character is like and feel like they are literally getting to know the characters. Surveillance is the final need, as they get to see where the characters are, they get an insight into how they should be behaving in such environments.