Audience & Institutions Essay:

 "Audiences are not concerned with where media texts come from." To what extent do you agree with this?

In the film industry the majority of the Audiences are not concerned with where the media text comes from. But there are still a few that are, so this statement can vary in the film industry. The film industry consists of many different film companies, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, Warners Bros and Universal Pictures being the big Conglomerates of the film industry. These Conglomerates then acquire the smaller film companies who are then called the subsidiaries. These Conglomerates are the Oligopolies of the film industry, Oligopolies being ‘a small number of conglomerates that have the monopoly in the film industry’. 

Disney, being one of these conglomerates, is a good example of a film company who has to aid to the wants of certain audiences because a particular audience was concerned with the media text of certain films. This audience being the Chinese communist government, a clear example of this would be with the Alternative ending that disney had to make for the Ironman three specifically for China, where they changed it to be in a Chinese scenery and a local heartthrob was featured in it, Fan Bingbing. 

Disney makes these alterations for their own benefit as well as saving the hassle of having ongoing arguments with the Chinese Government. Here Disney is creating peace with the Chinese Government for many reasons, one main reason being that China is the second biggest box office in the world, so making the altercations meant making the Chinese people happy, therefore making the Chinese people want to go and watch the films, creating more box office. Which is why today China has become the largest box office territory, overtaking every other country in gross total. This has been partially because movie audiences in the US has gone down because of the rise in global piracy and audience indifference.

Shirky’s theory states that Audience behaviour has changed due to the internet (Web 2.0) and the ability for audiences to create their own content at home due to the lower cost of technology. Shirky believes that there is no such thing as a passive audience because he thinks that the audience is now more active, this is mainly because of the upgrade in technology. He says that there are more interactive things that help keep the audience ‘active’. This theory however is the opposite of the Hypodermic needle theory, where the audience is viewed as a passive audience. It states that the video directors can inject their messages through the media created in the films, straight into the audience's minds. 

In relation to the film industry I believe that both these theories are right in their own individual ways. I do strongly agree that the audience behaviour has changed due to the upgrade of the internet (Web 2.0) . We see this in our everyday lives, with the new streaming platforms such as Netflix, who originally started off as a DVD delivery system but has now changed to a streaming service for several different movies that can be accessed online by many different people using many different technology platforms.

I also agree that some audiences are active and are able to create their own content at home. Today we see this on YouTube with the many different bloggers who create their own content usually based on secondhand content that they have most likely seen from somewhere else.But there are also passive audiences, people who watch media for the sake of watching things, but do not take into consideration what they are watching and the meaning behind what they are watching. This is seen in the people who waste their time and life by purely just sitting and watching things, for example you typical couch potatoes.

Based on what we have learnt in the film industry, the way in which an audience ‘feels’ about where the media texts come from really relies on the audience's worldview and the way in which their country portrays different media types. In New Zealand our N.Z.F.C (New Zealand Film Commision) bases our films on our country and tourism, the reason for this is to get people/the audience interested in the country we live in. Films in New Zealand advertise our country, creating people who are actively engaged with the context of the film to tour around New Zealand, for example The Hobbit movie. The Hobbit was filmed in New Zealand and the Set has now become one of the most visited tourist attractions in New Zealand since The Hobbit films have come out.

Another good Example of this, is the film, What We Did In The Shadows (W.W.D.I.T.S). In this film they changed the name of our Capital city, Wellington to Vellington. This small change is a small indication of advertisement, when people watch it, they see and realise that it is actually meant to say Wellington. This gets the audiences active and wanting to go and visit Wellington. Linking to the way in which New Zealand likes to keep their films based on. Different from other countries who base their films on audience entertainment, money and franchises (Movies that have prequels or sequels).

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