Audiences and Institutions essay
How does your own experience of media consumption illustrate a wider pattern and trend of audience behaviour?
My own experience of media consumption, in many ways, demonstrates and mirrors current trends in audience behavior. This can link to how I tend to follow the current trends of today's society by watching Netflix and using my phone to consume media through YouTube and Instagram. My screen time on my phone is at a daily average of 3 hours, and social media like YouTube and Instagram take up the majority of this time. At night time I tend to watch something on Netflix like a film or a TV show and this would definitely be the "normal" in today's society. According to my survey I conducted, Netflix is the most popular platform for media consumption. In New Zealand alone the amount of people that are using social media is at 3.40 Million out of 4.886 million. This indicates that social media is at high usage and I am following the social norms of consuming media.
I have found that web 2.0 has drastically impacted my own media consumption and this is evident in a greater, global audience trend of consumption too. Web 2.0 is the second phase of the internet no way of leaving a comment or interacting with people. Second stage of the development of the internet characterized by the change from static web pages to dynamic or user generated content and growth of social media. Web 2.0 has allowed the spread of streaming services and audience trends to grow online. This includes the use of social influencers that can promote a piece of media to their followers. Social media influencers have a big impact especially on the young people. The growth of the internet has affected the way things are marketed and this can link to the influencers in our society and how they can create an immersive environment for audiences because they can saturated their followers will marketing messages about a piece of media. Hype can also be used in the media world by getting the fans of a film or franchise excited for the release of a film, hype is creating a buzz for a media product saturating the internet and immersing the market/audiences by bombarding them with the film/product.
We can see that Disney have increased their scope to a wider audience over the years by buying out other film companies which give them the right to produce films that those film companies had rights to. Over the year Disney bought, Miramax (for $660 Billion) Marvel ($4.24 billion) LucasFilm/Starwars ($4.05 billion) Capital Cities, ($19 billion) Fox Families, ($71.3 billion) The Muppets ($200 million) Pixar, ($7.4 billion) These purchases from Disney have allowed them to make film with the rights from these companies which span across many different franchises. Having this many rights to films has made Disney the biggest to date film company in the world.
An example of a film that has used audience trends to promote the film would be Chris Nolan's "The Dark Knight" which was release in 2008 and spanned across 75 countries and had over 10 million participants, this campaign helped the film gross over 1.005 billion USD and win people's favorite movie choice in 2009. The film has the most pre sales in film history and then can be credited to the campaign than ran before the release. On the opening day of the film, it topped the most grossing film of the year earning it $158,411,483 in the first weekend of its release, this would be the perfect example of a film that used an audience trend and got their fans involved with the film before it had even been released and this therefore created hype which overall boosted the opening weekend sales.
Hi Addison
ReplyDeleteOverall Score: 28/50
Terminology: 6/ 10
Analysis & Argument: 11/20
Explanation & Examples: 11/20
This is looking better. Still so much you can write about here... remember I said to include ALL the terminology you can and ALL case studies? Looking HEAPS better on the facts/ figures / stats front though, well done for adding to the original one.
Paragraph 1 - good introduction but this is where you could have included info on i-gens media consumption habits as well as comparing to older generations. You say how and why you consume media but don't really use all your research data to expand in broader context. Also, this is a great place to talk about cinema. remember our medium we are studying is film so this needs to feature in your essay. Are people still going to theatres/ cinemas? (use your research where we discovered people still go to movies for social reasons etc, as well as your surveys could be useful here). After talking about cinema attendance,that would have been a perfect place to go into case study movies and what their box office revenue was (ticket sales) which proves that although people are mainly online today, cinema is not dead. Many people still enjoy the cinematic experience.
This would have been a great paragraph to precede a paragraph about TECHNOLOGICAL CONVERGENCE. You talk about using your i-phone here, why not expand and throw in tech convergence (explain what it is) and how it has changed the way we consume media?
Paragraph 2 - great that you explain the concept of Web 2.0. You jump straight to marketing here which is OK as part of the paragraph but there is a lot you can say herein regards to how the internet has made streaming services so easily accessible. How many NZ households have internet? How many people are watching Netflix? MORE IMPORTANTLY, HOW DID THE INTERNET CHANGE OR IMPACT HOW YOUR CASE STUDY FILMS WERE EXHIBITED/ DISTRIBUTED??? What platforms are they available on? How many people streamed them? This is also a great place to talk about the audience trend of audience moving from passive consumers to INTERACTIVE participants and even producers of media. This is a very important media trend that you don't mention.
Paragraph 3 - some good information on Disney but not really tied into the question well enough. How about framing this by saying, " Big CONGLOMERATES have the monopoly in the film industry because they have SUBSIDIARIES and can make their films easily available across a multitude of platforms (give examples - Disney +, wide cinema releases etc) and also maximum exposure in advertising and marketing. This wide reach that Disney has to such a broad audience means that audiences across the world, will often choose to watch the blockbuster films that come out of the big studios, due to hype and buzz created through social media and CROSS-MEDIA-CONVERGENCE."
Great place to talk about CMC and synergy. Give examples by contrasting big Hollywood blockbuster with indi film / NZ film.
Paragraph 4 - which audience trends influenced the marketing strategy of the Dark Knight? I assume you mean the fact that many people are online now, but you don't say. Be specific.
A great paragraph although it just needs to be clear what you're talking about. The way you wrote this, it seems you mean the fans got involved in the film somehow but you mean that the fans were involved in the MARKETING CAMPAIGN. It was called the 'Why so serious' campaign, make it clear. This would be a good place to CONTRAST and analyse and comment on the fact that big budget movies influence audiences choice of what to watch in such an impacting way because they have the budget to do so. What was their marketing/ advertising budget? How successful was your indi film or NZ film in comparison and what were their budgets? How did they reach their audience?
Overall a good paragraph but it just needs to be tied in tightly to the question.