Media Studies - TV
Audience response


Media Audiences - Page 3-4
EDUQUAS

How do audiences respond to Life on Mars?


Identification – Uses & Gratifications Model

Link to context - Modern audiences identify with Sam Tyler as he is displaced into a different world which seems strange to us as well as to him. This is helped by the direct gaze and mode of address on the DVD cover. We are positioned with him and view the old-fashioned or archaic ideas of the old force through his eyes. We laugh with him at the lack of technology, we are appalled (as he is) by the casual violence, racism and sexism and with him we eventually develop respect for some of the ‘old school’ ways.

Diversion - Uses & Gratifications Model

Audiences use the text as escapism. There are elements of fantasy and the surreal (Test Card Girl & clown) in the text which divert us from our own mundane existences. The non-linear narrative also helps with this. There is also diversionary appeal in the development of the relationship between Sam & Annie – a potential love story which may hold appeal for a female audience.

Enigma

Maybe if he can work out the reason, he can get home....

Testimonial

On DVD cover – quotes from Daily Telegraph and Radio Times (ABC1 audiences) Two-step Flow. The papers act as opinion leaders and audiences believe in the show’s quality because of this.

Audiences may consider/question their own attitudes by comparing them to those of Tyler/Hunt