1. TV exam question feedback
How do your chosen texts appeal to their audience?

2. TV exam question feedback
How do your chosen texts appeal to their audience?
Answers should include
• How some texts are constructed deliberately to appeal to different
audiences
• A recognition that not all texts appeal to different audiences
• How texts can sometimes appeal to a range of audiences
• Sophisticated level 4 students will be able to discuss confidently the
degree to which their texts are constructed to appeal to different
audiences and are likely to recognise the commercial significance.
Possible discussion points (not prescriptive)
• Narrative themes
• Genre
• Scheduling and Placement
• Actors
• Technical conventions
• Advertising

3. TV exam question feedback
Marking criteria
Mainly C grades.
A lot of students did
not fully discuss the
complicated nature
between construction
and audience appeal.
The relationship texts
and audiences have
is extremely complex.
C/D grade responses
will simplify this
process.

4. How do we
move our exam
response from
a C to an A

5. How do we move our response from C to A grade?
1. Ensure you discuss the complex relationship media texts
have with audiences
2. By using Stuart Hall’s theory on Encoding/Decoding theory
3. Ensure you link each point to a specific type of audience.
4. By comparing and contrasting texts.
5. Applying the 4 stage formula.

6. Introducing Lost’s audience appeal
Lost appeals to a passive audience
through its use of various conventions.
C grade
Lost appeals to a wide, mainstream
audience and includes various
conventions to enable a passive
audience to decode the text without
difficulty. However it could be argued
some of its narrative devices provide
gratifications for more active
audiences.
A grade
How do we move our response from C to A grade?
Ensure you discuss the complex relationship media texts
have with audiences

7. Introducing Lost’s
audience appeal
Lost targets both passive
and active audience
members as it has been
encoded to be inclusive.
However it could be
argued its construction
mainly targets a more
wide, mainstream and
perhaps passive
audience.
How do we move our response from C to A grade?
Ensure you discuss the complex relationship media texts
have with audiences

8. Lost uses a score to appeal to a passive audience. This is
present in the scene when….C grade (no justification or
explanation)
Lost uses a score to appeal to a passive audience as it allows
the audience to decode the text and take on the preferred
audience reading without difficulty. A grade
How do we move our response from C to A grade?
Using Stuart Hall’s theory on Encoding/Decoding

9. One way Steven Knights attracted an audience to Peaky
Blinders is with the use of Film stars.
One convention encoded into Steven Knight’s Peaky Blinders,
which attracted a more mainstream audience to the text is the
use of mainstream and recognisable Film stars.
How do we move our response from C to A grade?
Ensure you link each point to a specific type of audience.

10. How do we move our response from C to A grade?
Compare and contrast texts.
Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men is not as inclusive as my other
two studied texts. Mad Men’s mode of address is not
constructed to appeal to a wide audience. It could be said that
its mode of address will only gratify a more active audience
with more niche and specific interests.

11. By Peaky Blinders including historical and cultural information
in the narrative, it is able to appeal to its audience. (D)
- Identify a point/convention
-Link to a specific audience type
-Justify the appeal/gratification
-Give an example
Peaky Blinders has encoded historical and cultural information
into the narrative from the period in which it is set. This
narrative device is able to gratify a more active audience with
further gratifications than simply entertainment and escapism.
This gratification would be identified by Bloomer and Katz’s
model as learning and self educating. An example in the
narrative where an active audience would learn historical social
information is when……
How do we move our response from C to A grade?
Ensure you apply this 4 stage formula.

12. Common errors or difficulties.
We seem to struggle to justify cinematography to answer this
question. What type of audience would high level
cinematography appeal to?
Mad Men targets a more active audience through its use of
high quality cinematography. High level cinematography would
gratify its active audience members as they will question and
analyse how the text is encoded and constructed.

13. Common errors or difficulties.
There is clear confusion around the Mad Men points, complex
characters and a complex and varied representation of gender.
They are two different points.

14. Common errors or difficulties.
Mad Men targets its audience through complex characters.
One way Mad Men targets a more active audience is through
complex characters who are more difficult to understand and
decode.

15. Homework
A2 Media, Television industry – Audience Homework
Answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper and hand in Thursday
13th March.
Section 1 (formal sentence responses)
1A) Identify the main targeted audience of Mad Men
1B) Identify one way the text has been encoded to appeal to that type of
audience.
1C) Justify how that point/technique/convention would gratify your
previously identified type of audience.
1D) Describe a narrative sequence where this point/technique/convention
is present.
Section 2
2) Does Lost target a passive audience? Justify your answer
3) Identify how Lost is encoded to gratify a passive audience?
4) Justify one point/technique/convention that would force Mad Men’s
audience to decode the text actively in order to gain gratifications.
5) Explain and justify how Peaky Blinders has been encoded to gratify both
passive and active audience.
6) Justify the statement “Lost is encoded to be inclusive”.
7) Why does the use of a score appeal to a more passive audience?