Friday 23 March 2018

Audience negotiation and The Jeremy Kyle Show

Below you will find notes made by R block and P block exploring reception theory when applied to The Jeremy Kyle Show. Audience theories tend to work well together, and this demonstrates how coming them can create excellent statements that will show off your superior knowledge and understanding. 

"I blame my dad for my brother being beheaded"


Audience manipulation - lexis - "his head was tooken off" [sic] - creates a binary opposition with Kyle's middle class lexis, further reinforcing negative representations of the working class

Oppositional reading - Dislike of Kyle's unprofessional treatment of Shona, who is left on stage while he consults her father. Handheld tracking shot follows Kyle

Preferred reading - Handheld tracking shot reinforces Kyle's authority, and encodes his commitment to restoring the equilibrium. Positions the audience with Kyle, reinforcing his power and agency

Audience positioning - Kyle consistently shot with low angle shots, positioning the audience as inferior to him.

Audience positioning - Audience positioned in a voyeuristic position, through the C/Us of the on screen audience, allowing the audience the pleasure of seeing people with a similar lifestyle

Effects model - If audience accept dominant ideology, Shona encoded as the protagonist and the father encoded as antagonist. Constantly hinted that the father has murdered the son. "I blame him for his death". There are significant issues with this reading, as it essentially presents a manipulative ideology to the target audience that someone is guilty without trial!

Uses and gratifications - "the first time she's spoken publicly" provides the audience with the gratifications of information and social interaction, a talking point for audiences.

Uses and gratifications - Provides the audience voyeuristic pleasure and details of murder and death. As Kyle discusses the crime, a montage of CCTV footage and grainy, low quality shots of crime scene investigations are played

"I proposed then my fiancee confessed to being a cheat! Lie detector results"


Preferred reading - Number to call the Jeremy Kyle show is straightforward. In order to participate, only an easy set of instructions need be followed. "If you think you're think you're being lied to". Preferred reading is that the target audience is positioned in a direct mode of address, and are being asked to question their own lives.

Uses and gratifications - Tracking shot of puppy in backstage area, a clear binary opposition to the exhausting and challenging narrative. Possible escapist gratification.

Audience positioning - Low angled shot of Kyle sitting on steps of stage, positioning audience with the studio. Informal mode of address.

Modes of address - Kyle continually shouts at his guest. Mocking tone, calls his guest a "doormat". Indirectly calls carol a "fat whale". However, instantly flips mode of address, and adopts a caring, comforting attitude.

Oppositional reading - Kyle is annoying and unfunny. His loud voice and confrontational body language, and sarcastic mode of address.

Preferred ideology - Working class people are unpleasant and stupid, and Kyle is always right. Costume is encoded as being vastly more middle class than his guests, emphasising his superiority.