What opportunities for interaction do TV shows provide for their audiences? Make reference to Humans in your answer
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| The original, Swedish version Akta Manniskor also presents a stereotypical breakfast scene, albeit a stereotypical Swedish breakfast scene. And, while the family's hair is noticeably very, very blonde, the actor who plays Anita/Mimi is also East Asian. Clearly, there is something very significant about ethnicity happening here! |
Knee Jerk: Humans provides substantial opportunities for audience interaction
Audience refer to those who use, interact and take pleasure from a media product. When watching a TV show, the audience essentially enter a contract with the producer, by decoding meaning that the producer encodes. In this essay, I shall explore just some of the many ways in which the producers of Humans provides opportunities for the audience to interact with the TV show. In order to explore this idea, I shall be making reference to Humans, a 2015 science fiction TV show co produced by channel 4 and AMC, and its advertising campaign.
One way in which Humans encourages audience interaction is through it's highly innovative and unconventional advertising campaign. The TV advertising campaign for Humans is highly subversive. Instead of being a conventional TV advert, the Persona Synthetics trailer parodies adverts for tech products. The advert diegetically situates the audience by advertising a product from the narrative of the TV show. This is not only atypical, but highly immersive. In the advert, it uses a cliched and conventional direct mode of address that provides a range of hermeneutic codes to the audience. One question that is being asked of the audience is whether or not the advert is even real. The advert features the MES of an apparent robot completing house activities, and the MES of a middle class British household creates a realistic mode of address, which asks the audience to question if it's real. Additionally, the darker themes of the TV show are introduced through the direct and prolonged mode of address between the robot and the audience, which creates an unsettling atmosphere. These elements combined encourage audience interaction. For example, audiences can check out the website included at the end of the trailer, as well as using or checking out the hashtag, which makes use of digital convergence. Finally, this advert offers audiences many opportunities to discuss the advert, and to try and work out what it means, which is a highly participatory and interactive experience.
One way in which Humans provides opportunities for audience interaction is through themes of postmodernism and hyperreality. Postmodernism refers to an outlook on society that is completely sceptical, and argues that absolutely nothing is real. Postmodernists believe that our world is too complicated to understand. Humans clearly shares this bleak outlook, particularly in the concept of hyperreality. This advert creates a deliberately false and confusing perception of reality, in order to manipulate, confuse and even upset the audience. This complicated and disturbing advert actually functions in a very conventional way, encouraging the audience to research and then of course to start watching the TV show. In this sense we can see it is highly interactive.
Another way in which humans provides opportunities for audience interaction is through the hegemonically perfect, hyperreal representation of the British family. In the original Swedish version, the Hawkins family are very stereotypically Swedish. However, in the British version, the Hawkins family are stereotypically British family. The Hawkins family are a nuclear family, and sit together to eat their meal. They are middle class, and this is emphasised through the MES of their big kitchen, the amount of furniture they own, and their expensive breakfast layout. However, the audience are assumed to be white, middle class and belonging to a nuclear family. This is a deliberately controversial technique, which is made clear by the inclusion of Anita. Anita is represented as essentially a slave, and is othered from the Hawkins family by being East Asian. In the Swedish original , Anita is also Asian, which reinforces the ideology of the TV show. Anita is represented as exotic and submissive, which is a highly stereotypical representation of East Asian women. These diverse and challenging representations allow a diverse audience to interact with Humans. For example, white audiences may see this scene as relatable and even an escapist fantasy. However East Asian audiences may also feel targeted thorough the TV show drawing attention to themes of victimisation and racial hierarchy. These themes provide the niche target audience with many themes to to discuss online, on internet forums such as Reddit.