You can find below a rage of responses for a potential question that could come up in Component two section B: TV in a global age. This is an audience question, and for
Les Revenants, the only audience theory we need to explore in depth in Stuart Hall's notion of audience reception and negotiation.
If you want to find out what theories you need to know for each industry, make sure you check out the revision guide!
All responses were completed in half an hour by teachers or students, and are presented unedited, with only minor corrections. Please note that these should be seen officially as examples rather than exemplars. This includes the teacher responses! In some cases, the wrong names of theorists are used, theoretical terms are used incorrectly, or paragraph structure may be imprecise. However, it is important to note that exam responses are seldom 'perfect', and are written under stressful conditions. If you spot a mistake, congratulate yourself, and consider how you can avoid doing something similar!
"It is essential for a TV programme to simultaneously target both mass and specialised audiences"
Explore this statement with reference to Les Revenants
Michael's response 1
Mass audience refers to the vast and undefined audience typical to the early days of telecommunications. Initially, with only a handful of TV channels, audiences were forced to all partake in the same experiences, and as such, responses were potentially limited. However, thanks to a range of digital technologies and widening audience tastes, there has been a gravitation from traditional methods of broadcasting, to more modern methods of narrowcasting. Increasingly, producers have discovered the advantages of targeting cult, or devoted audiences. For Les Revenants, a French language supernatural/horror/zombie TV that subverts many generic paradigms, it is absolutely essential that targets a cult audience. Les Revenants expertly targets both 'casual' and 'devoted' audiences, by providing the audience with a range of polysemic readings. However, it’s ability to target a mass audience is fundamentally limited by its own insistence on using hermeneutic codes to explore it’s narrative. Les Revenants was first broadcast on the French premium TV channel Canal +, before being distributed by UK channel Chanel 4 a year later. In both instances, the show was broadcast on a weeknight at 9pm, suggesting a moderate potential for mass audience appeal.
A typical example of how Les Revenants primarily targets a cult or specialised audience is through the scene where Camille Seurat is reunited with her mother. Camille, unknown to herself and even to the audience has been dead for four years. Her entrance in to the house is marked by a generically typical diegetic ‘crash’ noise, and a typically horror film response from her mother: one of cold fear. This is anchored through a series of close up shots of her terrified face, and a slow paced exploratory montage of tracking shots of her descending the stairs. It is at this stage that the audience’s expectations of a conventional horror film are confounded. Camille nonchalantly stands in the family kitchen (stereotypically middle class, and stereotypically minimalist French chic) and informs her mother in a rapid-fire delivery of her awful day. Audiences, both specialised and potentially mainstream are forced at this point to negotiate this scene in a variety of ways. Camille’s mother, shot in low-key lighting forms a binary opposition to Camille in many ways. Her frantic, terrified facial expressions contrast with Camille’s. This is clearly not a typical horror film narrative. Audiences, especially specialised, cult audiences, may well take pleasure in the subversion of horror film conventions. Mogwai’s non-diegetic soundtrack anchors the audience’s response that this is indeed a stereotypical, conventional horror text, yet Camille is non-threatening, and lacks a range of generic paradigmatic features of the zombie genre, in that she is conventionally attractive and lacks rotting flesh or dead, vacant eyes. In this sense, Les Revenants primarily targets a specialised audience rather than a mainstream, mass audience.
Stuart Hall argues that audiences are forced in to a negotiation with the producer, and must choose whether to except or reject the preferred ideological reading. However, it is highly likely that Fabrice Gobert, the director of Les Revenants intentionally rejected the programme having one solid, preferred reading. In this sense, it can be seen that Les Revenants is highly polysemic.
A typical example of this polysemy can be found at the end of the first episode. An intertitle announces to the audience ‘four years earlier’ which instantly presents a powerful hermeneutic code. Our initial assumption that Camille was only recently dead is pleasurably subverted for both the cult target audience and the more mainstream secondary audience. However, the ending only goes on to establish more hermeneutic codes. Cross cutting between identical siblings, the 15-year-old Lena losing her virginity, and the 15-year-old Camille’s symbolic horror at her sister’s innocence being lost, a deliberately confrontational scene that divides the audience. From a British perspective, the sex scene involving two 15 year olds (despite the actor’s being 18) is taboo. Additionally, the increasingly rapid-fire cross cutting between Lena’s orgasm and Celine’s death, both illustrated through a montage of confrontational close up shots, is challenging for the audience. The final shot, a first-person bird’s eye view shot of Camille dying through impact with the ground is not a typical cliff-hanger, especially as it recalls the first shot of the first episode. The ideological perspective of the producer can be explored here, and audiences are once more forced to negotiate a difficult and challenging binary opposition between sex and death. This allegorical theme is typical of many French texts, as far ranged as Bataille’s The Story of the Eye, the popular lesbian drama Blue is the Warmest Colour, to Bunuel’s L’age d’or. However, to international audiences, a potentially oppositional response is provoked.
We have seen that Les Revenants uses a range of polysemic readings to target specialised cult audiences. This is further reinforced through the use of merchandise and viral marketing opportunities, such as Mogwai’s soundtrack CD/LP, the film tie-in book, the ‘Lake Pub’ T shirt, allowing audiences the pleasure at making reference to a hyperreal location, and the TV programme’s own enigmatic website. However, there are examples of how Les Revenants targets a wider, more mainstream secondary ‘casual audience’. This is primarily achieved through the use of intertextuality. An excellent example of this is through the character of Julie. In her late 20’s and lacking stereotypical sexualisation, Julie entertains herself through watching Tobe Hopper’s 1970’s film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The montage that follows is pure horror film convention. Julie is stalked by Victor, an archetypal ‘creepy child’. His status as antagonist is emphasised and further anchored through the drab mise en scene and Mogwai’s omnipresent diegetic soundtrack. As Julie looks out of her flat window, an extreme long shot demonstrates Victor’s outsider status and potentially vulnerability. These intertextual references allow the audience to take pleasure in horror film conventions, and for mass audiences to understand the product.
Ultimately, Les Revenants targets a niche, non-mainstream audience. However, it is still essential that the show has some mass audience appeal. This is primarily achieved through the utilisation of hermeneutic codes and polysemy for the cult target audience, and the frequent use of intertextuality for more mainstream mass audiences.
Michael's response 2
For most TV programmes and their producers, it is essential to strike a balance between targeting mass and specialised audiences. Mass audience simply refers to the vast and generic audience first described in the UK in relation to the early days of telecommunications broadcast. With only one channel available, the ratings share of each programme would naturally be 100%, and therefore each programme needed to have ‘mass appeal’. Lord Leith, then commissioner general for the BBC had grave doubts about this system, considering a mass communications platform an insidious way of ‘dumbing down’ the populace. However, this concept of mass audience has increasingly become less and less prevalent. Now, audiences are far more likely to be niche, and TV programmes are far more likely to narrowcast as opposed to broadcast. This allows smaller ‘cult audiences to be targeted. Les Revenants, a 2012 French supernatural horror hybrid programme, is a clear example of a show with little mass audience appeal, that instead targets a cult audience. I shall explore this notion with reference to key scenes, promotional material, and reference to the very particular and cult nature of the soundtrack.
On first glance, Les Revenants may seem like it has potential for mass appeal. For example, there are a diverse range of attractive characters of different ages, in a stunning and compelling setting. However, in practice, these elements prove to be subversive. An excellent example of Les Revenants purely targeting a cult audience is the scene where Lena Seurat, a 19-year-old barmaid, walks home Simon, an attractive and yet undead young man. Taking place in the dark and gloomy mise-en-scene of the small town. The two characters walk together in a two-shot tracking shot. From a stereotypical narrative perspective, Lena and Simon would be the ideal couple. Simon’s leather jacket and miserable personality demonstrates his misanthropic ideology, which would be a perfect match for Lena’s teen girl archetype. However, the potential romance is subverted through Simon’s deliberately obnoxious character. His performance is muted, and focused purely on his actual love, the now significantly older Adele. In a telling close up shot, Lena shouts at Simon, calling him a ‘dickhead’. This scene provides the target cult audience many opportunities to negotiate a response. Doubtless many audiences will be frustrated with Lena and Simon’s relationship, as they are denied the voyeuristic pleasure of seeing the two characters fall in love. However, other audiences may enjoy the exciting subversion of the conventions of the horror genre, as the undead Simon is atypically attractive, and shows no stereotypically inclination to murder Lena and eat her brans. In this way, we see the scene offer the audience a range of polysemic interpretations, further cementing its appeal as a cult, specialised Programme.
It’s nature as a specialised TV show can be traced back to the mode of its production. Produced for Canal +, a premium French cable channel that prides itself on prestigious, high quality productions that may not receive mass audience appeal, the show itself is a remake of an earlier supernatural film of the same name. Rather than try to soften the edges of the show, the director, Fabrice Gobert instead sought to maximise the programme’s cult appeal through employing the cult Glaswegian noise rock band Mogwai to compose and produce the show’s not diegetic soundtrack. This move is highly atypical, eschewing the orchestral soundtrack that similar TV horror shows such as The Walking Dead or Being Human have. An excellent example of how this atypically manifests itself is the scene where Victor stalks Julie back home to her flat. Hardly a stereotypical horror location, Julie instead lives in a brutalist and grey block of social housing flats. This forms a definite binary opposition between her and the middle-class Seurat family. Julie is also not hegemonically stereotypically beautiful, with her thick glasses and unflattering jumper, making her highly atypical for a horror text ‘victim’ Likewise Victor, himself a binary opposition to the fragile and troubled Julie, is a young boy. The unfamiliarity of the locations to the genre is anchored through Mogwai’s highly atypical soundtrack, which focuses on a range of atonal and un-melodic elements, including guitar clangs and subdued keyboard stabs. Mogwai’s presence offer the producers of Les Revenants a pre-existing cult audience, in that pre-existing fans of Mogwai may seek out the show due to their involvement. It also provides Les Revenants with a definite outsider status. Mogwai have no frontman, have released precisely one single, 2000’s My Father My King, a 20-minute-long instrumental jam that covers a Hebrew prayer, and is an uncommercial as they come. In fact, it is hard to ignore the notion that Les Revenants is actually being as deliberately uncommercial as possible in order to ensure a specialised audience.
This uncommercial approach of course leads to problems when it comes to distribute and market the show. Though the program offers no preferred reading, rendering Stuart Hall’s reception theory absolutely useless, it still needs to make money in order for Canal + to actually finance it. Further funding came from a variety of sources, including the French alps tourist board, offering almost 1million euros as an opportunity to promote the product. However, the ultimate example of how specialised Les Revenant’s appeal is through it’s extremely TYPICAL trailer. The international trailer for Les Revenants completely changes the tone of the show, offering audiences a fast paced montage of the whole of the eight episodes, exploring the themes of the show including supernatural romance, grief, death, love and sex. While the show drip feeds it’s cult audiences through elaborate and mysterious character arcs and an insistence on using hermeneutic codes, the trailer actually reveals a variety of mysteries from the off. It even resembles a stereotypical zombie narrative, primarily through the frequent use of Long shots of ‘the horde’ of zombies, primarily taken from the show’s eighth episode! The exciting mise en scene, rapid fire editing and cross cutting, and the selection of only the most exciting scenes serves to underline exactly how atypical the show actually is. It suggests that if an honest approach to reflecting the themes of the show was taken, it would lack an audience.
Finally, the shows insistence on covering themes of grief is omnipresent in Les Revenants. The subdued opening shot of Camille’s bus careering off a cliff face in a static, unflinching longshot forms a direct binary opposition to the severity of the incident. Audiences are instantly left without a way of negotiating the scene, and are force to accept from the initial enigmatic shot that the show not only lacks a preferred reading, but also seeks to polarise its audience through deliberately upsetting imagery.
To conclude, Les Revenants solely targets a cult audience. Though some promotional material may hint at mass appeal, the show itself uses enigmatic hermeneutic codes, confounds audience expectations, makes reference to already cult bands and features upsetting themes of grief and desperation. Therefore it……………………………………….
I didn't finish in time :(
Student 1
Les Revenants subverts this statement by only targeting a specialised cult audience through polysemic readings in relation to Stuart Hall's Reception Theory. However, Les Revenants subverts a lot of his readings as well. Les Revenant was first aired in 2012 on Canal+ in France, and was broadcasted to channel 4 a year late (in 2013) for the UK. All music is composed by a Glaswegian band called Mogwai (post-rock genre).
On the one hand, Les Revenants has a Horror, Cult genre meaning it has a very specialised audience who most likely watch horror movies and a lot are devoted fans to the show. The show targets this specialised audiences with use of intertextuality of other horror genres - Stuart Halls Reception theory. For example, in the scene of Julie watching a movie the room has a low key lighting whilst Julie has confined herself on the sofa creating a spooky lexis to the scene, this suggests she is watching horror genre. The mise-en-scene of chainsaw sound effects and flashing lighting from the tv in the background of the movie is intertextual and directly references the horror movie 'Chainsaw Massacre'.
Les Revenants specialised audience would likely understand the intertextuality due to there love of horror genre, this could possibly be a preferred reading that Les Revenants wants its audience to understand. However, another preferred reading could be that the show wants its audience to be frustrated by not knowing what the film is, meaning that Les Revenants actually subverts polysemic readings by having an unknown preferred reading; this effect is conveyed though the use of a mid-shot from an angles where the tv screen cannot be clearly seen so that the audience can only understand the reference by mise-en-scene of sound.
On the other hand, Les Revenants does not have a mass audience as the movie is fairly slow paced and requires a lot of interest to understand how it subverts stereotypical horror-zombie sub-genre conventions. For example, the show only uses indirect mise-en-scene to convey connotations of death like constant low-key lighting. In the scene where Simon goes to see Adele, Simon is wearing a black suit whilst Adele is wearing a white dress, this creates a binary opposition that symbolises life and death (as Simon has come from the dead) - in which a casual audience may not understand into depth unlike it's cult audience.
However, Les Revenants has an international audience from English/Scottish areas. The band Mogwai has their own cult audience around England and Scotland, these audience have been linked to Les Revenants due to there synergy and how the band music reflects the slow and deep themes of the show. Because of this, Les Revenants has a much larger specialised audience that are mostly not in France and have a whole other cult audience through Mogwai.
In conclusion, Les Revenants highly subverts the statement due to its vast amounts of intertextuality and many referential codes (Stuart Hall) that only cult audience and horror fans would understand to the full extent of its detail within the show. The lack of polysemic readings in the show also makes it harder for casual audiences to watch, as they have to produce their own ideologies to the show creating a confusing plot and slow pace to understanding the show.
Student 2
I agree it is essential for a TV programme to simultaneously target both mass and specialised audiences. The term 'Mass Audience' came from the mass broadcasting on television in the early days of its creation. With only a few available television channels, the content had to appeal to a wide range of people and include different ways for this wide range of people to connect with the content. Now that narrow broadcasting is a thing of the past with more TV channels, online streaming services (e.g. Netflix) and piracy existing, there has been space for more specialised audience shows to be made. These are often referred to as 'cult' shows with an intense following behind it and fans who engage with the show in more ways than just watching it, for example, fan-fictions, fan art, 'shipping' pairs of characters together (imagining them in relationships), creating extensive Wikipedia pages, and more.
It is often beneficial for shows to establish a cult audience as it means they have a group of people who will always come back for more and engage heavily with the product being created with more incentive to support it, but it also means that this audience may be small, meaning less people watch the show. This is a good reason to combine appealing to mass audiences and specialised audiences. You will be able to get lots of people watching as well as having a group who go the extra mile to engage with it. Canal+ is the producer and distributor of Les Revenants. They have an ideology similar to that of the UK 'Channel 4' where they want to be subversive and play a variety of different shows challenging the norm of TV. This is the reason Canal+ decided to take on Les Revenants, its ability to break paradigms and create mystery.
Les Revenants is a subversive, polysemic show because it falls into a range of different genres. It could be described as a Supernatural Zombie French Drama show and that probably wouldn't even cover the litany of sub-genres it also falls into. There are many places which these genres can be scene interacting with each other and creating multiple readings for the audience to discover.
In the scene where Camille's mother first sees her there are many conflicting representations we can see. Using Stuart Hall's reception theory we can figure out the different audience reactions to the scene and how this caters for both a cult and mass audience.
The scene starts with slow, droning non-diegetic soundtrack instantly creating a sinister atmosphere. This is immediately contrapuntal to the scene in which a mother is seeing her dead daughter and the preferred reading here is to create a feeling of tension in the audience by off-balancing them with this soundtrack. The shots of the scene show over the shoulder shot reverse shots of Camille and her mother in which the mother walks slowly towards her. This not only gives connotations of approaching a dangerous animal, but also adds to this contrapuntal reading of the scene by confusing the audience with this separation of mother and daughter. The mother is framed with low key lighting in which we can barely see her face. This effect was most likely done in post-production colour grading to create a paradigm of the horror genre. Camille is framed with high key lighting creating a binary opposition between them, the living and the dead.
In this scene the audience is given lots of different readings. The preferred is that Camille is dead and the mother is scared but a negotiated reading may be that the mother is going mad, or even that Camille is the evil antagonist through her anchorage with the music but juxtaposition with the high key lighting. It is almost made intentionally to confuse the audience and give them lots of ideas through Roland Barthes symbolic and hermeneutic codes. This intentional confusion of representations in this scene appeals to all of Les Revenants genres. Supernatural through use of lighting and sound, family drama through the conversation of a mother and her child, zombie through Camille coming back from the dead, and French through the setting (the alps) and lexis used.
While some audience members may be annoyed by this confusing representation, many will find something they are invested in.
One specific example of Les Revenants seeking a specialised audience is their use of the band MOGWAI to create their soundtrack, later released in album form 'Les Revenants'. MOGWAI is a 'Post-rock' band from Glasgow, Scotland. They have a slow, reflective and mood driven sound which is subversive of their genre.
Student 3
Although Les Revenants is a cult followed show mostly, in which they use such actions as using a subversive but also cult followed band Mogwai in order to target a more niche audience, the way in which the show encodes grief also demonstrates the way in which it is essential to also target mass audiences, that way combating any ideas of preferred reading. Stuart Hall's reception theory gave the idea that every product would have a preferred, oppositional and negotiated reading with every consumption of a media product. However, to target both cult and mass audience, Les Revenant deliberately doesn't follow this pattern to show the differences in readings of grief and the way in which people deal with it.
In one pivotal scene, there are a group of people at what we assume is a meeting, a place where in which people who have lost someone meet and discuss how they are or are not coping. The dark costume of all the characters reflects the atmosphere, accompanied by a low key lighting that made it clear that this was not a happy environment. the mise en scene shows us a bare room with only chairs and the people sat in them. However, when the father of Camille receives a phone call, there is a shot reverse shot of the mother telling him to come over, surprising the father as he leaves the bland and miserable setting of the room in order to foreshadow how he won't need that grief meeting as his child has returned.
This shows that although the show relies on a cult audience to understand the complexities of the zombie aspects as well as the other supernatural relationships, that the allegory of the zombies is of grief and how different people deals with it, something that a mass audience can relate to if only at a bare understanding of the concept. What this shows about the lack of preferred reading is that because everybody reacts to grief and the idea of the return of a loved one differently, there is not a possible idea of what a preferred reading would be as the fundamental theme reflects something that doesn't have a 'preferred' method or a natural way to react. For example, the mass audience may see a man who's struggling to deal with the death of his child and sympathise but also somebody may believe him to be a rude and selfish man who is reacting to other member's grief with spite. This lack of relation to Stuart Hall's theory shows that it subverts classical presentation of media and helps form a cult audience that can appreiocate the complexities of the show that a mass audience couldn't through ideologies.
In another key scene, when Camille's mother goes to the bathroom and Camille asks her for a towel, the disconnect between her and her daughter is not only symbolic but also presented through the shut door. The mother waits outside, and when Camille opens the door she reacts in shock as if she had just seen a zombie, which fundamentally she is. When she goes to get her a towel, the mother runs away in panic, but not in the conventional way but only to hide the grief she once had for her daughter. Instead of questioning it, she instead hides the memorial and the idea that her daughter has passed away. A mass audience may see a woman who is hiding her death and is trying to just accept her back and is struggling to react, however a more niche audience may believe that the use of the entrapment of the small hall way the mother stumbles towards symbolises the suffocation she feels as she's all alone with someone she hasn't seen in 4 years and the tracking shot not entering the room demonstrates that she has secluded this room to a memory that has now repaired.
Using the allegory that the zombies or 'the returned' is a true example of how people deal with grief differently and how the idea of family members coming back would affect the grief that remains there forever creates the idea that although targeting a niche audience is an essential element to present an intellectual reading but also creating an obvious display of human emotion, an emotion that every person experiences intrigues mass audiences that help subvert the classic perceptions of what preferred readings are.
Student 4
Targeting refers to how a media product attracts audiences to consume the media product. A mass audience is an audience that reaches a wide range of people, whereas a specialised audience is a audience targeted by the media production. This can be done though stereotypical paradigmatic features of the genre. I will argue that Les Revenants targets both mass and specialised audiences by deploying a range of polysemic readings. Les Revenants is a postmodern hyperreal supernatural drama television series, directed by Frabrice Gobert in France. It debuted on 26th November 2012 on Canal. It’s international distributer is Universal studios and debuted on 9 June 2013 on Channel 4. The soundtrack is produced by Mogwai, a "post rock" Scottish band, which was selected for their cult following and ideology, which breaks stereotypical paradigmatic features of a boy band. They produce contrapuntal music throughout the episode for polysemic audience responses.
The scene denoting Camille’s return presents polysemic readings for audiences, the low-key lighting and non-diegetic contrapuntal soundtrack is a paradigmatic feature of the horror genre. The shot reverse shot presents with the mise-en-scene presents a binary opposition of fear and calm with the facial expressions contrasted between the mother and Camille This presents several negotiated readings for the audience for instance, Liking the scene due to the suspect or disliking the scene due to how the mother is reacting to her daughter. This is useful for targeting mass and specialised audiences because of the hermeneutic codes it produces which can engage audiences in fandoms.
The scene between Simon, Lina and Adele also presents polysemic readings through the intertextual horror mise-en-scene. The close up of Adele looking into the mirror with Simon being blurry, due to the depth of field, and then disappearing. The intertextuality of Simon trying to break in with Adele crying. And the symbolism of their clothing referencing marriage and the binary opposition of life vs death portrayed by Simon being dead. The scene displays an enigma code for the audience to understand what has happened in their relationship which helps in creating negotiated readings for the audience to discuss. The fandom also might start “shipping” either Lina and Simon or Adele and Simon which can appeal to a cult audience.
Another scene is when Victor stalks Julie the low-key lighting and non-diegetic soundtrack creates an eerie setting, And the intertextuality of having a ghost child is suspenseful to the audience. A negotiated reading of this scene is that the audience hates it because it’s inconsistent as Julie surely must have seen Victor throughout the sequence. Another negotiated reading is that the scene is good due to the suspense created by the paradigmatic features of horror. As a whole one could question the effectiveness of Stuart Halls reception theory because the producer has not presented a clear ideology within Les Revenants and therefore takes out the possibility of having a preferred and oppositional reading.
In conclusion
Student 5
Les Revenants targets casual watchers and a cult audience through it's use of polysemic readings in relation to Stuart Hall's Reception Theory. However it can be argued that due to the many audience responses that Les Revenants may evoke, there are not many preferred readings which is subversive in terms of Les Revenants because the producer doesn't seem to have one specific ideology. This is why it is essential for media products to target mass audiences and specialised audiences because if one audience doesn't respond to the media product in a specific way others will. For example, Les Revenants was given a large sum of money to promote the French alps within the media but actually creates many oppositional readings to the producer's ideologies due to the nature of the show.
It is essential for both types of audiences to be targeted by media products because it allows different audiences to come up with different readings based on their prior knowledge or their own ideologies. An example of this is the non-diegetic sound in the shot that uses the 180 Degree rule as a contrast between Camille's mum and Camille's feelings within the scene. The soundtrack may attract fans of the Glaswegian band 'Mogwai' which means that they may have a negotiated reading of the scene itself due to them being able to recognise the sound but feeling uneasy about Camille's sudden reappearance. This unease is also reinforced by the binary opposition of the mise-en-scene of lowkey lighting where Camille's mum is standing and the highkey lighting where Camille is standing. This may create a oppositional response by an audience as at this point in the episode, the audience is likely to be confused about the zombie sub-genre convention of coming back from the dead due to it being done in a subversive way.
Another reason it is essential for both types of audiences to be targeted within a media product is to get more people to watch it. This is evident with the intertextual reference to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre film which conforms to the stereotypical paradigmatic features of a horror film. This scene may appeal to an audience of horror fans due to the intertextual link to a horror film but may also appeal to a wider audience of families in general due to the mise-en-scene of the sofa in front of the TV. This may create a negotiated reading due to the audience being confused about the genre that is being established by this pilot episode but may also recognise the familiar sight of a sofa in front of a TV which is common in most family living rooms. The use of a high angle mid-shot for this scene may also create an oppositional reading due to the connotations of power that a high angle shot gives the audience viewing the product.
Overall, because Les Revenants seems to lack one specific producer ideology, it has many polysemic readings which are essential for a media product to appeal to a wide range of audiences. In relation to Stuart Hall's reception theory, many different audiences may react to different scenes in this pilot episode in different ways which creates many different audience responses due to the polysemic readings that can be identified within certain scenes. The lack of evident producer ideologies are what allows both cult and casual audiences to watch the show and enjoy it and due to the use of many different camera angles combined with mise-en-scene, it could create readings which may be negotiated online in on places like Reddit which could allow users to combine their own ideologies about the show to form their own identities which relates to David gauntlet's theories of identity which is essential for a producer to create a product that appeals to a specific audience. however in the case of Les Revenants, the producer has allowed the audience to create the ideology of the show which leaves no evident preferred reading for this show which makes it subversive.
Student 6
I agree that it is essential for a TV programme to simultaneously target both mass and specialised audiences. A specialised audience is someone who is a fan of the show. They are active and don't just watch the show and then get on with their lives. Specialised audiences create fan theories, talk about the show and buy merchandise. A mass audience is everyone else, the ones who watch the show and then carry on with their lives, they don't become obsessed with it like a cult/ specialised audience. Les Revenants is a thriller/supernatural French drama produced by Canal+ and broadcasted by channel 4 that targets both mass and specialised audiences by providing them with polysemic narratives.
One scene that has multiple meanings and responses is the reunion scene. Towards the beginning of the show Camille returns home and proceeds to make a sandwich, be gobby towards her mother and then leave the kitchen in a mess. Camille then goes upstairs for a shower and Claire follows her up the stairs. According to Stuart Hall every media product has three types of readings; preferred, negotiated and oppositional. A preferred reading is the reading the producer wanted the audience to have whilst and oppositional reading is when the audience completely disagrees with the producers ideologies. Many times audience members are somewhere in between these, this is a negotiated reading. I believe the preferred reading for this scene is confusion. A specialised audience are left feeling confused by the close ups of Claire's face as she goes up the stairs and the use of creepy non-diegetic sound. It creates confusion because we are unsure as to why she is reacting like this, she is scared and apprehensive of her own daughter. This makes the cult audience want to talk about it with other fans and post about it on social media and in online forums. I believe that the mass audience wont be confused by this scene but will feel sorry for Camille. Her mother is acting scared of her rather than going up and hugging her because she was presumed dead. This audience feels sorry for Camille but not enough for it to stay with them after the show has finished. Their emotions are not powerful enough to cause them to want to talk about it or post in forums. They are also not going to create fan theories over this scene whilst the specialised cult audience would.
Another way Les Revenants targets a specialised audience is through things outside the show. Online forums have been created for fans to talk about their ideas, concerns and confusion with others. Merchandise has been made of things from the show e.g a shirt that has the Lake pub on it. This allows audiences to show their love for the show, which may prompt conversations and even people deciding to watch the show after these conversations. However people who don't watch the show aren't likely to know of the Lake Pub and therefore a shirt with this on will make the cult audience feel part of something that is secret or like a club. Merchandise is a good way of the producers target cult because not only does it grown their audience it also allows them to get more revenue because they are selling things. Money is the primary goal of all media products.
A final way that Les Revenants targets a specialised audience is by conforming and subverting the horror and supernatural genre conventions. This is a zombie show, but from the first episode the mise-en-scene of makeup and costumes reveals nothing to the audience regarding who the zombies are. In most other zombie shows we can tell straight away who the zombies are because they look dead and stand out from the rest. However in Les Revenants both dead and alive look the same. This is going to provide the cult audience to create theories about who is dead, talk about it and become an active audience. When Camille is in the shower and the mother is walking up the stairs it makes use of non-diegetic music by Mogwai in order to make the audience feel apprehensive about what is going on and why the mother is so scared of her own daughter. This is a hermeneutic code because it creates suspense.
Les Revenants has allegorical aspects in the form of immigration. The dead have returned but are not welcomed very nicely and people are apprehensive and scared of them. This could be seen as relating to the people who are immigrating to our country, they are not welcomed at first by some and a vast amount of people are apprehensive about them being in this country. This could allow for a cult audience because it gives them something to relate to but also gives them yet another thing to talk about.
In conclusion I agree that TV programmes should target mass and specialised audiences simultaneously in order to ensure a big audience and to maximise profits. However I think that Les Revenants focuses more on targeting a mass audience because it is a supernatural TV show and fans want to talk about it and they get involved in it more than a show like Eastenders where viewers don't create theories, go to conventions or buy merchandise. It also provides the producers with more profit which is the primary goal for any media product.
Student 7
In the modern world, TV isn't just about sitting down in front of the screen, picking a channel and watching a show whenever it is scheduled. Due to streaming services and the internet, people are now much more able to pick and choose what they would like to watch and when they want to watch it. This makes it more essential than ever for TV shows to target such a large audience as they need to stand out from a much more diverse range than previously.
What is interesting about 'Les Revenants' is the outstanding genre hybridity it uses to create something that appeals to so many. The show is clearly a drama series, as from the start we see a Camille, a panicked young girl, walking the streets alone. As the camera angles cut between close up and tracking shots, the hermeneutic code creates quite a dramatic atmosphere, as the audience will want to know where Camille is going, why she looks so panicked and why she is out late in the evening. As well as this key scene, there are also other dramatic shots such as the bus crash and the suicide of mr Costa.
Another aspect of the show is the horror and supernatural side, which you could say is the dominant reading of the show, as it is based from ghosts and also frequently uses generic conventions of the horror genre. For example, we see a young boy (Victor) following Julie from a bus stop. This convention of a young child 'haunting' people can be seen in many films such as Insidious and the silent twins in The Shining. Victor's character archetype is much like these, in that he is young, pale and acts in a strange way. This displays the producer's ideology of 'The Returned' people as he is the most stereotypical of them all. What subverts this, however, is Julie's unconventional reaction to Victor when she finally notices him. Although close up shots are used on Victor's face and eyes which may make the audience uncomfortable, Julie seems calm and even invites him into her own home. Her lack of fear is interesting, and by breaking convention it creates something which is much more individual to other programmes.
Using Stuart Hall's reception theory, we can gauge that this show isn't designed to have a preferred reading. Sure, a dominant ideology is displayed as we can clearly tell that the show is based on a mystery of the returned people, however the way that this mystery is portrayed doesn't fit into one genre. This means it is highly polysemic, and the frequent use of hermeneutic codes means that the audience doesn't know much and therefore must make up their own minds as the series progresses.
However, it is not only the genre of this show that makes it interesting and appeal to wider audiences. A more specialised audience that it may target is the band 'Mogwai', who produced and wrote the soundtrack used within 'Les Revenants'. What is interesting about them is that they aren't French like the show, but they are from Glasgow, and the music they create is quite niche - it is wholly instrumental, unlike most music. This makes their fans a specialised audience, and enables the show to target another audience which they may not have if the music hadn't been used, as well as giving it international appeal outside of France. It is also another item which fans of the show may use in order to create more of an immersive experience and connect with it better, and therefore by using vertical integration the producers have enabled themselves to have a much wider audience.
Overall, TV shows nowadays need to simultaneously target both mass audiences and specialised audiences as they have a lot more competition now that channels didn't face ten or twenty years ago as streaming didn't exist. By using several genres, they are able to target multiple audiences, as well as using 'Mogwai' in order to create more international appeal.
