Audience theory

Psychographic-Study of people based on their personality, values, attitudes and opinions, interests and lifestyle.
Demographic- splitting up and profiling people based on their physical features.

Why would an audience watch a short film?
An audience watch short films in order to feel a certain feeling or emotion. Katz and Blumers uses and gratifications theory can be used in order to explain why people watch a short film as they suggest that audiences are active and are therefore using the text rather than allowing the text to use them. The uses and gratifications that they suggest are regularly used include: Escapism, Diversion, Information, Counter cultural experiences. comparing and sexual stimulation. These examples can be seem through many different films and genres such as counter cultural experiences usually being linked with the horror/thriller genre as the audience are potentially watching something they would like to do or see, but not actually taking part in it etc.

What meaning would an audience take from a film?
Stuart Halls encoding and decoding theory states that when a text is received by an audience it is then decoded and the message can be interpreted in three different ways:
Dominant reading- the text is interpreted as the institution intended.
Negotiated reading- Audience may agree with some parts of the text and disagree with others.
Oppositional reading- Audience find themselves in conflict with the text and disagree with it.
An example of the different readings can be that the news are usually a dominant reading as most people take what the news states as a fact and do not challenge it. The negotiated reading is usually depicted in a comedy sketch as you can notice why it may be potentially funny to other people, but you might not actually like the style of comedy. Finally, an example of oppositional reading is ISIS propaganda which people would completely disagree with due to their radical ideas.