Media Homework

Media Studies Homework

Q1. Most people in society will fall into the mainstream category. They are the sheep of society, they will watch what everyone is watching and buy what brand everybody is wearing rather that going for something out of the ordinary. I feel as if a show such as Britain's Got Talent would suit the mainstreamer as it is on at peak times on TV and it is a extremely popular show so they would have a lot of other mainstreamers to talk about it with.
The succeder tends to care about themselves more than anybody else. They have a set of goals and want to achieve them to be the best they can possibly be. A media text I think would suit the succeder category would be The Apprentice as ,even though it is watched by a lot of people and could now be considered mainstream, they would be able to relate with other people who are more caring about themselves than others. They would also be able to relate to the fact that all of the people on it want to succeed in life by starting they're own business.
The aspirer group are materialistic people, they will care more about their appearance than anything else and will be heavily influenced by the judgement of others. An example of media text that the aspirer would watch is America's Next Top Model which is full of aspiring models who care about their appearance a lot which would make the aspirer be able to relate to these people. This could also make them want to aspire to be a model also.

1b - I personally don't think that these categories are very helpful as it is impossible for somebody to be only categorised into one of these categories based on the media texts that they consume. Nobody is going to only consume mainstream media or aspirer or succeder. So it is impossible to categorize people. Although it can be useful to hit out at a mainstream audience as it will be more popular but that text is still going to appeal to some of the other groups too.7

1c - The X factor which is a talent show based on peoples singing, the programme airs at peak times of a weekend which means that it will have a lot of people watching. I think that The X Factor would mainly appeal to the mainstreamer. Due to the show being on at weekend after work times there would be a variety of different ages watching the show. However I would say that the typical viewer would probably be a parent in their mid 30s who works and is of a middle class. I think that the show would be watched by women more than men as I think men would get bored of listening to people singing and giving there sob stories about how it is their dream to sing in front of the judges. I think it would be aminly watched by people in the UK as that is where the show is based.