Media Diaries Week 3

gangland review

Gangland is a series of documented episodes broadcasted on Channel 5. So far in the series there is only 2 episodes, each running for approximately an hour. The genre of Gangland is very much of social realism. It focuses on the gang life down in south London, giving you an insight of their day-to-day raysheem. This involves drugs, guns and turf wars, and they portray these showing both the positives and negative effects of this in the real-world. 

I believe this show was targeted towards the higher working class up to towards the middle class. I believe this due to the show giving an 'insight' into their lives. People from the outside would be interested to see what actually goes on. People from the more deprived areas such as the people in the documentary wouldn't feel that it was as necessary to watch this, because they already know what its like, they don't need any reminding. Males would be the main targeting gender due to only 1 woman appearing in the programme. The age gap would be mainly between the ages of 16-26, due to the individuals all being between them ages themselves, they can relate more, and the ethnicity of the viewers generally being white as there are more higher classed white people in the UK than black, and others. The audiences family would be of an area not in London but still in the UK, as channel 5 is popular in the UK and the documentary is based there, and they would be comfortable living, not involved in gangs themselves. They would be getting an 'inside' from an outside perspective. The individuals who are watching will see themselves as a 'decent' person who has made better choices in life than the people they are watching, due to them being 'higher working to middle class', and they would most probably be following politics more as they are also more educated. They would be coming from a more privileged background, which can also indicate they are more likely to follow religion, as they had a more religious upbringing as they had a stable life. 

The type of audience that the individual watching this programme would fit into would be the mainstreamer with a bit of the explorer too. They would be watching a very well advertised show, on a very popular channel in channel 5, edging towards the mainstream. But they also would be watching something that may strike as something completely new to them. They may have possibly never been aware of all the happenings in gang culture, and therefore it can be a discovery for them, becoming somewhat of an explorer in media. The lifestyle category that the viewer would adapt most to would be the Utopian and the drop-out. They may be watching this to have a better understanding of the real world, and in turn try and figure out what they can do to help the situation. They can also be a drop-out, as this is a series with no true connection between one episode in the next, they can drop-in anytime they like.