Audience Theory

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The Uses & Gratification Theory suggests that the audience use media texts to meet their cognitive, personal, social and stress relief needs when they watch horror films. This shows that this is applicable to the active audience because the audience is using the media and not being submissive. The Unbroken allows the audience to purge their needs because in the equilibrium of the trailer we see the characters are in distress and trying to find their friend and the audience would sympathize with them. Secondly, it allows the audience to release tension and escape from reality due to the intense sound effects for example the heavy breathing and footsteps.

The Hypodermic Needle is a theory that supports the mass audience theory by saying the messages from texts are injected into the audience and they are passive to this and submissively accept the message. In horror this is significant because horror films are mostly tales of morality, which is usually shown through a subtext for example; teen punishment and child innocence and the audience accept that meaning. This theory can be applied to The Unbroken because the trailer is edited with a fast pace, so the audience can draw on a lot of things.

Media audiences are crucial as they are the consumer and user of them. Two audience theories I will be using in my trailer, The Unbroken, are the Mass Audience Theory and the Active Audience Theory. The mass audience theory argues that the audience are submissive and influential, so they may imitate what they see on screen. Active audience theory disagrees and argues that the media texts are polysemic and can be interpreted in distinctive ways to the viewer and examines their responses.

Catharsis is a type of release that allows to purge themselves of negative emotions. In most films such as Jigsaw and Human Centipede, there is excessive scenes of blood, graphic and violent torture shown, and the audience takes pleasure in watching this act being carried out and cleanses their own emotions. The strengths of it, some would say, is that it prevents harmful acts being carried out in real life by getting rid of those negative emotions and thoughts. In the trailer of The Unbroken there isn't much graphic scenes that would give the audience cathartic release.

Desensitisation is theory that implies that viewers become less sensitive to graphic violence and imagery over time due to being overly exposed to it. It agrees with the mass audience theory by assuming that they will accept the message of the film. It also links to the copycat theory because when viewers become desensitized it means the content has less emotional impact. This theory can’t be applied to The Unbroken because there isn’t a high level of violence that anyone would imitate.

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