A2 Media Studies | Application of Genre Theory to Media Texts

Documentary

Whilst me and Tom are still continuing work on the documentary I decided to apply Rick Altman's genre theory from 1999 of the different pleasures in a viewer, something I've already looked at in this post. The purpose of this is to inform people on what kind of pleasures the documentary that me and Tom are making offers to those who will be viewing the documentary after it's complete and ready to be published.

From what I currently remember from the documentary, I think the documentary is more likely to provoke an emotional pleasure (audience emotional response) and a visceral pleasure (mental reaction). This is because from what me and Tom have got so far, I don't think it would really offer intellectual puzzles (unravelling a mystery or puzzle throughout) for the audience because there isn't anything mysterious about it, it's very easy to understand the point of the documentary which goes along the lines of this:

Introduction of the school > Interview with a teacher > Teacher doing his job sorting out a misbehaving student > Other shots of the school throughout

The documentary provokes an emotional and visceral pleasure because of firstly the calming music at the beginning showing a positive light on the school, the teacher's attitude to the interview which is very positive and the tension that's created when the teacher has to stop a student from interrupting his lesson further. I think from a director's point of view, the viewers would have a preferred readings showing their satisfaction as the documentary may be their overall representation of secondary schools across the United Kingdom whilst some people could negotiate their reading on the documentary showing their dissatisfaction from a student misbehaving in class.

Ancillary task (magazine advert)

Illustrated below is the ancillary task as of 26/02/2016 and there's not much to say about the pleasures that it offers to the audience.

Ancillary task as of 26/02/2016

I say this because it only really offers a visceral pleasure as it's not a moving image which would be more likely to provoke an emotional pleasure. It could offer a preferred reading, indicating to the viewer of the image that it's professional to an extent like Channel 4's posters.