Conor McGoldrick

HNCY1
Unit 1: Contextual Studies
Faustina Starrett
Rationale
For my unit 1 contextual studies assignment I will be focusing on
Game of Thrones. I believe that Game of Thrones has a diverse
audience, which are both passive and active audiences and I aim to
prove this in my essay. Also I will discuss several different audience
theories and comparing them to Game of Thrones and I will discuss
Stuart Hall and his audience readings theories and see if Game of
Thrones relates to them in any way.
Task 2
Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television series
created for HBO by show runners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. It is
an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin's series
of fantasy novels, the first of which is titled A Game of Thrones. It is
filmed in Northern Ireland, Croatia, Iceland, Morocco, Spain, Malta,
Scotland, and the United States,
The series, set on the fictional continents of
Westeros and Essos at the end of a
decade-long summer,
interweaves several plot
lines with a broad ensemble
cast. The first narrative arc
follows a civil war among
several noble houses for the Iron
Throne of the Seven Kingdoms; the
second covers the attempts of the exiled last scion of the
realm's deposed ruling dynasty to reclaim the throne; the third
chronicles the rising threat of the impending winter and the
legendary creatures and fierce peoples of the North. Game of
thrones would mainly be an active audience as when they watch
they would be in control, but some fans would be considered
passive as they would be completely in love with the show and want
to act exactly like the characters in Game of Thrones.
Julia Gillard from The Guardian describes Game of Thrones as Part
of its genius is an ability to shatter your dreamed-for outcomes and
keep you begging for more at the same time. Enjoy, carefully1.
Active audience- an active audience would be an audience who
are involved and engaged in a show but are also in control of how
they are feeling. An active audience would enjoy a show or movie
but wouldnt take it seriously. The notion of an active audience
appeals to our belief in the intelligence and autonomy of people.
1 http://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/game-of-thrones/s05/

Conor McGoldrick
HNCY1
Unit 1: Contextual Studies
Faustina Starrett
The term is both a critique of cynicism about the power of media
and an expression of faith in the power of people2
Passive audience- a passive audience would be an audience who
are easy manipulated and they feel controlled by a show or movie.
They would feel as if the show controls them and would take it
highly seriously and think it is real life. Examples of passive theory
would be gamers who play games like Call of Duty and GTA as some
school shootings and the London riots was believed to be influenced
by games like theses. When I was young it was all Pacman and
board games. Now they're playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live
it for themselves3
I took a survey to see if Game of Thrones fans were passive
audiences or active audiences. I asked 4 people id they watched
Game of Thrones and 3 of them said yes, I asked would you ever
miss an episode and 1 said yes and finally I asked if they were
obsessed with the show and 2 said yes. These answers would
indicate to me that Game of Thrones would have both passive and
active audiences
Audience Theory
When it comes to audience theory there are three different types of
audience theory. These include the hypodermic needle model, the
uses and gratifications and the reception theory.
Hypodermic needle model- this theory suggests that the mass
media were able to influence groups of people by injecting them
with messages to change their response on different topics. This
became evident during the 40s and 50s when television and radio
were introduced e.g. Hitlers monopolization of the mass media
during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi party. The
use of needle in the theory suggests how it uses a powerful
message of information from the sender to a receiver. The
hypodermic needle theory also suggests that it can inject messages
straight into a passive audience to immediately influence the
message. Einstein says about this theory that It is the theory that
decides what can be observed4.
Uses and gratifications theory- this theory suggests that people
actively seek out certain media to satisfy specific needs and that
they are not helpless victims of mass media. It assumes that
audience members are not passive consumers of media. Rather, the
audience has power over their media consumption and assumes an
2 https://mfjs2210.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/active-audiences/
3 http://www.gamekudos.com/news/4312-quotes-in-london-eveningstandard-claims-gta-inspired-riots
4 http://www.searchquotes.com/search/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory/

Conor McGoldrick
HNCY1
Unit 1: Contextual Studies
Faustina Starrett
active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives.
Unlike other theoretical perspectives, uses and gratifications theory
holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet
their desires and needs to achieve gratification. This theory would
then imply that the media compete against other information
sources for viewers' gratification. This theory would be considered
for active audiences.

Stuart Halls Audience Readings

Stuart Hall is an audience theorist
and he states that audiences
actively look for meaning in a text.
He believes that meaning is
encoded into texts by the
producers and then decoded by
audiences. Halls theory is split into
three different parts and he
believes that they can all have
multiple meanings. Texts are read differently depending on the
audiences cultural knowledge, opinions etc.
Reception Theory- Reception theory provides a means of
understanding media texts by understanding how these texts are
read by audiences. Theorists who analyse media through reception
studies are concerned with the experience of cinema and television
viewing for spectators, and how meaning is created through that
experience. An important concept of reception theory is that the
media textthe individual movie or television programhas no
inherent meaning in and of itself. Instead, meaning is created in the
interaction between spectator and text; in other words, meaning is
created as the viewer watches and processes the film. Reception
theory argues that contextual factors, more than textual ones,
influence the way the spectator views the film or television program.
In short, reception theory places the viewer in context, taking into
account all of the various factors that might influence how she or he
will read and create meaning from the text. This theory would also
be considered for active audiences.
The three different texts are the dominant reading, the negotiated
reading and the oppositional reading.

Conor McGoldrick
HNCY1
Unit 1: Contextual Studies
Faustina Starrett
Dominant reading- Dominant reading is when the audience
respond to the product the way the producers expect and want
them to.
Negotiated reading- Negotiated reading is when the audience
partly agree with the message or product but may disagree with
other parts.
Oppositional reading - Oppositional reading is when the audience
is in complete disagreement with the product/message.
The following that Game of Thrones has gained over the years has
changed and got larger and larger with every episode. Originally the
audience for Game of Thrones would have been for fans of George
RR Martins books and also for fans of fantasy drama shows as it has
everything you expect from fantasy dramas. As the seasons
progressed and more people read the books, the TV show got more
popular and gained a new following, the newer fans would be people
who read reviews or heard about it from word of mouth and as more
people watched it, the show soon became one of the biggest and
most popular shows in the world today.
In my opinion Game of Thrones have both types of audiences, active
and passive. I feel that Game of Thrones fans are very involved with
the show but some more than others. Some fans will watch the
show every week but not be obsessed with it whereas other fans of
the show would be so obsessed with it and it would be a part of their
life, for example there would be fans who would dress up as the
characters and act like characters from the show, also some fans
would be so obsessed they would think its real life.
I believe that Game of Thrones would be a dominant reading show
as the audience of the show loves it and thats how the makers want
us to feel about the show. Also I think that Game of Thrones would
be under the Uses and Gratifications theory as the audience who
watch the show seek it out and it is not injected in to them. Also
the majority of the viewers would not be passive viewers in my
opinion as they are involved with the show but not obsessed
completely by it.
Bibliography
Game of Thrones trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpJYNVhGf1s
Reception Theory

Conor McGoldrick
HNCY1
Unit 1: Contextual Studies
Faustina Starrett
http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-RoadMovies/Reception-Theory.html
Hypodermic Needle Theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-toj0weAEM
Uses and Gratifications Theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn9_0mTfT3Y