P1 AUDIENCE PLEASURES

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USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY

For me personally, considering these are the shows I've recently rewatched or watched for the first time, these are how those shows fit into the Uses and Gratification Theory.

-Escapism - The Witcher
-Surveillance - Louis Theroux
-Personal relationships - Fleabag
-Personal identity - Bojack Horseman

Personal Identity is where you watch a show to relate to the characters or their experiences. You feel what they feel as they normally make you feel a sort of emotion when you're watching them. You fully invest in the show because of these characters, they're most important as you could relate your problems or feelings to theirs.

This is my Personal Identity choice, meaning that I feel a connection to the characters and their
experiences, including their character arcs throughout the show. This one is about a version of Hollywood in L.A, renamed in the first season due to a comedic scenario to Hollywoo. Although the characters are animals, there are themes of sadness and social struggles such as alcoholism and mental health issues as well as showing how people can burn out after momentary fame, asking the question of, 'Well, what now?' I identify with the characters and some of the themes, as I'm still deciding what I want to do in life and want to work on myself as a person to be able to get better control over my flaws.

Where you look into someone else's life, these are most often documentaries that teach you or to encourage you to learn something.

This is my Surveillance choice as you are looking into the lives of the family who run the Westbro Baptist Church. They are a hate-group with extreme views on homosexuality, abortion, trans issues, Muslims, people of colour, Jews, orthodox Christians, Atheists, US Politicians and Military and probably a lot more. The documentary follows Louis as he follows the family, learning and showing us (the audience) about the group. This is Surveillance because I am learning something that I didn't know much about and also am having a look into someone else's life that is not like my own, looking into someone else's views that I certainly do not agree with.

Escapism, where you escape or zone out from everyday life, this could be to relax after a busy day or to immerse yourself in a magical fantasy world, basically anything that isn't to do with you or your life.

The Witcher is based on a PS4 game initially released on the 26th of October 2007 and recently had a Netflix adaption. It is set in the fantasy world called, 'The Continent' and follows a monster hunter called Geralt of Rivia. As expected, this is a world that focuses on the locations and monsters to really set it apart. This is definitely Escapism as it is a completely different world altogether, very very different from our own as it focuses on a Kingdom with a monarchy in charge which takes viewers out of our old, debatably boring world.

Personal Relationships - You watch this show because of two main reasons: 1) Because you have personal relationships with the characters or people involved and you care what happens t to them or 2) You watch this show to talk about it with other people, maybe friends or family, maybe just people around the office. These shows are mainly watched because they are popular at the time. Fleabag follows a 20-something woman in London going about her daily life, dealing with family issues and friend issues whilst constantly breaking the 4th wall and communicating with the audience very frequently.

This fits in with the Personal Relationships section as at the time where it was really getting popular, everyone was watching it and talking about it, which was actually why I got into it in the first place.