The 4 Key Concepts: Theory

 Audience

  In Media Studies, audience is defined as a group of people who consume the media products such as TV shows, films, or advertisements. There is a wide variety of different media; each could have its own audience. It is essential to understand the audiences to be able to produce products that satisfy their wants. Without an audience, no media could be made. Some factors that could be used to segment the audiences are demographics, geographic, and interest.

    Demographics is segmenting the audience by their characteristics such as age, gender, race, or ethnicity. Some media such as football is mainly watched by men while fashion or cooking show mostly have female viewers. Depending on the country or region, people will have different likings and that is geographic segmentation. Reality shows that are popular in Vietnam might not have the same hype in Europe. Creating media products could also be based on the habits and interests of the audience. Therefore, we have a variety of shows and movies with different genres to suit everyone's interests. 

2 Ngày 1 Đêm (2 Days 1 Night)

    In Vietnam, media producers fully understand what the majority population wants to see and therefore, there are multiple reality shows on YouTube with different topics to satisfy the audiences. For example, shows like 2 Days 1 Night (Vietnamese version) have huge success due to their content that could attract young adults and gain recognition from it. While reality shows are mostly targeted toward younger generations, elders prefer to watch television and therefore, most TV channels in Vietnam are more suitable for older people. 

Representation

The way media portrays particular groups of people or communities is called representation. The way media represents people could have a big impact on viewers' attitudes, beliefs, and feelings toward that significant community. Due to that reason, representation is crucial in media as it could shape and form the way we see others. 

Nhà Bà Nữ (2023) - The House of No Man
Directed by Tran Thanh

In my country, there are several films that represent a stereotypical Vietnamese and portray the image of a part of our population. A famous actor, comedian, and possibly a director named Tran Thanh has been producing a few projects that directly portray the Vietnamese lifestyle with meaningful lessons. Despite the controversies around the films, personally, I think that the image of Vietnam and its people was very accurately described in all of the films that Tran Thanh directed.

Normally on screen, Vietnam's citizens will be represented as loud, mostly poor, behind the times, and overall, very boorish. To be honest, this is the image of Vietnam decades ago and takes up a small part of the population now. However, our country has changed a lot since then and has become more polite, friendly, and updated with trends so the representation of our people on screen may not be as accurate as how we are.

Media language

The definition of media language is the way the message is conveyed to the audience. Media language is very important as it brings more depth to the media and helps viewers to understand the content better. Moreover, different interpretations could be made based on the media language and could help to attract more audiences. The media's message could be conveyed by different codes like visual, technical, verbal, and narrative codes. 

    

Visual code is the look of the media including the color, lighting, and composition. Technical relates to all the techniques used in the process of creating images and sound in a media such as camera shots, editing, and sound effects. Verbal codes include dialogue, narration, and caption. Narrative codes are the story that is told through the media. It includes the plot, character, setting, and conflict which are all used to tell the story and attract the audience to their content. 

Mắt Biếc (2019) - Dreamy  Eyes
Directed by Victor Vu

In 2019, a film based on the book of a famous Vietnamese writer, Nguyen Nhat Anh, called Mat Biec was released and it is one of my favorite Vietnamese films. The film captures the beauty of Vietnam and the visual codes that are used really help to bring out the emotions that the director wanted to convey.

Industry

Industry contains all the behind-the-scenes processes of creating media which include production, distribution, and consumption of the media content. Therefore, there is a range of business that stands behind the process such as broadcast media, digital media, advertising, marketing, newspaper and magazine, and public relations. The industry plays an important role in media as they will have the decisions to produce and distribute the media to the public to gain back success. Since media is an industry, it also has media ownership and is classified into 3 main groups: public, private, and non-profit ownership.

    

Vietnam Television (VTV)

 Public ownership is media that belongs to the government, is funded by taxes, and serves the public interest. Media owned by an individual or a corporation have private ownership, it is funded by advertising or subscription with an aim to make a profit. Media that are created with the aim to serve the social or community purpose is non-profit ownership and is funded by grants or donations. 

In Vietnam, an example of public ownership media is the Vietnam Television (VTV) which is a state broadcaster under the Vietnam government's direction and with the aim to propagate the views of the Party, policies, and laws of the government. Unlike public ownership media, there is a wide range of private ownership media in Vietnam. For example, a broadcasting channel in Vietnam named K+ which broadcasts mainly football matches, is part of the Vietnam Satellite Digital Television and is considered a privately owned media.