WaterAid Sample Question

How do media producers meet the needs of specialised audiences? Refer to Water Aid to support your points [12]

WaterAid targets specialised audiences by showing them things that they like. Firstly, the advert applies some hierarchy at the beginning from showing a very wet day in Britain and then the next scene shows a dry location, this transition simply connotes how us the audience in Britain can help these people in this dry area as we have water and are higher in power, we have more options than them. Showing this to the audience makes them remember how easy access they have to water and should help others in not so easy access. Supported by Gilroy's theory of past colonies still affect attitudes to race and ethnicity which constructs a hierarchy and binary oppositions, meaning that Britain who has power can help others and are independent whereas countries like Africa doesn't have much power and needs help.

The producers of the WaterAid advert show complex stereotypes of women to make the advert more relatable to the British audience. The main character, Claudia is represented in a complex way as she is an active, not passive character and she looks happy and healthy, this is complex as the stereotype of people in Africa is being sad and unhealthy because of the repetition of conventional adverts. More complex stereotypes is the other women who are collecting clean water and are looking independent which is breaking the regular convention of women in Africa. The women are not sexualised either which breaks the convention of how women are presented on the internet. They present women in these complex ways to create connections with their online audience, teenager girls can relate to Claudia, and parents can relate to the other women and feel bad for Claudia. Supported by Hall's theory who says that the idea of stereotyping tends to occur when there is inequalities of power which can be applied to the WaterAid advert.