Over time, the preferred reading of a media text may not be blindly accepted by an audience as they are bringing a different perspective to the text than an earlier audience would.
If you use the YouGov “profiles” setting and look up The Shawshank Redemption, the sample of 2803 people shared the following characteristics:
Demographics:
The typical person who said they liked TSR was female, in the 40-59 age group and ABC1. Politically they are slightly left of centre and work in Education, Entertainment or Healthcare or Medicine.
Their hobbies and interests were said to be Movies, UK News and Worldwide News.
They described their own personality positive characteristics as being funny, reliable and open but negative traits were being lazy, selfish and disorganised.
They were most likely to drive a Porche, Mazda, Rover or MG.
Their other favourite movies were Silence of the Lambs, Forrest Gump, The Green Mile, Schindler’s List and Gladiator.
They spend their online time on IMDB and Movie sites or play online games. Their favourite magazine is Total Film and they spend 50 hours a week online and 35 hours watching TV.
Try the link yourself:
https://yougov.co.uk/profiler#/
Try it out for The Untouchables and The Godfather.
Think, how might the fact you live in a different time and country and are of a different age group affect your personal interaction with the film? What differential decoding are you going to have as a result? What are you bringing to the film that makes you read it differently?
