THE AVENGERS: SOCIAL , CULTURAL & HISTORICAL CONTEXTS

Social, cultural and historical contexts influence representations in television programmes like The Avengers. There are always exam question on how contexts impact on representation, either applied to one of the TV programmes, or to The Observer newspaper.

• We look for evidence about audience's concerns with the Cold War (your text book p.30)
• We note the absence of representations of different ethnicities and sexualities (p.35)
  
• We consider the changing attitudes to gender roles (your text book p.32)
• Attitudes towards class and the generation gap (your text book p.34)

 

THE AVENGERS: APPLY BLUMLER & KATZ

Today and tomorrow we watch the last of the TV programme The Avengers The Town Of No Return. For Blumler and Katz, audiences are active not passive. Audiences use media to gratify needs. We consider  the various ways in which audiences gain pleasure from watching TV programmes like The Avengers The Town Of No Return.

 

 OCR pdf guide to Television : Industry and Audience here

 

• Audiences watch The Avengers for the pleasures of escapism, diversion and entertainment. It is is exciting, entertaining, thrilling, gripping, and introduces us to a new world. Aim to link your analysis to The Avengers as a spy/ crime drama: thrilling chases, deadly fights, terrifying bloodhounds, sly enemy agents, high production values like filming in Norfolk, the comedy of the train journey, tense after-dark recces
  
• Audiences derive intellectual satisfaction from 'surveillance': education and information finding out about what happens - how do fifth columnists invade Britain, take over a village, plan a covert military campaign?
  
• Audiences  enjoy the social relationships (we share the characters' values & see things from their point of view; The Avengers provided a talking point as it was innovative, amusing and thrilling, with Peel providing both glamour in her pin-up qualities and a role model as a new woman); audiences enjoy sharing pleasures with friends & family, like watching TV together
  
• Audiences make choices about what to watch based on their shared values and beliefs (audiences admire Peel and Steel, empathize with the government agents, are on their side and support British values; audiences identify with certain people as heroes, hope that villains will be defeated, want a particular set of values to be restored and so on)