The Ethnographic Model

Using the ethnographic model evaluate your own text. Have you inadvertently prevented certain audiences from accession your text?

The first stage of the ethnographic model relates to tv viewing, as we are appealing to a very niche audience, by only broadcasting our short film on the internet, we are inadvertently preventing this audience from accessing our film. If our short film became popular after being shown on the internet, it may be broadcast on the tv in a small slot, similar to ch4 '3 minute wonder' however this would still only appeal to a small audience. Stereotypically, the remote is controlled by the man of the house, the father, and our film does not neccessarily appeal to the typical man. However nowadays households have more than one tv, and as it would be broadcast on a terestrial channel, it is likely that our film could be watched by other members of the house who may be interested.
The second area of the model is concerned with gender appeal. To a typical man, our film may seem a waste of time, maybe they would not understand the idea of it, and just see it as a film about a tramp. They may also not have an interest in issues such as homelessness, and therefore not care about what they were watching. Although the ethnographic model states that 'men occupy more public space than domestic space and therefore feel the need to be aware of the public worlds reflected' this does not neccessarily mean that they will want to view our film simply because it portrays a realistic issue in our public world, it may in fact push them further away from wanting to watch our film, because it is not actually a real portrayal, we have used actors. Women are generally more sympathetic towards issues like homelessness, which is why we portrayed a business man as the binary opposite to the vagrant, our short film may attract them and allow them to feel empathy towards the character. A woman is also more likely to sit down and watch the film if the link was sent to them via email for example, although they are busy with domestic resposibilities, this may be seen as a break for a few minutes.
The third area identified by the model relates to technology, and the availability of it for our audience. Information rich people would be able to view our film as it is broadcasted on the internet, although a problem arises with the further demarcation along gender lines. Ethnographically, men are better with technology than women, this is reflected in the way that complex technology usually fits into the category of 'boys toys' however as I have already said, our film is more likely to be watched by females. This is where the problem arises, and this is where we are mostly preventing audiences from accessing our text. However this is just a stereotype, and as technology is moving forward so are we. My generation of teenagers/young adults are much more equal in their knowledge of technology than my parents, for example. It is likely that we know more about technology than our parents, and therefore could teach our mothers how to use youtube and emails, so that she would not be excluded from watching our short film. We are completely excluding information poor members of the general public as they do not have computers or internet access and therefore have no way of viewing our film, however like I have said, if our film became popular and we were able to broadcast it on channel 4, this would allow them to watch it. The issue with this is that they do not have the money that information rich people have, and therefore their viewing is not much of an issue for us.