This is a sample question on case study material. For my case study I chose Broadcast Fiction - specifically Crime/Drama. The series I analysed were Dexter, The Killing, Mentalist, Criminal Minds.

1. Consider the reasons media products from your case study are present across a range of
media platforms.
Support your answer with reference to a range of products from three media
platforms.
Nowadays media texts are consumed on a much larger scale compared to the past
decades as the Internet is used on daily basis. Convergence has made a great impact
on how audiences consume and interpret media texts therefore throughout the
years media producers have found ways to present their media products with the
aim to make the most profit out of the audiences that consume their texts. For my
case study I have chosen to focus on Broadcast Fiction specifically media texts that
revolve around the crime drama genre. Through the three media platforms – Print,
E-Media and Broadcast – producers are able to keep their current audiences
involved in the series, on top of that attracting new audiences maximizing the
audience share for their show.
To begin with, the print platform – even if the least popular out of the three – still is
able to target audience groups who watch crime drama series. It has been
increasingly popular in the past decade that producers of such TV shows produce
merchandising from their media texts. This would include board games, books,
calendars, posters and anything ranging from t-shirts to bath mats. Through synergy,
media producers help their audiences and “fanbases” to have their favourite
characters in their lives. For instance, there is a lot of merchandising created for
Dexter such as a board game which features all the main characters of the game
including Dexter who is supposed to hunt down another “slip through the cracks of
the justice system”. It targets audiences that are over 17 years old which is also
primarily the target audience of the show. The board game is produced by GDC –
GameDevCo – which also produces board games for other TV series with similar
genre e.g. CSI. This is an example of synergy as two companies promote each other
through this media product and help draw more similar audiences to them.
On the print platform it is also vital how the texts are portrayed through coverage by
magazine and newspaper articles. The Killing has had a lot of negative publicity after
Season 1 ended because the killer was not revealed at the end of the season so fans
and critics that have anticipated the ending to be the big reveal were disappointed.
Print is a platform through which liberal pluralism is expected thus there was a lot of
controversy regarding the season ending and if audiences were willing to keep up
until the end of Season 2 to find out “Who killed Rosie Larsen”. This has had an
impact on how Season 3 was produced since producers wanted to satisfy audience
expectations and pleasures, by the end of Season 3 audiences were aware of who

2. the killer was in that particular case. This was also the case with Mentalist, which
was mocked to never finding out who Red John was after season 1-4 were giving
such little information about the character, it received negative publications about
dragging the show for too long. The producers of the show then promised that
Season 5 and 6 would reveal a lot more about who Red John is, satisfying audience
expectations and as a result creating further publicity for the show.
The Broadcast platform is essential for producers and how they present their media
products across it, especially for broadcasting fiction. Since these are ongoing series
producers have to keep satisfying the audience’s need of entertainment, escapism
etc so that they maximize audience share as much as possible. One way that
producers do that is by plugging and advertising their shows. By way of illustration,
members of the cast of Criminal Minds and Dexter are invited to reality/talk shows
for interviews through which they can promote new seasons/episodes. Examples
include the Ellen Show, Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel and others. Through interviews
and talk shows, audiences are able to connect with the cast that plays their favourite
characters as well as being able to find out shows that actors who they are fans off
play in.
Referring to crime drama, audiences have certain expectations and pleasures for this
type of genre regarding how they are presented. They usually will be expected to
follow the typical narrative which is corresponding to Todorov’s theory is equilibrium
followed by disequilibrium followed by equilibrium. Moreover typical iconography is
expected in crime drama to be guns, blood, dead bodies as well as character
typology such as the killer, investigator etc. According to the theory of Repetition by
Steve Neale audiences consume media texts because they enjoy repetition. As a
result audiences will consume similar texts because they enjoy recognizing similar
characters and narratives. Producers therefore may release spin off shows that have
similar conventions as the original show i.e. genre, narrative and iconography. For
example CBS released a spin off show to Criminal Minds called Criminal Minds:
Suspect Behaviour (surprise surprise). The spin off was able to lure the audience of
Criminal Minds since they had the ability to watch a show pretty similar to the one
they were already watching and therefore producers of the two shows were able to
make even more profit out of it. Additionally through a certain narrative type
audiences are kept interested to watch the next episode/season of the show. By
ending the episode/season with a cliffhanger or with enigma code they ensure that
audiences will be interested and be expecting to follow up and keep watching. For
example in the Mentalist, Season 5 ended with critical information about who Red
John might be but still not giving away who he is. This reinforced audiences to follow
up on Season 6 and continue watching in order to find out.

3. Lastly the e-media platform nowadays plays the most crucial role in how media
products are presented. The e-media gives the audience freedom of speech and
criticism for any media text produced. This is an advantage to producers as they get
feedback on what they produce from their consumers and this helps them
understand as to what value their media product is to the audience. This can be seen
through the Criminal Minds Season 6 when the writers and producers decided to
change up the narrative by eliminating the 2 of the female lead roles Jennifer
Jareu(A.J. Cook) and Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster). The audience did not go
through with it, writing enraged reviews, comments on social media about
eliminating one of their favourite characters. The producers realized that it had
made an impact on how the fans inrepellated with the show in the absence
character JJ (Jennifer Jareu), consequently bringing the character back in Season 7.
The use of web 2.0 has also given a way to present media products on the e-media
platform. Producers have done that by creating games and applications that feature
an interactive audience. Firstly an example of that would be “Dexter’s Disciples”
which is an online game provided that the player has a Facebook account. Here
synergy is used again because in order to access the game the player would have to
create a Facebook account and give access to information from their profile page to
the producers of the game on Facebook. The game is basically a quiz game on how
well the audience knows the Dexter series, episode by episode. If the player answers
correctly, he earns a blood slide. Intertextuality here is used as the audience is
expected to know the significance of blood slides in the series. The game has certain
levels that a player might reach with the highest being Dexter’s disciple. The
audience – especially fans – is attracted to this game since they have the need to feel
that they belong in the group of people who do understand and know Dexter.
Earning a title such as Dexter’s Disciple is an achievement for the fans as they have
been following the series and they would feel like getting a reward for that. A game
was also produced for The Killing on their official website which allowed the
audience to investigate the case files of the murder and look around in Rosie’s room.
This inserted the audience in the investigation and the whole narrative of the story
making them active and keeping them interested in the series.
Moreover e-media acts as a great marketing campaign for media products.
Sometimes it is enforced by producers but it can also be a form of UGC that has gone
viral. An example of that would be the soundtrack of Dexter that is played every
episode in the credits which is called Blood Theme. Besides the fact that it has hit
over 2 million views on YouTube, it is also being sold on the market on iTunes and
Amazon. A lot of fans started creating their own versions/covers of the song and
posting them on YouTube and other social networking sites. It has attracted even
more audience since it has gone viral therefore creating a free marketing campaign
for producers but also maximizing audience share. Another viral campaign was “The

4. Dexter Hit List” which the audience could prank a friend by sending them a video
telling them a killer wants to get them and an interactive game on YouTube called
“Where’s Dexter” where the audience would have to go through a few videos trying
to find Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) in order to watch the trailer for Season 6.
Through this media producers of Dexter were able to effectively advertise their TV
series.
Concluding, through the three media platforms, media products were represented in
such way that would make the audience more involved in them. This increased the
audience share for such media products as all three platforms have been able to
successfully gain more popularity hence become more profitable for the producers.
Outstanding essay Eva! Sharp focus, great examples and solid organization. I hope
you have enough time to write all this in exam conditions! I would also suggest
looking at past papers and checking out past case study topics, as they tend to be
broad and diverse and practice on how you might customize your findings to other
topics / essay titles.
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