MTV's Jersey Shore essay

Jersey shore is the most watched television series on MTV with . A series based on four men and 4 women who range from 21-28 years. They go away and live together in a home already paid for, all they have to do is work at a t-shirt store, ice cream parlour etc, spending the rest of their time partying, sleeping around, tanning and fighting with each other.

 Jersey shore is aimed at an audience of people between 12-34 years of age. I believe that this audience would fit into both young hopefuls and the next generation tags. These are people who are big television watchers and have low incomes. People who might not have started a family yet, so they could possibly have more free time on their hands, which other people may spend working full time, with their families or taking care of their children etc.

Techniques used to target this audience include the vocabulary they use in the show. Such as “Doggin’ you out”, “Grenade”, “GTL”, “Juice Head”, “smush”. This appeals to the specific audience because young people want and strive to be “cool” and along with having the newest gadgets, listening to the latest music, I think they feel that talking with the latest slang keeps them cool.

Another technique is the characters in the show. They are all in the age group between 21-28 years old. Because there is quite a range in the ages it appeals to both young teenagers and up to early 30 year olds. I feel that this is because when you look at the people on the screen you see people not far from your age. In some ways the audience might aspire to be like them and have the life they do which could draw them into watching the show. You could look at them and be very unimpressed, find humour in their stupidity or in their slow growing up because maybe you were far more responsible, grounded and settled at their age. This may convince you to watch it for a laugh, or to be surprised by the difference in your lives. You could look at the show and wonder how on earth they got to be in this situation. Either way, there are factors that could bring you to watch the show because of the characters, there are always exceptions in the targeted audience – not everyone in the age group finds enjoyment and pleasure in watching Jersey Shore.

The lifestyle these young adults live may be idolised by a percentage of their audience. The partying and/or carefree looking lifestyle could strongly appeal to people in their age group. Idealism could play a big part in attracting such a large following. They seem to have no problems but petty fights and arguments. There is no struggle to make ends meat, money doesn’t seem like an issue to them with all of their drinking and beauty expenses. They don’t need to worry about finding out how they are going to pay their next bill, well at least it doesn’t seem that way to the viewer. And right now money is very tight for some people which could attract the late 20’s-early 30’s.  Both the young hopefuls and the next generation groups also have a low income.

The fact that Jersey shore has broken records for MTV’s biggest television series, with the largest views MTV has ever had proves that it is obviously doing something right to attract an enormous following and it doesn’t look like that is going to change any time soon with such a strong dedicated audience.

Notes on frontline.

Frontline – The merchants of cool – Notes.

Largest generation ever. With the biggest disposable income. Stubborn. Cool hunters will target the 20% or so who are the trend setters, the people who will influence the rest, the other 80%. They will research those 20% to decide what is cool. “As soon as media discovers cool it stops being cool”. Teens got annoyed with the amount of advertising they were seeing, and began to hate the obvious advertisement. So brands like sprite began to “anti-advertise”, advertising but not being so obvious, but they caught on to it. MTV is a channel full of advertising. For MTV to stay cool they will need to change with the kids, because the kids decide what it cool. And cool will always change. Shows on MTV that plays the most wanted music videos give the audience got to choose what was played. This helped them stay cool, because the show played EXACTLY what the teenagers thought was cool at that time and it would always change. Professional wrestling was the most watched among teenage boys. “Pop” is like a shock and where there is “pop” there is money. WB had aimed to be a channel where families could watch TV together, because other than Disney, they couldn’t do that. But they had to compete with shows more “raunchy” and after about a year they brought in Dawson’s creek, which is about a group of teens and sex. A film was created and listed as aimed at 11-12 year olds, where it was clearly not. So it was investigated by the government. But the director of the film makes no apology, because he knows that no teenager wants to sit down and watch a PG13 movie, so in attempt to be “cool” he falsely advertised it because he knew what teenagers wanted. Media watches kids and sells them an image of themselves; the kids then watch this and aspire to be them.



Jersey Shore.

Are there any ways in which jersey shore is reflective of how teenagers really live?

I think that there are aspects which are similar to some teenager’s lives, the partying – maybe no to such an extent that I know of but teenagers do go out partying and to clubs and bars etc.

In what ways are their lives distorted from the truth?

You would have to be pretty lucky to be paid for working at a t-shirt shop, and for them to provide accommodation. They have life pretty easy over this period of time. Other than their easy, relaxed job at an ice-cream parlour or something, they can basically do whatever they want.

Does this show mirror the way you live? Or is it more like you’re an anthropologist looking in on this society?

It definitely does not mirror the way I live. I don’t go to many parties, and if I do they are definitely no way near as crazy and out of hand as the parties on jersey shore. I don’t go to bars and clubs. I don’t go away for the summer to party with a bunch of friends, get drunk and sleep around. So it is more to me like I am an anthropologist looking in on this group of people and not being able to relate to them but being interested in how different their lives are from mine. Possibly that is why we watch it.