Lost, Series 1, Episode 2, "The Pilot Part 2'

ABC's Lost is an american Tv series which was first aired in 2004, and ended in 2010. The film is set around a group of plane crash survivors that end up surrounded on a tropical island. Lost's has a wide, mainstream audience, and has been encoded to be inclusive. Botha  passive and active audience are able to be gratified by it.

  The intended audience for ABC's Lost is a wide mainstream audience. The first technical convention present that makes me believe this is the use of a non-diegtic score, in order to make the audience feel the same emotions as the characters. For example, when the young boy Walt was wondering through the jungle alone to find his dog, Michael Giacchino builds up the score and it gets louder, building the intensity and creating suspense, mystery and paranoia. Passive audiences will be able to put themselves in the position of the characters, and allow themselves to feel the same emotions in which the character has. This is a common technical convention in many mainstream texts nowadays.

Another technical convention used, to suggest that the intended target audience is mainstream, is non-linear narrative. Within the first 5 minutes of the opening scene, its starts on the Island, however then jumps to flashback of the character Charly on the plane. This helps the audience learn a bit more about the characters background i.e. before they where on the island and gain a better understanding. Non-linear texts, never used to be a common technical convention, however more and more mainstream texts are beginning to use them in order to fill out time space of the programme.

Repeated use of enigma codes, thats suggests Lost's intended audience is mainstream. For example, the director uses a close up shop of pair of handcuff's. this helps to encourage an active audience would question who the handcuffs belong too? how did they get there? why are they there? These codes help to create social interactions and word of mouth, therefore helps to promote. Enigma codes are used to help create curiosity which helps to sustain such a wide audiences attention in order to find out the answer which can only be revealed by continuing to watch the series.