'How does Lost target its audience?'

Lost is a mainstream text which is encoded to suit a passive audience. In season 1 episode 2 we can see a variety of encoded conventions which appeal to a passive audience.

To start, in the scene where a group of characters including Kate, Sayid, Boone and Charlie are walking through the forest and the bear starts to charge, the film score plays a vital role. The non digetic music we hear whilst the bear charges is dramatic, fast and scary to hear. This instantly sets the mood for the situation, telling the audience to feel these particular emotions. This exposition is gratifying for a passive audience as it tells them how to feel before anything has really happened, so much so that the need for visual evidence to know what is going on isn't needed.  To build on the idea of this exposition, the close up shots of the characters faces, along side the rocky hand held camera, lets us see how they react. In this scene we see shock and fear expressed on their faces as the bear initially roars. This additionally , along side the non digetic music, adds to how the audience are fed with this clear exposition as to what is happening without the need to actively question. Kate even says "somethings coming" to clarify even further that there is danger approaching fast. The use of non digetic music, close up of facial emotions and the verbal exposition shown has clearly been encoded to appeal to a  passive audience appeal as what is happening during the scene has been told in a variety of ways without room to question otherwise. The hypodermic needle theory can be applied in this instance as this scene clearly shows evidence of a passive nature from how the producer has encoded this exposition in each instance of the scene.

To build on this, a little further on the same scene we see Boone shoot the bear with a gun. When the characters crowd around it, Kate says "Thats not any bear, its a polar bear" It is evident to see that it is a polar bear just by looking, but again the use of exposition and the clarification of what we see is still present verbally, thus shows more evidence of how its been encoded so suit a passive viewing. Additionally the fact that it is a polar bear on a tropical island and the fact that Boone has a gun acts as a enigma. A passive audience would take a preferred reading of this. They would recognize that Boone having a gun, and the polar bear aren't normal occurrences and will question why, but not take matters any further. Linking to Stuart Halls idea of a polysemic viewing, an active audience would also take a preferred reading of this enigma however an active audience would go online onto websites such as 'lostpedia' and socially intergrate with other lost viewers. This links to the cultivation theory and how these enigma codes have drawn its audience in, drawing them in to watch even more and making them discuss in online forums.

Moving on, the fact that Lost contains an ensemble cast means that there are going to be a wide range of personality's and ethnicity's. This leads to the audience gaining some form of personal identification from this as they could be from the same ethnic background as some of the characters shown. Not only does this cause favoritism with the result of social integration and the discussion of certain characters, but it also expands the audience range of Lost to a global scale with such a wide variety of ethnicity's given to us. The wide range of characters could act as an enigma in itself making a active audience question what the future will bring for a particular character and what conflict may arise. This causes even more social integration due to this cultivation and the drawing in of an audience.  

In conclusion Lost is evidently targeted towards a passive audience with the clear exposition presented in every instance shown. However polysemic viewing is also apparent with the use of cultivation through enigma codes and online social intergration.