intended target audience of Lost

The television series Lost a wide range of conventions which attract its targeted mainstream audience. A mainstream audience is one that appeals and interests a wide range of viewers, form different ages, genders, classes and ethnicities.

One of the main conventions which help give Lost such a wide mainstream audience is the ensemble cast that it presents. An ensemble cast means that the majority of the cast are assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time, making each of their character roles equally as important as one another. Ensemble casts also include many different varieties of characters, from different ages, genders, classes and ethnicities, meaning that the majority of Lost's mainstream audience can identify with at least one of the characters. 

Another convention that attracts a wide, mainstream audience is the way Lost combines escapism and relatable plots. Being set on a mystical island, and set away from everyday environments, Lost can gratify the audience with escapism by diverting them from reality and problems, enabling a preferred reading.  However, the non linear narrative, flash backs and flash forwards provide relatable issues and plots that will provide alternative gratifications such as enforcing personal identity. Combining these two mainstream narrative conventions causes Lost to reach to an even wider audience as some viewers may enjoy the feeling of escapism, where others may want to able to familiarise themselves with the more realistic plots such as flash backs of characters lives previous to the plane crash they were involved in.

One major convention that Lost includes, which helps reach out to a wide, mainstream audience is the enigma codes placed in the storyline. Enigma codes control what the audience see or know. They produce questions in the audiences mind and then proceed to solve, whilst gaining the attention and interest of the audience. In the series 1, episode 2 of Lost, there are many enigma codes placed in the text that question the storyline, such as a pair of handcuffs being found, a letter being read by Sawyer and secret mentioned. However only one enigma code is answered in this episode, causing a mainstream audience to want to continue to watch Lost in the hoe that these questions will soon be answered. These enigma codes, along with the carefully constructed use of the score to control audiences emotions are a large part of how Lost targets a mainstream audience.