We have learned about various approaches and frameworks relating to audiences.
Here is the information on AUDIENCE RESEARCH that we have studied:
1 - AUDIENCE: A KEY CONCEPT
All media texts are produced with an audience in mind - that is to say a group of people who will receive the text and make some sort of sense out of it.
Understanding audience research will help me plan my own production.
So audience is part of the media equation – a product is produced and an audience receives it. Television producers need an audience for their programmes, so they can finance those programmes and make more programmes that the audience likes. Advertisers need an audience who will see or hear their advertisements and then buy the products.
A media text is planned with a particular audience in mind. A television producer has to explain to the broadcasting institution (e.g. BBC or ITV) who is the likely audience for this particular programme.
Are they under 25 years old or older, mainly male or mainly female, what are they interested in? The television audience varies throughout the day and night, and television and radio broadcast for 24 hours, seven days a week. How do we know who is watching or listening at any one time? This is where audience research becomes important.
A media producer has to know who is the potential audience, and as much about them as possible.
My next task is to create / devise / design an audience profile for my own production
2 - AUDIENCE PROFILING
TYPES OF AUDIENCE RESEARCH
Marketing uses audience profiling such as socioeconomics,demographics, psychographics and GEARS to identify different audiences. |
| A common and traditional method of audience research is known as DEMOGRAPHICS. This defines the adult population largely by the work that they do. It breaks the population down into 6 groups, and labels them by using a letter code to describe the income and status of the members of each group. GEARS segments audiences by Gender, Ethnicity, Age, Region,Socio-economic group. |
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| PSYCHOGRAPHICS (above) is a way of describing an audience by looking at the behaviour and personality traits of its members. Psychographics labels a particular type of person and makes an assessment about their viewing and spending habits. With cookies tracking consumers' online behaviour when they leave footprints, it is easy for brands to collect data on consumers' spending habits and interests. The advertising agency Young and Rubican invented a successful psychographic profile known as their 4C’s Marketing Model http://www.4cs.yr.com The 4 Cs stand for Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation. They put the audience into groups with labels that suggest their position in society |
MARS another way of looking at this model : Mainstreamers, Aspirers, Reformers, Succeeders
3 - AUDIENCES AS PASSIVE (4 items)
THE MEDIA EFFECTS MODEL
This approach was originally developed to explain the effects of media that are powerful in positioning audiences, such as television. It supports positions that advocate regulation, as does Gerbner's cultivation theory, which argues that strongly-delivered media messages that are consistently delivered have long-term effects on audiences.The media effects (hypodermic syringe) model is an outdated model, as it positions audience as as passive. It has been replaced by the uses and gratifications model of audience behaviour, which positions audiences as active.
STUDIES USED TO SUPPORT THE EFFECTS MODEL
Bobo doll (Albert Bandura, 1961) We read David Gauntlett's article 10 Things Wrong With The Media Effects Model (1998). In it, he refers to the artificiality of such studies shown by researchers such as Borden (1975).
THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN MORAL PANICS Read The Guardian article (screenshot below) Include the article below about how films have been implicated in producing copycat crime.
4 - ADORNO AND THE CULTURE INDUSTRY
For Theodore Adorno, advertising creates false needs that audiences (consumers) passively embraced. Adorno (1903-69) argued that capitalism fed people with the products of a 'culture industry' - the opposite of 'true' art - to keep them passively satisfied and politically apathetic.
Adorno suggested that culture industries churn out a debased mass of unsophisticated, sentimental products which have replaced the more 'difficult' and critical art forms which might lead people to actually question social life.
False needs are cultivated in people by the culture industries. These are needs which can be both created and satisfied by the capitalist system, and which replace people's 'true' needs - freedom, full expression of human potential and creativity, genuine creative happiness.
Products of the culture industry may be emotional or apparently moving, but Adorno sees this as cathartic - we might seek some comfort in a sad film or song, have a bit of a cry, and then feel restored again.
5 - AUDIENCES AS ACTIVE (3 items)
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is a theory which suggests there are 5 stages people go through in life. The theory says that at each stage we have different motivations that drive us. We use different media, for example, to meet different needs:" Safety- Linkedin, where you are able to find jobs and networks that could open doors for your career path.
Love/Belonging- Facebook, Google +, where you are able to reconnect and gain relationships, whether it is in the form of acquaintances, friends, lovers or family.
Self-Esteem- Twitter, where you are able to share your experiences, achievements that will help you boost your confidence and gain respect from others.
Self-Realization- Tumblr, Blogspot, Wikipedia, where you are allowed to share your knowledge, interests, inner thoughts and your creativity." (Source https://socialmediaandtheself.wordpress.com/)
WHY AUDIENCES CONSUME TEXTS: THE USES AND GRATIFICATIONS MODEL
We look at different models of audience behaviour. Mediaknowall will remind you of what we discussed.The uses and gratifications model of audience behaviour (Blumler and Katz, 1974)
THE TWO-STEP FLOW MODEL
Katz and Lazarsfeld assumes a slightly more active audience. It suggests messages from the media move in two distinct ways.
First, individuals who are opinion leaders, receive messages from the media and pass on their own interpretations in addition to the actual media content. The information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience, but is filtered through the opinion leaders who then pass it on to a more passive audience.The audience then mediate the information received directly from the media with the ideas and thoughts expressed by the opinion leaders, thus being influenced not by a direct process, but by a two step flow.
This theory appeared to reduce the power of the media, and some researchers concluded that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpret texts. This led to the idea of active audiences.
6 -RECEPTION THEORY - STUART HALL AND CULTURAL STUDIES
RECEPTION THEORY positions audiences as active.It focuses on the scope in textual analysis for 'negotiation' and 'opposition' on the part of the audience. This means that a text ( a book, film, advert, poster or other creative work) is not passively accepted by the audience but that the reader / viewer interprets the meanings of the texts based on their individual cultural background and life experiences.
Stuart Hall’s encoding / decoding model; dominant (or preferred), negotiated and oppositional readings; why Hall says he studies culture instead of media specifically, and media hegemony. Audiences are no longer considered passive recipients.
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| A 40-year-old man and a 10-year-old girl would not interpret an episode of The Simpsons in the same way. |
7 - EXIT POLLS
The BFI carries out exit polls to assess audience response at film screenings. Here is one example (name, director, date). '71, directed by Yann Demange, 2014
8 - THE ROLE OF THE BBFC
The BBFC looks at issues such as discrimination, drugs, horror, dangerous and easily imitable behaviour, language, nudity, sex, and violence when making decisions. The theme of the work is also an important consideration. They also consider context, the tone and likely impact of a work on the potential audience. Audiences are therefore guided in their viewing; vulnerable audiences are protected. Similar regulation applies to the viewing of video games which are regulated by PEGI
