Audiences: Positioning through moral panic 15.5

A moral panic is an intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.

Marshall McLuhan gave the term academic treatment in his book Understanding Media written in 1964.

According to Stanley Cohen, author of a sociological study about youth culture and media called Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), a moral panic occurs when "condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests".

Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are known by researchers as moral entrepreneurs, while people who supposedly threaten the social order have been described as "folk devils".

Moral panics are in essence controversies that involve arguments and social tension and in which disagreement is difficult because the matter at its center is taboo.

The media have long operated as agents of moral indignation, even when they are not consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety or panic.

Moral panic examples:

60's

They often occur during times when society has been unable to adapt to significant change and when such change leads to a fear of a loss of control within the normal social structure. This was evident during the 1960s when society experienced such modernising trends as the so called 'sexual revolution'. When events, such as those found in the 1960's, occur there is a concern that moral standards are in decline and entire generations can sometimes be accused of undermining society's moral structure.

James Bulger.

The concern of 'video nasties' reappeared in the 1990's following the murder of the toddler James Bulger by two juveniles. The case was related to the violent film 'Child's Play 3', which the offenders had previously watched. The case and the implications made against the film resulted in further regulations being enacted in 1994.

Despite the fact that such killings remain extremely rare, the story, largely due to its portrayal by the media, led to the view that all children were now at risk from one another, and that access to certain films could produce child murderers. The dangers posed by moral panics are continuously exaggerated and distorted by the media with the result that public concern is heightened. They often present reasons and scapegoats for the occurrence of certain events in order to divert attention from more real and greater problems found within society.

E.coli

The E.coli outbreak in Scotland, which occurred at the end of 1996, created debates regarding food safety laws and led to changes concerning the cleanliness of animals when they are slaughtered and the general hygiene standards in butcher's shops and supermarkets. Whilst E.coli is extremely dangerous the media's reporting of the incident led the public to believe that there was yet another national crisis concerning our food, and that such vulnerable groups as the elderly and the young were in extreme danger. 

However, despite the fact that twenty people died and many were seriously ill, the outbreak of E.coli was exaggerated extensively by the press, and many of the public failed to realise that many of the planned changes concerning food hygiene were already in place in most food shops. 

Whilst changes in the storing and displaying of cooked and raw meats was clearly necessary, the media's orchestration of the panic led the public to believe the issue to be a far greater problem than it actually was.

Dunblane
Perhaps the most publicised moral panic in the past few years has been the concern over the British gun control laws. Following the Dunblane massacre in Scotland in which a number of schoolchildren and their teacher were shot dead by a lone gunman, a campaign was initiated calling into question the current restrictions on the purchasing of weapons. The incident created a national panic and concern for the safety of our children in schools, and the issue of stricter gun laws resulted in extensive amendments to the laws making the United Kingdom one of the strictest countries regarding public access to hand guns.

Clearly, the majority of people who possess hand guns or who partake in shooting activities are normal, responsible people who have simply fallen victim to the demands of the media and the general public in making the country a safer place and preventing such a tragedy as Dunblane from ever occurring again.

AIDS
many innocent people fall victim of certain moral panics once they are orchestrated by the media. This point was evident in the aftermath of the AIDS issue which was raised in the 1980's. 

Through the media we were led to believe that the virus posed a very real threat to the future of mankind and although it was, to a great extent, a possibility that the virus would affect our whole way of life, it must be noted that the initial scare as reported by the media was based on assumptions and insubstantial evidence. 

The press also publicised the fact that the virus was prominent amongst the gay community. Whilst it remains true that homosexual men are at considerable risk from the virus the media's portrayal of the issue provoked mass public resentment of homosexuals and a general belief that they were responsible for the disease due to their 'unorthodox' lifestyle.

TASK1:
Do some research on the above moral panics. One paragraph on how each has been portrayed in the media. Post to your blogs.

TASK2:
Carry out some research on Leah Betts who died after taking ecstasy in 1995.
How has media coverage and celebrity input changed public perception of the drug?

Writing an essay all about ravers or Britpop is insufficient - you must write an essay about how they have been represented.

TASK3:

MEDIA PRODUCT

You must create your own Moral Panic via the production of  newspaper pages.

Your research and analysis will have shown you exactly how the media encourages the audience how to fear an element of society that is deemed to be on the 'fringes' - something which is outside of the norm. 
Your deconstruction will have shown how manipulative and persuasive the media can be in trying to shape the ideologies of an audience in order to be scared of that element.

You will also have investigated why Moral Panics are created and be able to give context to the representations you have seen.

All this analysis and research will probably give you a 'toolkit' of how to create a Moral Panic - sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit, the papers have the power to be master manipulators.

This project has the potential to be a lot of fun, but there are a couple of decisions to make and pit-falls to avoid...

• Are you going to take something that is already on the fringes of society and create a moral panic out of people's ignorance and limited perceptions?
• Are you going to choose something innocuous and unthreatening about society and demonise it?
• Avoid cliched and lazy ideas - somethings are overdone already; asylum seekers, video games and drugs might have already reached saturation point in the real media
• Don't confuse fear of things like natural disasters with Moral Panics
• Make sure that it's actually possible to get the photos you need - don't choose to discuss a terrorist attack unless you can get a photo of one!

Remember that the look and tone of this product should look and feel exactly like a real newspaper. Be very careful with how you write it and the decisions you make in regards to photos.

Audiences: How the media constructs audiences 14.5

Audience theory provides a starting point for many Media Studies tasks. Whether you are constructing a text or analysing one, you will need to consider the destination of that text (i.e. its target audience) and how that audience (or any other) will respond to that text.

Remember that a media text in itself has no meaning until it is read or decoded by an audience.

Ways of categorising audiences/users and audience/user composition. 

Media Audiences an Introduction 

Psychographics is the study of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles.[1] Because this area of research focuses on interests, activities, and opinions, psychographic factors are also called IAO variables. Psychographic studies of individuals or communities can be valuable in the fields of marketing.

“A media text is always created for a particular audience and will usually appeal most to this target audience.”
These audiences can be categorized and how the target audience is made up affects the media language employed by and the commercial viability of a text. The key thing to remember about the media industry is that it is a money making indu$try. What this means is each media text is a product that needs to be made for, and sold to, the right target audience in order to gross a profit.
In other words, everything is done with the target audience in mind.
Due to this being the case a lot of money is invested in audience research and the industry will refer to key theories when considering how to attract/represent this group.

 MASS AUDIENCE: 

Mass audiences are basically large mainstream audiences who consume mainstream or popular culture (Marxist would claim that this audience is largely made up of the ‘working class’), such as Hollywood films, Eastenders, reality TV, Premiership football, simple Hollywood, tabloids etc.
High culture, by contrast, is usually associated with broadsheets, opera, ballet and BBC Four.

 NICHE AUDIENCE: 

A niche audience is smaller than a mass audience but usually very influential. E.g. those that Marx would define as upper class/middle class, who controlled the media and may wish to see ‘high culture’ programs. Hence the launch of BBC Four for those who wish to hear/see artistic high culture programs.

Niche audiences don’t have to be this group though, they can be any small, dedicated group who advertisers feel are worth targeting or creating products for.
Examples could include, certain films (e.g. 'adult' movies - which can not really be called ‘high art’), fishing magazines, farming programs, underwater knitting!

When media text producers profile their audience they take into account AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS (class/economic status, gender, age, geographical location) along with their viewing preferences/needs: In other words, they think about the following before developing a text...

1) What social class will the primary target audience fall under?
2) What gender is the primary target audience?
3) What age will the primary target audience be?
4) What nationality will the primary target audience be?
5) What values do the primary target audience have? (Ideology).
6) Audience appeal - what will the primary target audience be looking for in a text? (UGT).

They then think about how they can best represent their primary target audience through;
genre, narrative, characters, cast, locations, cinematography, sound, editing, advertising etc.

Key Theories 

The following theories are all taken into account when profiling, representing and pitching to audiences:
Class: One of the most common ways of identifying a target audience is the social-economic model. Even though this model, used by the NRS (National Readership Survey Ltd), has been used for a long time, it is still useful way of identifying an audience and deconstructing a text.
The basis for the system is money – A/B audiences for example are assumed to have more spending power than CDE audiences. However, it is also presumed AB audiences prefer high culture (e.g. art-cinema, broadsheets and late night art programs on TV). While C/D/E, who stereotypically like Hollywood commercial films and consume more texts, make up a lager proportion of society making this the 'mass audience.'

 EFFECTS THEORY: 

The ‘Frankfurt School’ is the term given to a group of social scientists who were originally based at the Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt. They conducted research into the potential power the mass media had over audiences.
They were concerned that the media could be used as a tool of fascist propaganda. The founders were left-wing (Marxist) and criticised the capitalist system controlling the mass media for creating a mass culture that eliminated any opposition or alternatives.
This group was responsible for the ‘HYPODEMIC NEEDLE MODEL’ believing that the mass audience were passive and could simply be ‘injected’ with messages created by media producers.
Even though some critics still believe that there is some truth to this model (hence why age restrictions exist and some products are banned completely) others felt that this model over simplifies the situation.

For example, the theorist Stuart Hall deals with ‘Reception Theory’ study which determines how different audiences view the same text.
He found that the way audiences interpreted a text generally fell under one of the following:

• A preferred reading; of the text most likely to be received by the intended target audience who share the same ideologies (people read it as the creators intended – this is the closest to the hypodermic needle).

• An oppositional reading; generally by people who are not in the intended target audience (they reject the meaning intended and receive an alternative meaning).

• A negotiated reading; basically accept the meaning but interpret it to suit their own position/ideologies.

In short, what this shows is that the majority of consumers are not passive and their reading of a text is influenced by their own ideologies – a product simply cannot ‘brainwash everyone’ like an injected drug. However, some are more susceptible and easily influenced (especially children who have yet to complete the early years of the socialization process), hence age ratings etc.

Two-Step Flow

The Hypodermic model quickly proved too clumsy for media researchers seeking to more precisely explain the relationship between audience and text. As the mass media became an essential part of life in societies around the world and did NOT reduce populations to a mass of unthinking drones, a more sophisticated explanation was sought.

Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet analysed the voters' decision-making processes during a 1940 presidential election campaign and published their results in a paper called The People's Choice. 

Their findings suggested that the information does not flow directly from the text into the minds of its audience unmediated but is filtered through "opinion leaders" who then communicate it to their less active associates, over whom they have influence. 

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 diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researchers, and caused them to conclude that social factors were also important in the way in which audiences interpreted texts. This is sometimes referred to as the limited effects paradigm.

Nationality/values: IDEOLOGY: 

Ideology is an important factor to consider when creating a product because you have to represent the ideology your target audience wish to see. Ideology refers to the system of beliefs that is constructed and presented by a media product. As Marx claims, the dominant ideologies are those that already underpin society.
This can differ country to country, for example a soap made for a UK audience will differ to one made for a US audience, Spain or Iran (the same can be said for social realist programs like Shameless, music and comedy). This should in theory mean that British audiences should prefer British texts, however this is not the case because America has dominated the market for so long that American ideologies have been adopted in these countries (a form of cultural imperialism). As Kissinger (2011) stated; "globalisation is really another name for the dominant role of the United states" because they consider national and international cinemas as vehicles to represent and protect USA values. In short, Hollywood caters first and foremost for American audiences, but because Hollywood films have dominated the market place for so long many other countries, the UK included, see themselves represented by the values portrayed.

Uses and Gratification Theory: 

 This theory is the opposite of effects theory because it relies on the premise that audiences have free will and choose to consume certain things for different reasons. The theory was developed in the 1960s and was in expanded in 1974 by Blumer and Katz who suggested a series of possible reasons why audience members might consume a media text:
• Diversion (escape from everyday problems - emotional release, relaxing, filling time etc.)
• Personal relationships (using the media for emotional and other interactions e.g. substitution soap opera for family life OR using the cinema as a social event).
• Personal identity (constructing their own identity from characters in media texts, and learning behavior and values – useful if trying to fit into a new country/culture)
• Surveillance (information gathering e.g. news, educational programming, weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains etc).

THE FOUR C’S (cross-cultural consumer characteristics): 

This is one of the earliest, but still most popular, ways of profiling audiences. It profiles the audience in terms of wants and needs, not simply demographic. The categories are as follows:

 • Mainstreamers (this is the largest group. They are concerned with stability, mainly buying well-known brands and consuming mainstream texts).

• Aspirers (they are seeking to improve themselves. They tend to define themselves by high status brands, absorbing the ideologies associated with the products and believing their status alters as a result).

 • Succeeders (people who feel secure and in control – generally they are in positions of power. They buy brands which reinforce their feelings of control and power).

• Reformers (idealists who actively consume eco-friendly products and buy brands which are environmentally supportive and healthy. They also buy products which establish this ‘caring and responsible’ ideology). Individuals (highly media literate, expects high-production advertising and buys product image not product, requires high-profiling sophisticated advertising campaigns).

How media producers and texts construct audiences and users.

Constructing Audience

When a media text is being planned, perhaps the most important question the producers consider is "Does it have an audience?" If the answer to this is 'no', then there is no point in going any further. If no one is going to watch/read/play/buy the text, the producers aren't going to make any money or get their message across. Audience research is a major part of any media company's work. They use questionnaires, focus groups, and comparisons to existing media texts, and spend a great deal of time and money finding out if there is anyone out there who might be interested in their idea.

It's a serious business; media producers basically want to know the

• income bracket/status
• age
• gender
• race
• location

of their potential audience, a method of categorising known as demographics.

Once they know this they can begin to shape their text to appeal to a group with known reading/viewing/listening habits.

Creating Audience

Once a media text has been made, its producers need to ensure that it reaches the audience it is intended for. All media texts will have some sort of marketing campaign attached to them. Elements of this might include

• posters
• print, radio, TV and internet advertisements
• trailers
• promotional interviews (eg stars appearing on chat shows, information leaked to Internet bloggers)
• tie-in campaigns (eg a blockbuster movie using McDonalds meals)
• merchandising (t-shirts, baseball caps, key rings)

Marketing campaigns are intended to create awareness of a media text. Once that awareness has been created, hopefully audiences will come flocking in their hundreds of millions.

How audiences and users are positioned 

(including preferred, negotiated and oppositional responses to that positioning).

Stuart Hall - Audience Positioning

Modes of Address

Modes of address can be defined as the ways in which relations between addresser and addressee are constructed in a text. In order to communicate, a producer of any text must make some assumptions about an intended audience; reflections of such assumptions may be discerned in the text (advertisements offer particularly clear examples of this).

Once audiences have been constructed, media producers will assess the correct mode of address to use.

Direct - Identifies with the audience directly - 'Get out of the rain'.

Referential - Refers audience with advice - 'You might be better indoors'.

Expresssive - 'It's pissing down with rain'.

Poetic - 'How heavy fell the rain that day'.

Online news

The future looks rather bleak for the producers of national newspapers which people pay for. The general trend is one of decline in terms of circulation. Should this trend continue, not only will revenue from sales suffer, but those who pay for advertising space will be less inclined to do so or at least be less inclined to pay as much for the advertising space if they feel that their adverts will be seen by fewer people, thus choking the main source of income for newspaper producers.

One glimmer of hope is offered by online news which is a market that newspaper producers are looking to exploit. Currently, online versions of all Britain's national newspapers are available and these, unlike their printed counterparts, offer news which can be updated as events occur. However, there are major issues for the owners of the newspaper in terms of switching their content to an online version. Primarily, although advertising space is available, the websites are in essence free to access for the consumer. Although the costs of printing and distribution are no longer applicable, the actual cost of gathering the news and presenting it online such as paying journalists and photographers, buying news items from agencies such as Reuters or photographs from photojournalists and the cost of maintaining a website all have to be met.

One solution to this issue which has already been adopted by some American newspaper sites is for the consumer to pay a subscription for accessing the news through a newspaper's website. In an article in the Guardian newspaper on August 6 2009, Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corporation, the organisation behind the Sun, News of the World, and The Sunday Times and one of the foremost media conglomerates in the world, made it clear that it is his intention to charge a subscription for online newspaper content.

Audience responses: Profiling 13.5

Psychographics is the study of personality, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles. Because this area of research focuses on interests, activities, and opinions, psychographic factors are also called IAO variables.
Psychographic studies of individuals or communities can be valuable in the fields of marketing, demographics, opinion research, futuring, and social research in general. They can be contrasted with demographic variables (such as age and gender), behavioral variables (such as usage rate or loyalty), and organizational demographics variables (sometimes called firmographic variables), such as industry, number of employees, and functional area.

Psychographics should not be confused with demographics, for example, historical generations may be defined both by demographics, such as the years in which a particular generation is born or even the fertility rates of that generation's parents, but also by psychographic variables like attitudes, personality formation, and cultural touchstones.

For example, the traditional approaches to defining the Baby Boom Generation or Generation X or Millennials have relied on both demographic variables (classifying individuals based on birth years) and psychographic variables (such as beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviors). When a relatively complete profile of a person or group's psychographic make-up is constructed, this is called a "psychographic profile".

Psychographic profiles are used in market segmentation as well as in advertising. Some categories of psychographic factors used in market segmentation include: activity, interest, opinion (AIOs) attitudes values behavior Psychographics can also be seen as an equivalent of the concept of "culture" when it is used for segmentation at a national level.

Audience profiling recap:

 

Audience Profiling Powerpoint


Task 1:
Using your own detailed examples, examine why audiences respond differently to media texts.

CONSIDER:
Audience categories. Psychographics.
Mass audience. Niche audience.
Key theories:
Effects model. Reception theory. Two step flow. Uses and gratification. The four C's.
Ideology. Moral panic
Conclusion about audience construction and positioning.