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.