To explore how media texts appeal to different audiences

To explore how media texts appeal to different audiences
Historical background-

• If you were living a hundred and fifty years ago photography, film, television,
radio and computers as we know them would all have seemed like fantasies.
• The cliché about pre-media times is that people made their own entertainment
• The kinds of things that people did in their leisure time were either likely to be fairly independent things such as reading, or they would involve mixing with many other people such as going to a play or musical.
• Media has separated people e.g. video games cause youngsters to become alienated
• It can be argued that on the other hand media brings people closer together e.g. one night a soap opera comes on and people get together and have a conversation about it.
• The media are often experienced by people alone. (Some critics have talked about media audiences as atomised – cut off from other people like separate atoms)
• Wherever they are in the world, the audience for a media text are all receiving exactly the same thing.

The audience as ‘mass’
According to many theorists, particularly in the early history of the subject, when
we listen to our CDs or sit in the cinema, we become part of a mass audience in many ways
like a crowd at a football match or a rock concert but at the same time very different because
separated from all the other members of this mass by space and sometimes time.

Obvious ways to classify audiences are by age, gender, race and location (where they live).

Income bracket/status

One way to classify audiences is by their class, which is normally judged on the kind of job
the main wage-earner of the householder has

• A: Upper middle class
Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals
• B:Middle class
Middle management, teachers, many 'creatives' eg graphic designers
etc
• C1: Lower middle class
Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc
• C2: Skilled working class
Skilled workers, tradespersons (white collar)
• D :Working class
Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar)
• E: People at lowest level of income
Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers

Young and Rubicam’s Four Consumers

As the concept of class became less fashionable, advertisers started thinking about audiences in different ways. One of the best-known was devised by the advertising agency Young and
Rubicam.

Mainstreamers
Make up 40% of the population. They like security, and
belonging to a group.

Aspirers
Want status and the esteem of others. Like status symbols,
designer labels etc. Live off credit and cash.

Succeeders People who have already got status and control.

Reformers Define themselves by their self-esteem and self-fulfilment.

LifeMatrix

One of the latest approaches to audience targeting has grown out of the field of Market
Research. The LifeMatrix tool, launched by MRI and RoperASW, defines ten audience
Categories, centred around both values, attitudes and beliefs, and more fundamental,
Demographic audience categories.

1. Tribe wired Digital, free-spirited, creative young singles
2. Fun/Atics Aspirational, fun-seeking, active young people
3. Dynamic Duos Hard-driving, high-involvement couples
4. Priority Parents Family values, activities, media strongly dominate
5. Home Soldiers Home-centric, family-oriented, materially ambitious
6. Renaissance Women Active, caring, affluent, influential mums
7. Rugged Traditionalists Traditional male values, love of outdoors
8. Struggling Singles High aspirations, low economic status
9. Settled elders Devout, older, sedentary lifestyles
10. Free Birds Vital, active, altruistic seniors

• Different types of media texts measure their audiences in different ways.

Film Figures are based on box office receipts, rather than the number of
people who have actually seen the movie. Subtract the production costs
of a movie from the box office receipts to find out how much money it
made, and therefore how successful it has been in the profit-driven
movie business. Be aware that a film which does not cost much to make
(eg The Blair Witch Project) and takes even a modest amount at the box office can be considered a greater success than a big action movie which cost more, has a bigger set of box office receipts (ie lots more people went to see it) but has a smaller profit margin. Also be aware that film companies are very coy about publishing production costs of a movie, and that they rarely include the cost of a film's marketing budget, which is probably at least a third again of the production costs, and is frequently more. in some cases, the marketing budget may exceed the cost of originally making the film – Four Weddings & a Funeral's American marketing spend is an example of this.

Print Magazines and newspapers measure their circulation (ie numbers of copies sold). They are open about these figures - they have to be as these are the numbers quoted to advertisers when negotiating the price of a page.

Radio/TV Measuring the number of viewers and listeners for a TV/Radio programme or whole station's output is a complex business. Generally, an audience research agency (eg BARB) will select a sample of the population and monitor their viewing and listening habits over the space of 7 days. The data gained is then extrapolated to cover the whole population, based on the percentage sample. It is by no means an accurate science. The numbers obtained are known as the viewing figures or ratings.

Influencing the audience

If audience is a mass, it raises all kinds of questions about the power of the media to influence people – not just individuals, but whole sectors of society. There have been a number of theories over the years about how exactly the media work on the mass audience.

The hypodermic model
Perhaps the most simple to understand is the hypodermic syringe this has been very popular down the years with many people who fear the effects of the media. It grew out of what is referred to as The Frankfurt School, a group of German Marxists in the 1930s who witnessed first hand how Hitler used propaganda to influence a nation. The Communists in the Soviet
Union had a similar impact.

According to the theory the media is like a syringe which injects ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience who as a powerless mass have little choice but to be influenced – in other words, you watch something violent, you may go and do something violent, you see a woman washing up on TV and you will want to do the same yourself if you are a woman and if you are a man you will expect women to do the washing up for you.

The theory: Violence in the Media encourages viewers to imitate what they see

The cultivation/culmination theory

• The theory (1): Violence in the Media de-sensitises the audience to violence in general.
• The theory (2): Violence in the media erodes inbuilt inhibitions against acting in certain ways.

Two more theories: identification and sensitisation

• Identification: Violence in the media releases tension and desires through identification with fictional characters and events (catharsis)

• Sensitisation: Violence in the media can sensitise people to the effects of violence