How audiences are defined by media
Audience is very important when it comes to media. Everything that is made in media is made bearing an audience in mind. If an audience does not enjoy a project, then you are going to lose out on money because people are not going to pay to either watch something in cinemas, or play something if they do not enjoy it. ("GCSE Media Studies Introduction To Audience")
Why is audience research important to media producers
Audiences are important to producers because without an audience there would be no media. There would be no point in making media, if no one was going to watch it, play it etc. Companies carry out research for media producers ton find out how many people would be interested in productions. After doing this research, they may have found that they didn't get as much interest as they hoped for. They would then make changes, re-think about what they have done and hope the new ideas get more interest. Media producers spend a lot of time and money finding out who the audience for a programme or media product might be. Examples of research would be something like a questionnaire. These are good when handed out because then people will do them straight away, however if you posted them through doors people will not take any notice of them therefore you wouldn't get many results. Audience research is defined as any communication research that is conducted on specific segments of audiences that gathers information about them, these can include:attitudes, knowledge, interests, preferences or behaviours with respect to prevention issues. segments can also be based on grouping strategies such as, ethnicity and race, age or family income. (AnnieRose95, 2016)
Socio-economic class
This refers to a system that groups and ranks individuals based on wealth. It is most simply defined by three strata: Upper class, Middles class and lower class. At the very ends of either side of the spectrum, the socio-economic class can often come across as invisible. However, just because of this doesn't change the fact that class is still as important a factor as ever before because it shapes who we are and what kinds of opportunities we're afforded. ("Class | The Critical Media Project") For example, in the film industry, socio-economic class is represented in many different ways. Films will be made with the audience in mind. They will look at social class and decide which side of the spectrum their film will account too. For example, a film such as 'The riot club' which is based on the upper class, stereotypes the upper class as 'filthy, rich and spoilt rotten'. The film 'Look back in anger' is aimed at working class people as that's what the characters in the film are. The film industry can be very stereotypical and more often than so very believable in a way that it brings audiences into believing things that aren't true or forcing them into a biased answer. TV shows however are even worse at this. Especially shows like the news. Te news is the biggest source of making audiences choices for them. The news uses a lot of stereotypes and causing huge rivalries etc. They are very good at making decisions for audiences causing them to be confused without them even knowing. An example would be the elections that have been happening, and in the UK whether t stay in the EU or not. This is a great example because when you were watching TV, you would be interrupted with an advert about Brexit. One of them was telling us that we should leave and the reasons for it such as how uh money we spend a year giving it to other countries etc, then the next one was telling us to stay because we would lose a lot if we left. This caused audiences to have to believe what they saw rather than making their own decisions. What goes on on the news, everyone believes.
Audience profiling and demographics
Media producers define and categorise audiences. They do this through demographic profiles. This can be on things like age, gender, education, income and occupation. A way of describing audiences could be letter coding them depending on their income. These go from A to E, A being Top management, like bankers or lawyers, E being Students and the unemployed. Media producers consider how there audience may react to text etc, they analyse all factors by predicting this reaction.
Audience Engagement: This describes how an audience reacts with a media text. Not all people react the same way towards the same text.
Audience expectations: These include the advanced ideas an audience have about the text. Mainly applying to genre pieces.
Audience foreknowledge: This is the definite information which an audience brings to a media product.
Audience identification: This is the way in which audiences feel themselves connected to particular media products. It is when they feel it directly expresses their lifestyle.
Audience placement: A range of strategies media producers use to target particular audiences and make them feel that text is made specifically for them.
Audience research: Measuring an audience is very important to any media company. Research is carried out in each part of the production process. Once the product is produced, the audiences are monitored continuously. (Mediaknowall.com, 2016)
Psychographics
These are like demographics, however information is based on peoples; hobbies, habits, spending habits and values. The only way you are going to reach your target audience, is when you understand both a persons demographics and psychographics. Both of these put together start to form you buyer persona. This is a detailed picture of the people you are looking to use as an audience. Here's an example of a basic persona:
Psychographics are banded into personality and lifestyle. Here is a definition of the different sectors in psychographics:
Mainstreamers: They seek security. They tend to be sentimental, domestic, conformist and conventional. Favour value for money family brands. The largest group.
Aspirers: Seek status. Materialistic, orientated to image and appearance, persona and fashion. Typically younger people.
Succeeders: Seek control. Strong goals, confidence, work ethic and organisation. Typically higher management and professionals.
Resigned: Seeks survival. rigid and authoritarian values. interested in tradition and history. Typically older people.
Explorers: Seek discovery. energy, individualism and experience. Values difference and adventure. Typically younger (students).
Strugglers: Seek escape. alienated and disorganised. few resources beyond physical skills. buys alcohol, fatty foods, lottery tickets. Typically lower demographics.
Reformers: Seeks enlightenment. freedom of restrictions and personal growth. social awareness and independent judgement. anti-materialistic but aware of good taste.
Demographic information
- Female
- Aged 45-65
- Married with children
- dealing with issues of weight gain, diabetes, lack of energy or hormonal unbalance
- Household income £1000k+
Psychographic information
- Concerned with health and appearance
- wants a healthy lifestyle, but doesn't have much time
- enjoys going online in the evenings, big fan of pinterest
- Tends to favour quality over economy
- Finds fulfilment in her career and family
- values time with a small group of friends
Psychographics are banded into personality and lifestyle. Here is a definition of the different sectors in psychographics:
Mainstreamers: They seek security. They tend to be sentimental, domestic, conformist and conventional. Favour value for money family brands. The largest group.
Aspirers: Seek status. Materialistic, orientated to image and appearance, persona and fashion. Typically younger people.
Succeeders: Seek control. Strong goals, confidence, work ethic and organisation. Typically higher management and professionals.
Resigned: Seeks survival. rigid and authoritarian values. interested in tradition and history. Typically older people.
Explorers: Seek discovery. energy, individualism and experience. Values difference and adventure. Typically younger (students).
Strugglers: Seek escape. alienated and disorganised. few resources beyond physical skills. buys alcohol, fatty foods, lottery tickets. Typically lower demographics.
Reformers: Seeks enlightenment. freedom of restrictions and personal growth. social awareness and independent judgement. anti-materialistic but aware of good taste.
(BigDproductions)
Geodemographics
This is when people are placed in group[s because of their neighbourhood or surroundings where they live. Mainly by the characteristics of this area. It is the study of population. This involves the application of clustering techniques to group statistically similar neighbourhood and areas. For example, the posh areas of London would not be grouped with a small housing estate in Manchester. The main source of data for this study is the census. However, periodicity of census data being high, other sources like country court judgements, property valuation and household council tax bands data are also used. In marketing, geo-demographics can be of immense importance in segmentation. Following such segmentation, the prevalence and preference of each group can be determined.(MBA Skool-Study.Learn.Share., 2016)
When media producers are defining audiences, they have to consider these factors:
- age
- gender
- religion
- race
- sexuality
- education
- occupation
- annual income
- disposable income
- current and desired lifestyle
- media interests
- buying habits
- loyalty to brands
Age and Gender
These are an obvious but major part of audience research. Media/ documentary producers need to have the target age and gender decided first before they can define their target audience any further. Magazines are a big part of the media which often use gender profiling when making a magazine. Especially lifestyle (Bbc.co.uk, 2016). Age is an important area to cover when producing your medium because not all age groups like the same content. More mature programs are aimed towards older age groups because producers wouldn't be aiming programs with a lot of sexual content towards younger children. Things like 'Horrid Henry' are aimed towards the younger generation. Gender is important when creating a programme because you will have to consider what the qualities of the males and females are creating a program that is aimed at both is quite complex. This is because you have to create an equal balance. This is why there isn't m,any unisex programs on TV. Each have different qualities.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity is an aspect that should be treated with more care when profiling a demographic, as it could be seen as offensive by certain members of the public. Especially people of that specific ethnic group. By looking at ethnic groups, it helps the producers to design a more appealing protagonist or key characters in certain products they make to make sure they are including each and every ethnic group in the product. This is always a good thing because mass media is a large production, and audiences/ members of the public are often made to believe what is happening on TV. This can often be a bad thing because you often find films etc where all the characters are white. This can be offending to ethnic groups because they feel they are not wanted, or even not as good an actor/actress as the ethnicity being used.
Sexual orientation
This is an area where media producers will have to display equality in their programs by having that of a homosexual character included in them. This is to symbolise the current time. You may lose viewing figures, if anyone feel offended by either having that character, bu more so not having that character. Soaps, for example, they're objective is to portray society and if they do not consider sexual orientation it would seem they have a lack of acceptance.
Niche
Niche is a very small market which is complex because the media producer has to target a specific audience and conduct a type of research to get to know your audience and their qualities. Niche films are an art film. They are typically a serious, independent film aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. These tend to be foreign language films with subtitles. Example of a niche film would be 'A girl walks home alone at night'. This is a niche film, because it is Iranian therefore it has a small audience.
Alternative
It tends to be smaller in popularity, as this type of outlet showcase products, only certain audience members want to watch. Independent viewers tend to be picky about their content. The platform that media is presented on: Online, radio, newspaper, they are not often on TV as the duration would be too short. An example of this could be Macbeth. This is classed as alternative/ independent because it is made outside of the big major film studios. These are made in more independent small companies. This means they aren't as advertised as other films therefore may not get as many viewers.
Mainstream
Mainstream companies are the big well known studios such as: universal, Warner bro's etc. These have a large audience because they are well advertised and everyone knows about them. They have the biggest audience and a range of target audiences. Most films are made by these companies and people know them well therefore know that the films they produce are going to be good and they enjoy watching them. These are the type of films you go ti the cinema to watch etc. Family films are included in these therefore a wide audience age range. An example of a mainstream film would be 'The hunger games'. This is mainstream because it is made by Lionsgate which a lot of people know about. It was also made as a number of books and well advertised on TV.
Regional identity
This refers to the part of the country you come from. For example if you live in the united kingdom, this could mean 'north' or 'south'. It could also mean a specific country, like 'England' or 'Scotland' or even specific cities like 'London' or 'Manchester'. You will often see regional stereotypes on Television. Meaning you will see characters being played by the Scottish or English. They are stereotyped in ways such as: Londoners are often stereotyped as posh and snobby or the common, poor side of London. Each different place stereotyped in a different way.
Research methods
Quantitative research: This is research that is collected and data that is specific. For example, numerical data and it is usually displayed in tallies or graphs. This is so that it can be compared in the most unbiased way possible, but also quickly. An advantage therefore is that the research is unable to be biased and its very quick and easy to read. This type of research is good to use for presentations (nikitaburton, 2016). There are more advantages of quantitative research, these are that results from research are easily analysed. They are also easy to compare against other data; this comes in useful when magazine companies want to know how much more popular or unpopular a competing magazines are. The research is statistically reliable it gives the company a good indication of whose selling the most issues. There are disadvantages, one of these are that the information collected in a quantitative method doesn't give you additional information for example, the emotions, motives, feelings and opinions of the subject are not taken into account. Another advantage is that the data would need regularly updating so this could lead into spending more money. An example would be a TV show would need to do a test each week to find out the amount of ratings they have and compare them with previous data collected to see if the popularity of the program is increasing or decreasing. Depending on these ratings, depends on the out-come of the show. (nikitaburton, 2016) Qauntitative research is when companies gather information in large amounts. They do this by collecting information from surveys of large groups. The techniques used are; Mail surveys, telephone surveys, internet surveys and face to face public surveys. A good website example for quantitative research is BARB. This is the Broadcasters audience research board. This website looks at the weekly viewing figures for each program on each channel. This is good for TV channels and programs because it lets them know how many people are watching their show and whether they are getting the best viewings they are wanting. Here are the viewing figures for October 324th to the 30th of E4. 
Qualitative research: This is research that requires a more in-depth response, it allows you to ask personal questions and collect more data on people, this is best used in TV shows when they get the personal response from viewers. This allows them to find out about how some people feel about a certain story line and whether they think it will be appropriate. An example would be Eastenders. They regularly like to know whose watching their program an what they think about it and the current story line. Qualitative research is easily accessible, this is useful for companies who need to access the information easily and quickly, this works out well for the film industries when they ask people coming out of the cinema whether they thought the film was any good. They may fill out a short questionnaire etc. There are disadvantages of qualitative research, one of these is that the response given could be influenced by a thirst party and the authenticity and credibility is questionable. The response could be biased towards the strong opinions of the person responding. If there is a scene in a film or television program, about a woman having an abortion, it is difficult to ask people about as people can have strong opinions on this subject. (nikitaburton, 2016) An example of qualitative research would be interviews. These collect qualitative data over the phone, instant messages or even face to face interviews. This is finding out new and original research rather than something that they have found from a website etc. There are advantages and disadvantages of interviews. These are:
Advantages
- In depth responses gained
- Ensures the participants you are talking to will be relevant to your needed information
Disadvantages
- Un-easy to measure and analyse
- Participants could be influenced by the interviewer or the environment they are in.
(Harley, 2016)
Bibliography
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Meredith, A. (2016). How to Use Psychographics in Your Marketing: A Beginner's Guide. [online] Blog.hubspot.com. Available at: http://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/marketing-psychographics [Accessed 11 Nov. 2016].
BigDproductions, (2016). Demographics and psychographics. [online] Slideshare.net. Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/BigDproductions/demographics-and-psychographics [Accessed 11 Nov. 2016].
Criticalmediaproject.org. (2016). Class | The Critical Media Project. [online] Available at: http://www.criticalmediaproject.org/cml/topicbackground/class/ [Accessed 11 Nov. 2016].
MBA Skool-Study.Learn.Share. (2016). Geodemographics Definition | Marketing Dictionary | MBA Skool-Study.Learn.Share.. [online] Available at: http://www.mbaskool.com/business-concepts/marketing-and-strategy-terms/7264-geodemographics.html [Accessed 11 Nov. 2016].
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