Research Audience

What is an audience?

An individual or collective group who read of consume any media text.

Ex: Television viewers ,Radio listeners , Magazine/Newspaper readers

Why are audiences so important?

-Without audiences thee would be no media

-Many media organizations produce media texts to make profit

no audience=no profit

The Mainstream/Mass media is becoming more competitive to attract more audiences and stay profitable.

There are two main type of audience

Mainstream and Niche audience

What is a Mainstream audience?

Mainstream audience is known to incorporate a wide range of people,something with popular appeal.

-Narrative of the story is easily accessible and relatable to viewers of all ages and genders

-Some may be encouraged to watch mainstream media texts since they think its easier to be involved in conversations and any type of social life

-Extremely popular and heavily advertised

Example:

Niche audience?

Niche audience refers to a specific, particularly small, group of people. The media product would be unpopular.

-Audience tend to watch media that are seen as interesting to them in particular

-Have more individual in their tastes and opinion /not following trends

-Media texts may be more difficult to access and have less coverage across media platforms

Example:

Media Convergence

Media Convergence - how production companies use a variety of media to display their product.

Example: Film production companies having parent companies (conglomerate) that own or use other companies to advertise their product eg. through poster , magazine , apps , games , songs , social media and the internet.

How is Cross Media convergence Possible?

The answer is through Technological development and convergence.

Technological development - how technology enables media texts to be produced and distributed on multiple media devices.

The possibilities of benefiting in media convergence has encouraged many film production companies to aim more at producing movies content in the favour of mainstream audience.This is largely due to the fact that mainstream movies can be much more flexible to advertise their products into different platforms such as social media and the internet.

How is media convergence changing the way that the audience consume information and interact with each other?

Media convergence have made product from companies become much more easier to access and encounter by their target audience. Several film production companies now have conglomerates or hire other companies to market and advertise their products.With the advanced technological development it has enable media information to be distributed into wider variety of platforms including the social media, online newspaper/articles,TV,websites and radio.

Due to the rapidly increasing numbers of people having access to electronic devices and choosing to consume information through the internet , People will now be able to easily see information and product from companies through simply using apps such as Facebook & Youtube either from a direct or indirect advertising.It is no longer as essential as before to obtain a particular piece of information from a magazine or newspaper since most companies now often have their own websites or information spread in various platforms.

Uses and Gratifications theory

What are Uses and Gratifications theory?

Uses and gratifications theory is an approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs.

-It is an audience-centered approach to understanding mass communications

Blumler & Katz 1974

Blumler & Kat's uses and gratifications theory proposes that media consumers contribute and have role in the media.

-Their UGT suggests that media users contribute and have an active role in the media.

The user has 4 simple needs

-Diversion-the need to relax and escape

-Personal Relationships-using media to fulfill their personal relationship with friends or becoming part of a social group

-Personality identity-using media to find more about yourselves

-Surveillance-using the media to find out what is going on around us,keep updates,trendy

The theory can simply be summarised as:

1.Education

2.Entertainment

3.Escapism

4.Social Interaction

5.Relating to characters and Situations

3 other audience uses and gratifications

Visceral - (A physical or emotional response) e.g. using colour
Vicarious - (Experiencing something through someone else) e.g. Hardcore Henry
Voyeuristic - (‘Spying’ on other people) eg. Rear Window

Analysing Uses & Gratifications theory on Film opening

The appeal of 'Fight Club" to potential audiences

The opening scene of Fight Club gives a vicarious gratifications to the audience. Vicarious refers to experiencing something through someone else,in this case the film have start out by giving the audience different moving shots inside the main character’s body and slowly changing and revealing the normal surroundings and situations the main character is countering.During the scene a fast pace upbeat music was also being played building up more intensity and curiosity to the audience. This piece of technique can be used to apply on mainstream superheroes film such as spider man or the Avengers as a scene introducing the main character.The fast pace change of scenes from inside of the body to suddenly a stressful atmosphere changes and grabs the audience’s attention.

The opening scene of 'Se7en"

"Se7en" uses voyeuristic gratifications technique to seize the audience's attention in the beginning of its film. Voyeuristic is part of the 3 additional uses and gratifications theory which literally means spying on other people.This takes different shots of the main characters surroundings while not actually focusing on the main characters actual appearance or current action.Shots after shots getting closer to the main objective or action happening to the scene can slowly build up suspense and create questions inside the audiences mind.In this case "se7en" starts off slightly different by focusing right away at Morgan Freeman (1st objective) lying on his bed resting.

After a few seconds Morgan made his first action by flicking over the metronome (a device used by musicians to create tempo by giving a regular tick.) .The camera now focuses on the metronome only and slowly zoom out switching to a bigger frame where Morgan and the ticking metronome(2nd objective) can both be seen.One important thing about the scene is the fact that as soon as the metronome comes into the scene everything seems to be completely silent allowing only the loud ticking metronome sound to be heard.Again this particular technique effectively catches the audience's attention and promptly build up suspense following with anxiety and can be related to another audience uses and gratifications "visceral".

Depiction of audience use and gratification on "Fight Club" & "Se7en" -Compare and Contrast

The depiction of diversion gratifications in "Fight Club" and "Se7en" allows audience to relax and escape from the real world.The main idea of diversion in the uses and gratification theory is escapism which is to make audience seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking entertainment or engaging in fantasy.In both the movies main characters were set into roles either start off having a very realistic and ordinary character such as an office worker or a cool seldom career as a detective. As the story continues characters began to encounter a set of events which may have make their life much more interesting eg. Fight Club the main character being part of the secret society group called "Fight Club" or "Se7en"where the main character faced series of murder coming up before his retirement.Both movies followed the similar path of using diversion gratifications due to the fact that it enables the audience to escape from the real world and actually enjoy watching the main character in both stories faced a variety of events which rarely would happen to them for instance investigating on a serial killing or murder cases.

Audience Theories

There are 3 theories of audience

The Effects Model

The consumption of media texts has an effect or influence upon the audience.It is normally considered that this effect is negative.

Audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence.

The power lies with the message of the text.

It is the dominant ideology they trying to get us prefer read.

can relate to dominant ideology and hegemony.

Who ever controls the media controls the mind.

-Jim Morrison

The Hypodermic Model

Hypodermic is a metaphor to the media. The message in the media is injected through into the audience like a syringe.Therefore, the media works like a drug and the audience is drugged, addicted, doped or duped.

However, not all audiences are passive and likely to follow the media.

-The audience is powerless to resist

Key evidence for the Effects Model

1.The Frankfurt School

The Frankfurt School theorised in the 1920s and 30s that the mass media acted to restrict and control audiences to the benefit of corporate capitalism and governments.

2.The Bobo Doll Experiment

Conducted in 1961 by Albert Bandura

In the experiment:

-Children watched a video where an adut violenty attacked a clown toy called Bobo Doll

-The children were taken to a roo with attractive toys that they were not permitted to touch

-The children were then led to another room with Bobo Dolls

-88% of the children imitated the violent behaviour that they had earlier viewed. 8 months later 40% of the children reproduced the same violent behaviour.

This proved the idea that children copied the idea of violent behaviour. This shows how much media and parents actually had an effect on the people's behaviour.

Social Learning Theory

Bandura's key idea is social Learning Theory. This suggests that people learn how th behave from one another , through observation, imitation, and modeling.

People nowadays often considered the old propaganda as more violent and evil.However, if you think about it today propaganda in today's world comes in a form that's very suttle and more evil and the same time.

Moral Panic - Stan Cohen (1970)

the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.

It is based on a false exaggerated idea that some group's behaviour is deviant and is a menace to society.

"Moral panics" are general fuelled by media coverage of social issues.

For instance, guns violence in school shooting which often occured in the USA are often linked to video games as a cause especially when the person commiting the crime is young.The media usually blames video games solely and heavily for the incidents that happened whereas if you look deeply into several of the cases violence and aggression to the culprit is often related to family problems/effected childhood memory and bad parenting.

Just because it's niche doesn't mean it doesn't have an effect or couldn't create a big impact to the society.

Psychographics

-Segmenting the audience by personality

Young & Rubicam 4c Model

-Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation.

-AKA "LIFESTYLE GROUPS".

-Advertising company Young& Rubicam devised another in which audiences could be segmented- by lifestyle.

-They devised 6 groups which they use when determining what kinds of people they would like to target.

Reception Theory

Focus in the idea that the meaning of a media text is decoded by the audience. The meaning decoded is affected by a wide range of factors including gender, age, social class, ethnicity, education, regional location values, etc.

Stuart Hall (1973) suggested texts were encoded by the procedurs of texts to contain certain meanings related to social and cultural background of the creator of the text.However, once the viewer of the text 'decoded' that text then the meanings intended by the producer may change.

Hall's three main perspectives

Cultivation Theory

examines the long-term effects of television. "The primary proposition of cultivation theory states that the more time people spend 'living' in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality aligns with reality portrayed on television.

The media can shape or cultivate the audiences perception of the world.

-George Gerbner

Gerbner focused on the effects of television and argued that over time the media can shape or cultivate te audience's perceptions of the world.

One effect of media representations is through repitition to normalse or naturalise ideas and values making the audience accept them as normal.

Gerbner found that heavy television viewers often believed the world was more dangerous that it actually is, which he called mean world syndrome.

The idea of the mean world syndrome creates fear to people and can be easier for the conglomerate and upper class to control and keep people under.

End of Audience - Theories

In the ‘old’ media, centralised producers addressed atomised consumers; in the ‘new’ media, every consumer is now a producer. Traditional media producers would ‘filter then publish’; as many ‘new’ media producers are not employees, they ‘publish then filter’. These amateur producers have different motivations to those of professionals – they value autonomy, competence, membership and generosity. User-generated content creates emotional connection between people who care about something.

This can generate a cognitive surplus – for example, Wikipedia can aggregate people’s free time and talent to produce value that no traditional medium could match. ‘The Audience’ as a mass of people with predictable behaviour is gone. Now, behaviour is variable across different sites, with some of the audience creating content, some synthesising content and some consuming content. The ‘old’ media created a mass audience. The ‘new’ media provide a platform for people to provide value for each other.

Maslow's Hierachy of Needs

Bathes Theory

Bathes' said that: a text had no beginning, that it is revisble, we can gain access to it by many entrances(none can be authoritatively declared to be the main one), it can be indeterminable.