Key Concepts - Audience

L.O learn concepts and terminology connected with Media Audiences

Starter: How can applying the theories of audience to our surveys benefit our results on this A2 course?

Synthesize the theories into a survey to find out more about how to categorize your audience.

Learn about different audience reception models

Uses & Gratifications

Hypodermic needle

Hypodermic Needle Model Uses & Gratifications Model

Audiences are passiveEasily led, influenced & manipulated

Gullible, sheep-like fashion-followers

Media consumption influences the attitudes and behaviour of audiences

Sometimes called ‘magic bullet’ theoryLinked to propaganda & advertising

Behaviourist models of human behaviour

PIES

Audiences are active in choosing media for their own ‘gratifications’ (pleasure)

Links to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Developed by Blumler & Katz

Main reasons for using media:

Personal Identity – to define who we are(sometimes called self-surveillance) InformationEntertainment – includes escape, distractionSocial Interaction – to help us socialise with like-minded people

Uses and GratificationsRead the document, which provides a full walk-through of the theory applied to television.Using the different aspects, as applied to different forms of television, write a list of all the uses and gratifications associated with:• Watching music television• Seeking and watching music videos on You

Tube.

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Information

Social Integration

Personal Identity

Entertainment

(Young & Rubicam’s 4Cs model) cross cultural consumer characterization model

6

The traditional segmentation model

Market research companies often come up with other ways of segmenting audience/ consumers

Designing a survey

When sitting down to design an advert, advertisers will think carefully about who their target audience is using a range of different theories and frameworks. They will design surveys to capture information which relates to them, for example posing questions to deduce which of the 4Cs their potential audience relates to. YOU need to design your surveys along these lines. How?

Example Questions

• What is your occupation?What information does this instantly give you about your audience member? In which framework(s) would you be able to position them?

• Show the audience member the cover for a major publisher’s music magazine (e.g. Q) and something more edgy (e.g. NME) and get them to pick their favourite.Now think: is the audience member ‘mainstream’ or ‘explorer’?

• Rank the following in the order in which they would make you happiest: friendship, food, health, being creative, the respect of others.Now, plot the audience member against Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs – how do they fit?

NME Consumer ProfileHere is a reader profile for

NME. This document is updated every quarter

following market audience research, and is produced for advertisers in order for

them to appropriately place their brand in a

magazine that is going to align itself with their

target audience. Look at this profile – what statistics/info

would be of interest to a music video

producer, already knowing their artist’s audience read NME?