Audience Theories

The Hypodermic Needle Theory

The evidence that this theory works that people just automatically believe anything they hear that is broadcasted on national media. For example there was a radio broadcast of war of the worlds and people who were tuning in half way through the broadcast believed it was a real alien invasion, this even lead to some people committing suicide. This is why being a passive audience is bad. Being part of an active audience is becoming more common as social media is growing and major broadcasted news is becoming more commonly using false information or miss interoperating information.

Tabloid Vs. Broadsheet

Tabloid Vs. Broadsheet 


In this assignment we will be comparing the codes and conventions between a tabloid and broadsheet which is not very hard as both of the papers are layed out generally in the same order but they are aimed at a different classes of society, and obviously different classes of society react to news differently. For example the rise of gas prices make the front page of The Sun as this change will have a large affect on the lower of the UK classes whereas it is page 8 in the Daily Mail, this is because it is not going to have as much as an effect on the ABC1C2 Adults social class which is the Daily Mails biggest audience compared to the sun who's prime audience is the 25-50 age category and these people are scattered across the different social class.

The above audience profile was made for The Sun.

Immediately by looking at the front page of the sun you can tell what social category it is aimed at as it offers 2 for 1 days out and asks the question 'One of these woman has had 180 lovers. Another just two... Can you tell?'. By looking at this front page you can tell that the audience fir this paper is amongst the lower classes of society because the this class of society will benefit more from a 2 for 1 day out deal and might want to know who has sept with 180 people. The main story on the front page is the 9.2% rise in gas prices entitled 'YOU GOT THE POWER' which is not exactly a very well thought out headline.

This tabloid appeals to its audience very well as for men it has all of the most important sports news, which a lot of men will buy a news paper purely to read. This particular tabloid includes a topless model on page three that varies every week which will also help to draw a large male audience. This tabloid also includes a 2 for 1 day out voucher which will appeal to their audience because the audience is mainly lower social scale that may not have the money to go to them places. This could also hint that the audience are family orientated people with children and a partner. These vouchers will also increase sales and might increase the average amount of readers. On the Daily Mail there are no vouchers or offers, showing that the audience is of a higher class and does not care about money off vouchers and prefer broadsheets to simply tell them important stories that are currently in the news, this is also shown by how little pictures and bright colours there are on the cover of the Daily Mail. 

Market research suggests that the average income of a typical Sun reader is around £22,000 a year whilst the typical Daily Mail reader is has an average of around £50,00 a year. I would say that the typical reader of the sun could be Psycho graphically profiled as resigned, struggler or mainstream. I think this because there is are many things offering reduced prices pretty much every week, and one of the main details of the mainstream psycho graphic group is 'Favouring big and well know value for money family brands' and the sun is offering many value for money coupons/vouchers a lot of the time. 

I would also say that the Daily Mail readers fall more into the category of succeeder as the daily mail supplies all of the most important news about politics and what is happening around the world, things that people who read the sun will not be that bothered about or wont even know it is going on in the first place.  
Even disregarding the topics of this issue you can tell straight away that it is not an incredibly serious and intellectual tabloid, as it does not offer a lot of information, it includes lots of bright colours and a large vaguely worded headline and images. Where as on the front pages of Broadsheet news papers such as the Daily Mail there are better worded headlines, less pictures, less bright colours and a lot more writing. Just by looking at the front cover of the daily mail you can instantly recognize the audience and who it is aimed at. 

By looking at this front cover you can see straight away all of the text that is on the page, it is almost a full article compared to any text on the front page of The Sun. This is because  the majority of the target audience for this broadsheet paper falls into the ABC Adult social class. This hints towards that they will have a bit more interest in reading longer articles about more important events in the news paper. The target audience for this broadsheet will be people who want to know more important news about the world and politics. Although the sun and other tabloids will provide some information about the world and politics you can tell by one of the sub headlines 'one of these woman has had over 180 lovers' that politics and world news is not necessarily first on their list of priorities. 

Also by taking a glance at this paper you can see straight away it does not have brightly coloured images dotted around the page and large headlines that fill pretty much half the page.  

(Left - The Daily Mail)
(Right - The Sun)
















If you compare the two pieces of text next to the headline on the front page of both the sun and the daily mail you can see that the daily mails is over double the amount of text that the sun has. 

The papers can use social media to gain quick free feedback from their audience. This is very easy do to and easy for the audience to complete. They can also send out surveys through the mail which may be easier for the older sector of the audience to use as they may not have access to the internet, or may not know how to use the internet to complete the surveys. 

How producers define audiences

How Producers define Audiences

Producers define audiences by dividing them into seven different categories. These categories are:

• Resigned - These are the people who are ridged, strict, authoritarian and chauvinist values, oriented into the past and to resigned roles. Brand choices stresses, familiarity and economy and are normally an older person.
• Struggler - these are people who feel Alienated, disorganised with few resources other than physical or mechanical skills. Heavy consumers of alcohol and junk food and lotteries and trainers. Brand choices involve impact and sensation.  
• Mainstream - Domestic, conformist, conventional, sentimental, passive, habitual. Part of the mass, favouring big and well known value for money brands almost invariably the largest 4Cs group (average demos)
• Aspirer  - Materialistic, acquisitive, affiliative, oriented to extrinsics image, appearance, charisma, persona and fashion. Attractive pack more important than quality of contents. (younger, clerical/ sales type occupation)   
• Succeder - 
•  
• Explorer
• Reformer 

Audience Research

Audience research is very important for the media sector because if it was not carried out how would producers know what to produce and what people want.  Audience research in profiling audience’s gender, age, location, employment status and many more things. This has an effect on the type of things people want. People producing a programme could look at the regional viewing figures and see that people in a certain area are watching more reality TV than another region. Meaning that they could aim more reality TV at the area that are watching it the most because there is a lot of chance that the people that are watching reality TV in that area will start to watch the new reality TV show.  That is a basic outline of why audience research is important.

Audiences are profiled in several different types of ways; these are only some of them:

·         Age

·         Gender

·         Sexual Orientation

·         Regional Identity

·         Socio economic

·         Interests

·         Mainstream

·         Alternative

·         Niche

This sort of information is split into three different sections:

·         Demographics

·         Geodemographics

·         Psychographics

Here are a few examples of the different things aimed at different groups:

Age –

 You can tell that this magazine was designed completely around children as soon as you look at it because of the bright colours and the amount of cartoon characters on the front cover. This also includes a section on David Hamilton because if the children have something to read that is a bit more mature than what you will expect it will progress their reading skill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gender –

This magazine is clearly aimed at woman with a very wide age range. You can tell this because it has used a major celebrity on the front who has just announced she is going to have twins which is probably going to be more exciting for woman than it is men. They also have used sever different types of celebrities from A List celebrities to the royal family; this will draw a very wide variety of people into the magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sexual Orientation - 

Magazines like this are aimed at people with a specific sexual orientation, the most obvious way to find this out is to take a minute to look at the picture on the front of the magazine you can see that the two people who are on the front are woman hugging each other. Also in this particular issue they are trying to make ‘Fat’ look glamorous and sexy. With a magazine like this one which is aimed at homosexual woman you clearly wouldn’t put a picture of a topless man as the readers would not have any interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Niche  -

Niche magazines are magazines that are aimed at a smaller audience than for example a mainstream audience. These magazines are things like fishing, sewing, knitting and other magazines that do not have a very wide audience group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Demographics

Audiences are profiled so that the people carrying out the research can see what types of people are watching what types of shows. For example people who have no job or only work on a night and are in the house in the day time will watch more daytime TV programmes such as Jeremy Kyle than someone who works nine till five, five days a week. Obviously niche programmes will not have as much coverage on the radio or television as mainstream programmes as there is only a smaller market for the niche programmes compared to mainstream programmes such as Coronation Street which is on several nights of the week on a very popular channel where as some other programmes are only on once a week or so and are maybe on some of the less popular channels.  

Socio economic classification

Explain

 

Producers want to aim advertising more at the social grade A B C1 because they will have a higher income therefore more money to spend. – ATTRACTS MORE ADVERTISING REVEN5+

UE

Whereas on the opposite end of the scale producers will put on advertising for things more suited to the people viewing.  Example-

 

 

AGE GENDER

·         Geodemographics

·         Psychographics

Researchers carry out their research on this information in several different ways. They can either use qualitative research (information that focuses more on the quality of the information such as a focus group or a one to one interview) or quantitative research (research that focuses more on getting the most people involved as possible, this could be carried out as an online survey or a survey handed out in the street, anything that will generate a lot of responses because this will give the researcher a wide variety of answers).

You can find a lot of different information on websites such as BARB which holds the viewing figures of pretty much every TV channel and programme from 1998 to the present day.