Media Audiences

Converging Digital TechnologyThursday 13th December 2012

What are media audiences?

• Listening to radio• Watching television• Reading a newspaper• Listening to music• Seeing advertising hoardings• Watching a film in the cinema• Reading magazines• Internet communication

Why are audiences important?• Without an audience, why would anyone create a media

text? What is the point of a film that no one sees?• Audience size and reaction are seen as a way of measuring

the ‘success’ of a media product.• Audiences who buy media products are providing income

for the media companies who produce them.• Much of the media is free or financed by advertising.

Advertisers want to know how many people are seeing their adverts.

• Many people want to know how we use the media, what we understand of what we consume, and the effects that media has on our lives.

How have audiences changed?

The media and its audiences are constantly changing as a result of media technology, changes in the way we live our lives and because we as individuals change.

Question 1

• How has your media consumption changed over the past ten years?

• Can you identify those changes that are the result of your own individual changes in age, circumstances, interests etc. and those changes that are the result of changes in technology affecting what is on offer to you?

Classification of Audiences

Producers have to target their products at groups of people who have something in

common

Market Niche

• Market – Group of customers a media product can target

• Niche – Specialised and narrowly defined segments of the market

Demographic Groups

• Social Class• Lifestyle• Where they Live• Age• Ethnicity• Gender• Sexual Orientation

Question 2

Social Class

• Occupation and Level of Income• Choice of these factors obviously results in

different groupings, but a very important one - “social class” - refers to factors relating to power and wealth

• Power, wealth and prestige are closely related, but there is not complete congruence

• In early society the most powerful group, the nobility, based its power on the possession of land

Social Class

• As society developed, while land remained important, wealth could be gained by manufacture and trade

• An important feature of wealth gained in this way is that it is very flexible and can be used to invest and generate more wealth

• Wealth could also be achieved by acquiring rare and complex skills

Social Class

• Because there is an instinct to associate merit with height groups of people with power became “upper” class which led to an analogy with geological strata (layers)

• Various criteria can be conveniently used to place people in these groups or classes, the most familiar being informal based on lifestyle. For formal purposes, occupation is most commonly used

Socio-Economic Classification (SEC) for the 2001 census

1. Professionals, inc. teachers and social workers, plus business executives and entrepreneurs

2. Junior managers in smaller organisations, inc. policemen, hospital nurses,journalists and market researchers

3. Skilled manual and clerical workers, inc. telephone engineers, secretaries and dental nurses

4. Small employers, with fewer than 25 employees, plus the self-employed

5. Supervisors of those in routine and semi-routine occupations6. Semi-routine occupations, including sales assistants,factory workers

and drivers 7. Routine occupations, inc. domestic workers and labourers 8. Never worked or long-term unemployed

Question 3a & 3b

Analyse your household’s current social economic status

• Which category would they fall into?• Which media products do they consume?

• Match the media products with SEC groups

Problems with SEC

• The problem with using occupation as a means of classification is that people without paid occupations cannot be directly classified

• Apart from criteria which were used to allocate people to classes, there are many other associated variables e.g. education, diet, smoking and drinking habits

• The differences in lifestyle and behaviour are in part determined by physical circumstances but must also reflect attitudes

Social Class Movement

• Position in the social hierarchy is not fixed. Individuals move up and down for a mixture of reasons.

• Status could change by: – Marriage– Generational change– Occupational change

Psychographics

• The measure of people’s likes and dislikes• IAO variables – Interests, Activities and Opinions• Electrified by the omnipresence of the internet,

social media, online sharing and boundary-less conversation

• People with similar interests, shared beliefs and in-common hobbies like each other. People recommend products they like and trust. ££££££

Question 4

Audiences and Converging Technology

“More and more people immerse themselves in all kinds of networked, portable and

personalized media”

“Hyperfragmentation of audiences across multiple media”

Audiences and Converging Technology

“People increasingly multitask and divide their time across different media and media use

becomes highly individualized”

“Market researchers conclude that consumers tend to look for items that are more particular

to their wants and needs”

Question 5

• What are the current demands from audiences?

• Consider expectations, cost and availability

Assignment: Audience Report

Describe the changing expectations of audiences and consumers within a chosen creative media industry.

Explain and give examples such as increased demand, expectation of information, lower cost and availability

Use what we have discussed today as a basis and expand upon it with your own knowledge and experiences

References• SOCIETY & SOCIAL CLASSIFICATION

13/04/2000 T.Davies, D.Leederhttp://www.ucel.ac.uk/medsoc/ssc/ssc.pdf

• BTEC First Diploma Media ProductionP Bayliss, P Holmes & G Starkey2007 Heinemann Educational Publishers

• Media WorkM Deuze2007 Polity Press