L04 - Target Audience

AUDIENCES

NICHE AUDIENCE

A niche audience is an audience that many only like a specific type of thing, they are normally not in the mass market of people and are quite difficult to appeal to as the things they like are less mainstream than most. eg, upside down surfing, it may exist, but you never hear or see much about it.

-They can be for specific audiences only, people who have specialist interests.
- The target audiences seem to be for only a group of people individually.

MASS AUDIENCE

A mass audience tends to be people who like large, universal type shows, ones that can be summarised easily into categories, such as romance, love-triangles or action films.

-They tend to be very broad in
audiences, of any age group, ethnicity, gender etc.

SOCIAL GRADE CHART

EXAMPLES

These are typically niche audiences as they have specific tastes and specialities that you wouldn't commonly find on a shelf in a mainstream supermarket.

'Modern Ferret' looks to be for women as there is a woman on the cover. The audience could be younger. However, this is a niche audience as if you didn't like ferrets, you most likely wouldn't want to buy this magazine. This magazine, I get the impression that it would be for a C1 or B
social grade as to look after a ferret, an expensive pet, they would have to have an average amount of money.

This would be for a mass audience as most people would enjoy the casual read about wildlife or recent news on the lives of celebrities. The person reading this doesn't have an in-depth of films or television and only knows the basics. This person is definitely a B class social grade.



           THIS IS OUR AVERAGE DOCTOR WHO FAN

His name is Justin Margrove, he lives in inner-city Leeds as a student, studying chemistry and computer science in his 3rd year of University. He's 22, after taking a year out to follow a very brief music career, he wanted to pursue something for fulfilling and stable, something that he had a talent for in Highschool. He watches Doctor Who in his student dorm kitchen with a few friends, they get together with pot noodles from the local store and get really invested in the story.

He is single and likes it that way, he is white and in the C1 social class. He leaves work normally to the last minute as tv shows seem to always be a priority for him. He has a Netflix subscription and enjoys shows such as Breaking Bad, Bojack Horseman and Sherlock.

THIS IS OUR AVERAGE DAILY MAIL READER

This is Joan Headway, she lives in an estate near Harewood House with her Husband (married 34 years). She is in her later 50s and wears all neutral colours all the time and shops in places such as Jigsaw and Oliver Bonas, She is a cisgender female who stays at home whilst her kitchen is being renovated, making tea and bitter small talk with the builders. She has 2 old dogs who keep her company, running around her living room.

She's a very clear social grade B, white, enjoys holidays in Spain (all-inclusive). She voted to leave on the Brexit issue and doesn't regret it, hoping that Brexit does indeed, get done as soon as possible.
On the recent vote, she voted firmly for Nigel Farage as he has better views than the youths of today. Her hobbies are gardening and that alone.

Her targetted ads are for home furnishings, gardening, premium pet groomers and products.


USES AND GRATIFICATION THEORY

This suggests that we either watch shows due to,

-Escapism
-Surveillance
-Meaningful relationships
-Personal identity

• Escapism - Escapism, where you escape or zone out from everyday life, this could be to relax after a busy day or to immerse yourself in a magical fantasy world, basically anything that isn't to do with you or your life. Eating with my EX. It's a fairly relaxed show about ex's, broken up for various reasons, coming together to have a meal and focus in on the more uncomfortable issues of their relationship, including cheating.

• Surveillance- Where you look into someone else's life, these are most often documentaries that teach you or to encourage you to learn something. Unmasked: Make-ups biggest secret. This is a show looking into another way of life and social issue (appearance and body image). It exposes the industry in a way to educate people about it.

• Personal relationships- You watch this show because of two main reasons: 1) Because you have personal relationships with the characters or people involved and you care what happens t to them or 2) You watch this show to talk about it with other people, maybe friends or family, maybe just people around the office. These shows are mainly watched because they are popular at the time. RuPaul's Drag Race. This is a competition show focused on Drag Queens from around the UK. It was originally in the US. As well as the makeup and competition element, it also talks about the LGBTQ+ community and the positives and strains of it.

• Personal identity- Personal Identity is where you watch a show to relate to the characters or their experiences. You feel what they feel as they normally make you feel a sort of emotion when you're watching them. You fully invest in the show because of these characters, they're most important as you could relate your problems or feelings to theirs. An example; Fleabag. This is a show about a woman in her mid/late twenties going through seemingly normal life, having issues with both friends and family and having to deal with them. She's by no means perfect and does want to improve but things always build-up or spiral out of control.

	BBC 3 series	How it applies
Surveillance	Unmasked: Make ups biggest secret	This show teaches people about a world of make-up they haven't seen before, it educates about the reality. It's a window into other people's lives.
Personal Relationships	RuPaul's Drag Race	Because it shows a group of contestants (British drag queens), competing, it has a large LGBTQ+ following and as it comes from America, most people talk about it with their friends to seem cultured. You built a personal relationship with the characters/people.
Personal Identity	Fleabag	The protagonist, a woman in her late 20s, relates to me as I emphasise with some of the family situations and overall drama they go through. This show makes me feel what the characters are going through at every point.
Escapism/ Diversion	Eating with my EX	We know this show isn't exactly educational, it's trashy tv that we'll most likely forget about but it does take us out of our every day lives to invest in someone else's, more filled with drama and gossip.

Personal relationships is split into two parts!
1) You watch it because you care about the characters or the themes of the show.
2) You watch it to talk about it to others, friends, family etc.


DIFFERENT AUDIENCE TYPES

ACTIVE AUDIENCE MEMBER
Where the audience participates with the types of media; video games, magazines etc.
You are mentally engaged with the tv show, maybe considering intellectually reviewing what it in front of you.

PASSIVE AUDIENCE MEMBER
It's where you sit and you watch it, you soak in the information but do not intellectually consume anything onscreen. You absorb the information but tend not to mentally debate it.

HOWEVER,  Our audiences are constantly changing so some theories are now out of date as audiences have adapted, such as the hypodermic needle theory, (more information below). It's outdated now due to advancements in technology as well as the audience majority turning from a passive audience to a quite active audience with the emergence of phone voting etc. People no longer just accept information as it has handed to them as they have the means and resources to do a google search themselves to fact check, including children and parents into this. It is now more prominent than ever due to the rising of 'Fake News' allegations.

two step flow theory
voters decisions -
immigration taking jobs,
media has little influence but social stuff does

audiences are active
tv now - Netflix, amazon, catch up tv
actively made choice to view something
uses and gratification theory ^^

GAMER THEORY
As suggested by this theory, there are 4 different types of players of video games, 4 different categories to shape the overall video game active experience.

These 4 player types are:

ACHIEVERS 
These players are more about getting good stats, achievements and medals from the games and less likely to play simply for the experience of the game itself. They work very well on incentives and especially limited time events or to challenges that say the levels are near to impossible. Bartle (the theory owner) has suggested that a mere 10% of players have this personality type.

EXPLORERS
Explorers, as the name suggests, love to explore the surroundings of the game, the scenery, the characters and creatures who might live there. Unlike the Achievers, they do not care about winning medals or getting high levels, discovering new things is their prize. This type of gamer loves hunting game easter eggs as it adds another level to the game as they are discovering more about it. Bartle suggested that 10% have this player type.


SOCIALISERS
Socialisers LOVE communication with other players, that's what makes the game so enjoyable to them. They would love playing with friends and not surprisingly, this makes up 80% of all players. These people are happy to collaborate with other players on big tasks that they could use together and that they would not be able to build by themselves.


KILLERS
These people thrive utterly on chaos. They are much like the Achievers in ideology apart from one key aspect, they get the same thrill but by watching other people lose. They're very competitive, probably the most competitive out there, and flourish with winning as that ultimately is their motivation to play. They need to be the best at every game they play and the way to do that is to beat everybody else. Gladly for us, these player types are less than 1% of the population.



why people watch what they do,
specialised group
USES AND GRATIFICATOJ

reception theory
interpet media types
]hidden message or story]
3 ways to decode -

1 sees the message as it was intended
2 audiences agree partly
3 disagree and finds opposition to the messages

HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY

Harold Lasswell was the mind behind this theory in the 1920s, he was an American political scientist and communication theorist.

The hypodermic needle theory was created when media such as radio and cinema were brand new. Many people thought that the audiences absorb media and whatever is presented to them as pure fact. In our day, this theory doesn't really have much backing as there have been other theories that disprove it or say other things influence people. This theory suggests that the audiences are passive viewers but now, audiences are much more active.

Many parents still believe this theory and especially the influence it has on young children, mainly media types that 'glorify violence' such as GTA and Hitman, although many say this is not how it works, whenever disaster involving violence happens, video games are always dragged into the equation.