DESCRIBING AUDIENCES

PREP: Add to the long Word document that you are writing about RESEARCH INTO ADVERTISEMENTS (the one with the formal header with your name and candidate number). You have gone over the information below and you can now write in your own words about what an 'audience' is and the different ways in which brands categorize and count audiences. You can add some of the graphics below or versions that you find for yourself on the internet.

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The information below is to help you write about the audience for your own advertisements. You have to describe the target audience for your own product.

Audience Explained

'Audience' is a very important concept throughout media studies. All media texts are made with an audience in mind, i.e. a group of people who will receive it and make some sort of sense out of it. And generally, but not always, the producers make some money out of that audience. Therefore it is important to understand what happens when an audience "meets" a media text.

Constructing Audience

When a media text is being planned, perhaps the most important question the producers consider is "Does it have an audience?" If the answer to this is 'no', then there is no point in going any further. If no one is going to watch/read/play/buy the text, the producers aren't going to make any money or get their message across. Audience research is a major part of any media company's work. They use questionnaires, focus groups, and comparisons to existing media texts, and spend a great deal of time and money finding out if there is anyone out there who might be interested in their idea.
It's a serious business; media producers basically want to know the

• income bracket/status
• age
• gender
• ethnicity
• location

of their potential audience, a method of categorising known as demographics. Once they know this they can begin to shape their text to appeal to a group with known reading/viewing/listening habits.
One common way of describing audiences is to use a letter code to show their income bracket:

	Audience reaction to even early versions of a media text is closely watched. Hollywood studios routinely show a pre-release version of every movie they make to a test audience, and will often make changes to the movie that are requested by that audience. Read about test screenings here. Creating Audience Once a media text has been made, its producers need to ensure that it reaches the audience it is intended for. All media texts will have some sort of marketing campaign attached to them. Elements of this might include posters print, radio, TV and internet advertisements trailers promotional interviews (eg stars appearing on chat shows, information leaked to Internet bloggers) tie-in campaigns (eg a blockbuster movie using McDonalds meals) merchandising (t-shirts, baseball caps, key rings) Marketing campaigns are intended to create awareness of a media text. Once that awareness has been created, hopefully audiences will come flocking in their hundreds of millions. Counting Audience Different types of media texts measure their audiences in different ways. The easiest way is to count the number of units sold e.g. for a video game or a downloaded song.
	Psychographics