AUDIENCES - Ways of Categorising Them in Media

Audience; 

The people who will buy the media product, the ones the product is aimed at.

Sport for boys, romance for women, the Times for business people.

Media Audiences an Introduction from alevelmedia

What does ABC1 mean?

National Readership Survey (NRS) is a non-profit but commercial British survey concerned with monitoring, analyzing and providing estimates on the number and nature of people who read Britain’s newspapers and consumer magazines.

Demographic classifications in the UK refer to the social grade definitions, which are used to describe, measure and classify people of different social grade and income and earnings levels, for market research, social commentary, lifestyle statistics, and statistical research and analysis.

The social grade definitions by the NRS are widely used as a generic reference series for classifying and describing social classes, especially for consumer targeting and consumer market research by the advertising UK media and publishing sectors.

National Readership Survey (NRS) demographic categories

Social Grade	Social Status	Occupation
A	upper middle class	higher managerial, administrative or professional
B	middle class	intermediate managerial, administrative or professional
C1	lower middle class	supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional
C2	skilled working class	skilled manual workers
D	working class	semi and unskilled manual workers
E	those at lowest level of subsistence	state pensioners or widows (no other earner), casual or lowest grade workers

Task 1:

Identify ONE text that each NRS category of audience would consume. A - B - C1 - C2 - D - E. You should create a PPt presentation and say why the texts would target this audience.

In carrying out this task you should consider:

• Disposable income.
• The amount of free time and when that occurs for each group.

Following on, you need to consider who the target audience is for the subject of your own Textual Investigation 1.

Audiences - Theory

Hypodermic Needle Model 

Basically, the Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that the information from a text passes into the mass consciousness of the audience unmediated. That the experience, intelligence and opinion of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text. 
This theory suggests that, as an audience, we are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by media-makers. It assumes that the audience are passive . 

This theory is still quoted during moral panics by parents, politicians and pressure groups, and is used to explain why certain groups in society should not be exposed to certain media texts (shoot’em up games and rap music in the 2000s), for fear that they will watch or read sexual or violent behaviour and will then act them out themselves in real life

 Uses and Gratification Theory

This theory says that AUDIENCES POSITION THEMSELVES. (As opposed to being subject to the HYPODERMIC NEEDLE MODEL).

Blumer and Katz  suggested a series of possible reasons why audience members might consume a media text:

• Diversion (escape from everyday problems - emotional release, relaxing, filling time etc).

• Personal relationships (using the media for emotional and other interactions e.g. substitution soap opera for family life OR using the cinema as a social event).

• Personal identity (constructing their own identity from characters in media texts, and learning behavior and values – useful if trying to fit into a new country/culture).

• Surveillance (information gathering e.g. news, educational programming, weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains etc).

NRS social grades

The NRS social grades are a system of demographic classification used in the United Kingdom. They were originally developed by the National Readership Survey to classify readers, but are now used by many other organisations for wider applications and have become a standard for market research. They were developed over 50 years ago and achieved widespread usage in 20th Century Britain. Their definition is now maintained by the Market Research Society.

The distinguishing feature of social grade is that it is based on occupation.

The social status of a target audience for a magazine has an impact of the content it offers. Magazines will normally target audiences from more than one of these categories.  Eg ABC or C1&2D

A         higher managerial and professional

B         middle managerial and professional

C1       supervisory, junior management and professional

C2       skilled manual worker

D         semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers

E         pensioners, lower grade workers, students and the unemployed.

An example of how to use this in a sentence:

“The target audience for Cosmopolitan Magazine fall into the ABC1 social demographic.”

The target audience for Cosmopolitan Magazine fall into the C2DE category.

The grades are often grouped into ABC1 and C2DE and these are taken to equate to middle class and working class respectively. Only around 2% of the UK population is identified as upper class,^[3] and this group is not included in the classification scheme

• Graham Burton: Socially and Media grouped audiences

Socially grouping means grouped by factors (that generally can’t change) such as age, gender, ethnicity, religion, class, nationality etc

Media grouping means grouped together by their media tastes, for example, horror film fans, PlayStation fans, rap music enthusiasts.

An example of how to use this in a sentence:

“Graham Burton has a theory about classifying audiences by their social and media grouping.  The social grouping of my target audience is middle aged (30-50 year old) women.  They will most likely be British and of mixed ethnicity.  The media grouping of my target audience will be fans of other magazines like Good Food Magazine and Good Housekeeping.

• Other Ways of describing audiences

You can also mention their hobbies and interests, marital status, personality, style etc.

An example of how to use this in a sentence:

“My target audience would be young, single, people who are heavily into a Punk lifestyle and fashion.  They may frequently go to nightclubs, listen to music and socialise with their friends.

SO IF YOU EVER HAVE TO DESCRIBE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE I WANT YOU TO USE ALL 3 TECHNIQUES.  NEVER WRITE A DESCRIPTION OF A TARGET AUDIENCE THAT JUST SAYS “TEENAGERS”!

This is a good link with more information on target audiences:

http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.914

Media Organisations - Regulation and Control

Advertising Controls and Regulation

You have seen that advertising is all around us, and that it is very difficult for consumers to ignore the messages that are being communicated via those ads. Concern is frequently expressed - by politicians, teachers, parents, law-enforcers, and religious leaders - about the content of those messages and the influence that they may have on audiences, especially vulnerable sectors of the population. Advertising is an important part of the effects debate, (we looked at this when we looked at audiences) and the different positions may be summed up like this:

A. CONSUMERS AREN'T STUPID: THEY MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS ABOUT PURCHASES. ADVERTISING JUST PROVIDES EXTRA INFORMATION TO HELP THEM MAKE AN INFORMED CHOICE.

B. ADVERTISING BRAINWASHES THE PUBLIC INTO BUYING THROUGH CONSTANT REPETITION OF IMAGES AND SLOGANS. IT TAKES AWAY FREEDOM OF CHOICE.

The big corporations spend lots of money to reassure us that their advertising does not damage our mental health. However, there is a lot of opposition to their viewpoint, and many critics say that advertising creates false needs and wants, not choice. Many people simply find advertising intrusive, whether it's a roadside billboard or an online pop-up.

Opposition to Advertising

You will find organised resistance at the following websites.

Task 1: 

Read what the creators of this website have to say about the way advertising dominates our culture and sets our value systems. Write a paragraph, 100-200 words, of your thoughts on the spoofs page.

Adbusters

As well as generalised opposition to the principles and practice of advertising, specific concerns are raised about individual ads and whole campaigns. There has been notable opposition to the advertising of

• tobacco
• alcohol
• children's toys
• prescription drugs

Alcohol and tobacco advertising is now either banned outright or faces strict limits in most countries. 

Other concerns include:

Use of stereotypes, particularly of gender and race, in a negative way
Emphasis on anti-social values (eg winning at all costs, promotion of products which have a negative effect on the environment)
Emphasis on conforming to an unrealistic ideal
Representation of only one set of values as being normal and desirable (eg thin, blonde). Everything else is abnormal/undesirable
Dishonest claims about what a product can do (eg diet pills)
Recommendation of illegal practices (eg drug-taking, drink driving or underage drinking)
Use of images or language that may be offensive to the beliefs (eg religious) of others
Use of images or language which is too graphic, in terms of sex and violence, for a mass audience

In societies which allow freedom of speech, little can be done in legal terms (unless something is obscene, libels an individual or organisation, or makes claims which can be proved to be fraudulent) to stop a particular advertisement. However, there are ways and means of voicing your objection to an ad. You will see some of them on the Adbusters site, and there are other, more official, channels.

Regulation

There is much discussion over who is more to blame for the content of advertising - the companies that pay for it or the agencies that generate the copy and choose the images? The agencies themselves agree that they must take the main responsibility and have adopted a system of self-regulation, in common with other media institutions such as the Press. 

Many countries have an Advertising Standards Authority, whose job it is to listen to complaints from the public, and establish whether or not a particular ad or campaign should be withdrawn.

The problem with this system is obvious: the ASA only acts AFTER an ad has appeared, and AFTER a certain number of people have complained about it. Therefore, by the time they rule that an advertisement is offensive, or unlawful, the campaign may well be over and the ads long gone. There is always controversy about how effective the ASA can be. One the one hand they are slow, but on the other they do deal fairly with all complaints, and any individual is free to complain - no expensive legal process is involved. But not everyone is happy with this system -

Task 2: Read this article from the Guardian Newspaper about how the ASA fails to take sexism in advertising seriously.

Cheer Up Love, It May Never Happen -

Regulation of Advertising in the UK

UK — www.asa.org.uk

Task 3: You will be examining the process and criteria for complaining about advertising that might have offended you.

You need to start by exploring the ASA site and carefully reading one or two of the complaints that they have dealt with recently. 

Focus on complaints where you are familiar with the original ad and can understand why someone might find it offensive.

Then, you need to find an ad that you agree is inappropriate or offensive in some way. 

You need to write a letter of complaint, explaining your objections. 

Pay close attention to the ASA guidelines.

You can find examples of ads at

The Creative Lounge - from The Guardian.

In class, you will pair up with another student and swap letters. You will then 'switch heads' and respond to your partner's complaint on behalf of the ASA. You will need to refer to their criteria carefully and make a decision as to whether the complaint should be upheld or not. You will write a second letter, explaining your decision.

Hand your letters in, in pairs.

Media Organisations - Acceptable Branding in a Competitive Environment

As well as being part of the news agenda, advertisements are a reflection of a society's wants and needs at any particular point in time. They also, through the way that they represent gender, age, wealth, success, happiness etc provide excellent material for historians and sociologists researching social attitudes of an era or a culture at a particular point in time.

Advertising reflects the values of a society - all the things that people want to have or to be - and can be used as a measure of dominant hopes and fears. Our own appearance-obsessed culture will provide plenty of fruit for future investigation. 

It is worth looking at successful campaigns, to get a snapshot of how we see ourselves and the way others view our values and interests.

The Wallis ads shown below (from a campaign entitled "Dressed to Kill") tell us a lot about attitudes to women - from both a male and a female perspective - and the power of sexuality in our society. They are also an example of what we find acceptable to laugh at.

Task 1:

These print based advertisements that would not be acceptable in modern day UK.

Imagine you have just arrived from another planet, and these are the materials you are given to draw your first conclusions about the human race. Identify the main a) hopes and b) fears of this species. 

Explain why you have come to those conclusions.

Media Organisations - Advertising in a commercially competitive environment.

Advertising As Part of Our Culture

If you look around you, you will find your world filled with advertising - on huge billboards in the streets, on the pages of magazines, between the tracks played on the radio, on the walls of the subway, on the pages of internet sites, at the bottom of emails, on the backs of cinema tickets, on the shirts of football players. It seems that any surface that will hold still long enough to be read is considered a potential advertising medium. The fact that there is so much advertising out there means that it is part of our daily cultural experience - it's almost impossible to avoid it. 

Therefore, the study of advertising is not just about WHAT manufacturers say to consumers, but it about HOW it is said. 

Advertisements can have an influence far beyond a simple message about a product. Advertisements can introduce characters to the public imagination, make icons out of actors, have everyone repeating a catchphrase ('Wassup" anyone?), get audiences arguing over plot points or waiting for the next instalment, and generate news stories. Advertisements often take on a cultural life of their own, and occupy space in the media beyond that which has been paid for. This, of course, is great for the advertisers.

This adidas ad, featuring David Beckham, made headlines as the largest ever piece of outdoor advertising in the UK, possibly the world, in May 2002. Fort Dunlop is a Birmingham landmark, and can be seen from the M6 (which is often completely jammed with traffic) although it was claimed that the ad could be seen from up to a mile away on a clear day. The ad itself was larger than a football pitch, with the image of Beckham's face measuring 20m x 20m (cue lots of Football Bighead headlines from the UK tabloids). As well as having a huge (sorry...) impact on the local environment, the ad generated press coverage around the world on account of its size.

Task1: 

Using a news search engine (yahoo, reuters, bbc) OR the Media Guardian find out about an advertisement or ad campaign that has made the news. Use search terms carefully (advertisement + controversy are a good starting point)

Answer the following questions: 

Explain what the news story is, briefly, and what news values it has.
Assess how widely this news story has been reported. In your opinion, how much extra exposure has the product got from the news coverage?
Do you think think the advertisement was deliberately controversial? Why?

Media Organisations, Marketing and Promotion - Celebrity Endorsement

Why a Celebrity Endorsement?

Traditionally, companies hired celebrity endorsers not to increase revenue but to add value to their company, brand or product. Society is notorious for looking up to celebrities and in some cases, idolizing them and their lives. In turn, when celebrities associate themselves with a product or brand, their followers or fan-base want to be a part of it, resulting in what psychologists refer to as a meaning transfer.

“I think Taylor Swift is extremely talented and cool therefore the company she’s endorsing must be great too.”

In addition to meaning transfer, celebrities are commonly used as endorsers for their credibility. When properly chosen, smart business savvy celebrities can become excellent endorsers of products or companies and because they are viewed as knowledgeable and trustworthy, the endorsed in turn become credible.

“George Clooney has made some very informed and passionate investments in the past – I trust his judgement if he says this is a company to follow closely.”

Influence Consumer Purchases

The affinity consumers have for certain celebrities can greatly influence their purchases. People may have the attitude, "If the product is good enough for her, it's good enough for me." This philosophy is often the impetus behind advertisements for makeup, skin creams, hair products and attire. Consumers want the wavy hair of a local celebrity, for example. Hence, they purchase the brand that the celebrity uses to achieve her hair's fullness and bounce. Local consumers may also desire the same soft drink as their team's best baseball player. Essentially, the testimonial of the local celebrity adds instant credibility to a small company's product.

Build Awareness

Celebrities in advertising build brand awareness, according to "Supermarket News," a publication covering the food distribution industry. And they build it much more quickly than traditional types of advertising. Brand awareness measures the percentage of people who are familiar with a particular brand. Small businesses spend lots of money and time for exposure to incrementally increase brand awareness among consumers. The use of a local celebrity can do much to enhance consumers' awareness and understanding of what a small business offers.

Position a Brand

Some small companies use celebrities in advertising to position their brands. Product positioning is placing a company's products in the best possible light in the minds of a target group, according to Inc.com. For example, a small investment firm may use a well-respected and retired local disc jockey to market a retirement plan for people ages 50 and over. The fact that the disc jockey falls in the consumers' age group and has a good reputation in the community makes the company's product and message more believable.

Attract New Users

One challenge small companies face is finding new users for their products. Local celebrities in advertising appeal to customers as well as those who have never tried the brand. The latter may be users of competitive brands. However, those who continually see the local celebrity in a commercial for a certain product may be convinced to try the product.

Breathe Life Into Failing Brand

The use of a celebrity in an advertisement may also help to breathe life into a failing brand. For example, a small soap manufacturer might think about dropping a brand or product, especially if production and overhead costs are leaving little or no profit. However, the use of a celebrity to tout the benefits of the brand could help create new interest and excitement in consumers.

Task 1: Analyse the celebrity endorsed products and consider these key elements.

Facial expression: How would you describe the expression on the model’s face? Are they looking directly at you or at something else?

What feelings does the facial expression conjure up?

Character type: How does the choice of character sum up the product or the message of the ad?

Gesture or Posture: What does the posture say to the viewer about the model?

Props: What connotations does each prop produce?

Clothing: Each article of clothing has been selected after consideration. What message is being sent by clothing?

Setting: What connotations does the setting conjure up?

Media Organisations - Branding

Most advertising today is about communicating the complex range of messages about a product known as branding. 

A brand is a product or range of products that has a set of values associated with it that are easily recognised by the consumer. 

A brand is distinguished immediately by its name and/or a symbol (eg the Nike swoosh, the adidas three stripes). 

Brand Identity is created by using the following:

1. Brand Essence - a way of summing up the significance of the brand to stockholders and consumers alike of the brand in one simple sentence

2. Brand Slogan - a public way of identifying the brand for consumers - often associated with a logo

3. Brand Personality - marketeers can describe their brand as though it were a person, with likes and dislikes and certain behaviour

4. Brand Values – what does it stand for/against?

5. Brand Appearance - What does it look/sound/taste like?

6. Brand Heritage - how long has it been around? does it have customers who have been loyal to it for many years?

7. Emotional benefits – how it avoids/reduces pain or increases pleasure

8. Hard benefits – bigger? better? cheaper? washes whiter?

As consumers, we tend to be more familiar with a whole brand, as opposed to individual products. 

The process of advertising allows us to associate values with products that may not have a real connection to them - for instance, Nike has always selected rebellious athletes to promote its shoes, the 'bad boys' of basketball, tennis & football, and therefore the Nike brand has connotations of rebelliousness,

Textual Investigation 1

For genre, candidates study:

 generic features, conventions and iconography
 principles of repetition and variation of a repertoire of elements
 hybridity
 intertextuality
 genres – relationship between organisational and audience/user needs

Textual Investigation 1 must be based on:
Genre
 one main text but referring to examples of other texts
 one of three forms (print, audio-visual or interactive media).

For Textual Investigation 1, candidates may select which text is 

focused on but must choose one of the following titles: 

 Investigate how genre conventions are used in [chosen text] 

 Investigate how far genre conventions are challenged in [chosen text] 

 Investigate how far [chosen text] conforms to genre 

conventions. 

The following texts can be studied for either investigation: 

 Print: extracts/front pages/cover pages from comics, posters, 

newspapers, magazines or advertisements.

Textual Investigation 1

The title of your first Textual Investigation is:

Investigate how genre conventions are used in [ name of your text].

The subject of your text should be print based and chosen from one of the following formats:

Extracts/front pages/cover pages from comics, 
Promotional posters for films, games, music events.
newspapers, magazines.

You need to compare your main text with two other relevant texts.

The word count required is between 480 and 850, not including illustrations.

Consider visual codes: Costume, facial expression, colour symbolism, body language, graphics.
Consider technical codes: Sound, lighting, framing within the shot.

How has the text tried to attract a specific target audience?

You can use this outline as a structural starting point:

Intro:

Explain what genre conventions are, give illustrated examples.

Definition of GENRE: 
A way of categorising a particular media text according to its content and style.

READ THIS LINK ON GENRE

Write about how the codes and conventions allow a target audience to expect certain elements when they choose a particular text.

Genre Conventions:
Give a pattern for construction, a template
Genre pieces have an established audience who are easy to market to
Certain personnel can develop their skills working within a particular genre (e.g. horror make up specialists)
Stars can associate themselves with a particular genre e.g. Will Ferrell is known for a certain type of slapstick comedy, and his face on a poster instantly tells audiences what kind of movie they are likely to see if he is in it.
Fans of a genre know the codes, so you don't have to reinvent the wheel all the time

Certain conventions are present on numerous occasions within different texts of the same genre.
This is how texts are categorised.

Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions.

What text are you investigating?

What genre category does this fall into?

What do audiences expect of this genre from looking at the iconography?

What are the texts will you use to compare your main subject to? You need two texts in the same format.

Main body:
Define the word stereotypes.

Describe the main characters [in your text]

How do the visual codes [costume, colour, body language] tell the audience that the characters conform or challenge stereotypes within that genre?

Write about gender representation.

Write about the visual codes [body language, facial expression] that back up your ideas about the characters.

Use illustrations to support your point. [Vulnerable females, dominant male types].

Compare the characters in your text to the characters in comparable texts.

Write about the target audience for your text. [ Categories; A,B, C1….mainstreamers, succeeders]. 
How has the text tried to attract it's target audience? 
How do these methods of attracting an audience compare with you

Although genres are not always precisely definable, genre considerations are one of the most important factors in determining what a person will see or read. The classification properties of genre can attract or repel potential users depending on the individual's understanding of a genre.

Genre creates an expectation in that expectation is met or not. Many genres have built-in audiences and corresponding publications that support them, such as magazines and websites. Inversely, audiences may call out for change and create an entirely new genre

Write about the setting of your text if appropriate.

Compare to settings of other texts.

How does the target audience relate to this setting? Do they feel comfortable or not?

Conclusion:

How have the different elements that you have identified been used in the text? 
Have they conformed to or challenged the genre conventions for the target audience?
Is the text you have investigated successful, does it do it's job?

Include a word count.
Include a bibliography.

Media Organisations - Advertising

What is Advertising?

Advertising is a process, not a medium in its own right, although it uses different media forms to communicate. Advertising, in its simplest form, is the way in which the vendor or manufacturer of a product communicates with consumers via a medium, or many different media.

Advertising = messages

Advertising can be a simple “For Sale” card placed on a supermarket noticeboard:

The vendor is giving notice that a product is for sale at a given price to people who might be interested in buying it. This can be compared to the earliest forms of advertising, when exotic new goods shipped into Europe from the Far East and India (eg tea and spices) needed to be brought to the attention of potential buyers.

However, even a supermarket noticeboard might be considered a crowded marketplace as there may be other desks offered for sale, and other advertisements for customers to read. In order to attract a customer's attention to this particular advertisement, the person offering the desk for sale has to make it eye-catching, possibly by adding some colour.

They also have to emphasise the benefits of the product they are offering. There are only two basic benefits that a product has when compared to others of a similar sort. It can be described as being better or cheaper(or both!):

They might also add an image of the desk - a picture is worth 1000 words after all - in order to persuade the consumer still further that this desk is the right desk to buy. They might add a headline or slogan to their ad, to announce exactly what it is that is being sold. Thus they have all the basic elements of print advertising: a catchy slogan, an image, and copy text. This advertisement will hopefully fulfill its purpose which is to provide information which might influence someone to buy the desk. It has done this by linking the vendor of the desk to people who are looking to buy a desk. The link appears in the medium of the supermarket noticeboard, and the vendor pays the owner of the medium to place it there. The vendor has chosen this medium because the kind of people who buy the kind

Therefore advertising is:

• A message from vendor/manufacturer to consumer
• Intended to give information which will influence consumer choice
• Aimed at a known audience
• Paid for

Marketing  and Promotion strategies put simply:

Audience; 

The people who will buy the media product, the ones the product is aimed at.

Sport for boys, romance for women, the Times for business people.

Genre;

A type of media style for a media product.

Science fiction, romance, comedy, thriller, rap music

Marketing;

Creating a need to buy a product in other people. 
Media texts are luxuries and so films must be marketed to get people to go out to the cinema.

T-shirts, mugs, toys, product placement, posters, books, interviews with stars, publicity stunts, hype, labels, bottle tops.

Advertising;

A method of selling a product to people by paying for a poster or a page in a magazine.

Trailers, television shorts, posters, advertisements.

Ads that are attached to mobile phone apps.

Ads that are on YouTube before the film.

Viral ads across the Web.

      Merchandising 

      is essentially using a third party to produce material for further promotions and activities

      such as toys, clothes, foodstuffs

      This is often called organisational synergy

      Where two or more parties benefit from the promotional activity

      Such as MacDonald's and toys from films