Audiences: Conceptualising the Audience

Media companies are producing and selling audience. After they have created this ‘’product’’ with a particular interest they often aim at a company which is willing to ‘’buy’’ this audience. This happening very simply- if a rock music magazine has most readers which would attend a rock music festival it is very obvious for the producers of the product ‘’festival’’ to go and advertise in the rock magazine-this magazine however is now selling its audience and in some cases print mediums are making most of their profit off ‘’selling’’ its audience rather than their actual product which they might be know for. An example of such media text would be ‘’The New York Times’’ magazine.

"Audiences can be defined as anonymous and variable collective of individuals addressed, as a group and as individuals by the organs of 'mass' media communication" (Long 2012: 279).

We discussed things such as propaganda in this week’s lecture, propaganda is used to manipulate a certain targeted audience. Propaganda is associated with something negative and compared to ‘’brainwash’’. Through propaganda media influences on the target audience are explored and studied as a specific target audience has a specific response. Many theorists say that media has a strong influence on its audience. Propaganda is "the international conscious and active process of managing and manipulating information and ideas to achieve effects of a political or social nature." (Long & Wall 2012: 286).

In Andy Ruddock's Understanding Audiences: Theory and Method he looks at hoe media audiences are analyzed. He talks about how important it is for us scholars to research audiences- "these simple observations demonstrate that a concern with the media's social impact is no more than common sense." (2001: 19).

For further research into audience – looking at ways advertising which involves photography have gone through change-serological analysis would be the most appropriate for this research and for each media text by analyzing the key features which have been used to attract the target audience.

Reference:

Long, P. and Wall, T. 2012. Media studies. Harlow, England: Pearson.

Ruddock, Andy (2001) Understanding Audiences: Theory and Method. London, Sage. pp 17-36