AUDIENCES

What is an audience?

• An individual or collective group of people who read or consume any media text

• Examples: Radio listeners, Television viewers, Newspaper and magazine readers, Web traffic on web sites.

Why are audiences important?

•Without audiences there would be no media.•Media organizations produce media texts to make profit – no audience = no profit.•The mass media is becoming more competitive than ever to attract more and more audiences in different ways and stay profitable.

Impact of New Technology on Audiences• Old media (TV, Print, Radio) which used to have high audience numbers must now work harder to maintain audience numbers.

• Digital technology has also led to an increasing uncertainty over how we define an audience, with the general agreement that a large group of people reading the same thing at the same time is outdated and that audiences are now ‘fragmented’.

Fragmented audience• The division of audiences into smaller groups due to the

variety of media outlets.• EXAMPLE:Newspapers and magazines – you can now

view the hard copy AND online version (sometimes free). • The aim is to hit as many people as possible/sell more

copies/generate a larger audience. But measuring that audience becomes hard! You may have some people that only look online, some that only read the hard copy, or some that do both!

So how do institutions continue to make money?• Nothing in life is free• Free apps always have adverts, unless you pay to remove

adds.• Websites and search engines work hard to target you with

ads you consume .• With newspapers, printing less copies and switching to

online distribution can reduce production costs

Types of Audience• Mass audience – often termed ‘broadcast audience’.

Those who consume mainstream or popular texts such as soaps . Media and communication that targets a very large group of people (women, men, children, adults etc).

• Examples of media with mass audience…

Types of Audience

• Niche audience – much smaller but very influential. A niche audience is a small, select group of people with a very unique interest.

Categories

Audiences can be divided into categories based on social class/grade.

Why do we

categorise

audiences?

Psychographics• Every advertiser wants to target a particular type of audience. Therefore, media companies produce texts that target a particular ‘type’ of audience.

• In terms of commercial media, much of their funding is generated by advertising revenue. Their product needs to appeal to a specific type of audience so that advertisers will pay to promote their product.

• Most media products can define their ‘typical’ audience member, often with a psychographic profile.

What types of media texts would they consume?

• Lawyers• Doctors• Scientists• Well paid professionals

think about income boundaries

• Teachers• Middle management• Fairly well paid professionals

• Junior management• Bank clerks• Nurses

• Electricians• Plumbers• Carpenters

• Students• Unemployed• Pensioners

Research methods• How do we measure media audiences? • Sales, subscriptions, ratings, figures

• .

New Media• Can you think of any NEW ways in which we can

measure audience? Think about the picture below…

• Facebook and other social network sites – ‘like’• Online forums – comments tools• Views on YouTube & Google +1• Twitter trends

Research• When looking at audiences, there are two main types of research:• Quantitative research – e.g. questionnaires.• Number based• Closed questions to generate exact answers• Very factual

• Qualitative research – e.g. interviews, focus groups• Analysis of existing products• Open questions to generate answers open to interpretation• Individual preferences

• Qualitative research will be very important in your coursework!

One-Way Communication

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Two-Step Communication Flow

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Opinion Leader

Multi-Step Communication Flow

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Opinion Leaders

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Viral Diffusion

• POSITIVE EFFECTS • Media provide news and information required by the

people. • Media can educate the public. • Media helps a democracy function effectively. • They inform the public about government policies and

programmes and how these programmes can be useful to them. This helps the people voice their feelings and helps the government to make necessary changes in their policies or programmes.

IMPACT OF MEDIA

• NEGATIVE EFFECTS • The traditional culture of a country is adversely affected

by mass media.• Entertainment has become the main component of mass

media. This affects the primary objectives of media to inform and educate the people.

• Media promote violence. Studies have proved

Origin of Development Communication

• The expressions such as Development reporting or Development news were coined during the early seventies when UNESCO, UNICEF and UNDP were willing to fund and encourage a new kind of reporting. The Press of the west was critical of these agencies. .

• Consequently, the UNESCO formed the McBride Commission. This commission organized hearings in developing countries.. The developing nations were slow in learning that the western media were out to destroy their social, economic and political canvasses in stealthy fashion.

• The progress of development reporting in India was slow due to the following reasons:

• The mass media were catering to the needs of the urban literate readers. The newspapers & magazines publishers were developing content for the urban people and not for the mass markets. Hence, their content was urban oriented.

• The journalism training institutes did not pay attention to the concept of training in development reporting.

• The corporate publishing sector was driven by monetary gain. It did not depute development reporters to cover the news of development. It also did not start the in-house training programs to upgrade the reporting skills and research techniques of its existing set of reporters.

• Hindustan Times can be given the credit of starting the concept of development reporting in India. Its editor, B G Verghese, took the initiative in this context.

• The times of India started a feature on agriculture and appointed an agriculture correspondent in its Delhioffice. Later, Indian Express covered news and events related to environment, economic development and social conflicts..

Crisis communication • An organization can withstand both issues and crises

better if they have established good, long-term relationships with publics who will be affected from decisions and behaviors of the organization.

• Organizations should accept responsibility/be accountable for a crisis/issue even if it was not their fault.

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• At the time of a crisis/issue, an organization must disclose all that it knows about the crisis or problem involved. If it does not know what happened, then it must provide full disclosure once it has additional information. Provide facts.

• At the time of a crisis, an organization must consider the public interest to be at least as important as its own. Public safety, for example, is at least as important as profits. Therefore the organization has no choice other than to engage in true dialogue with publics and to practice socially responsible behavior when a crisis occurs [as well as before and after