This document discusses the concepts of audience and representation in media texts. It defines audience as the group that consumes a media product, noting that audiences can be mass or niche. Producers research audiences using categories like age, gender, socioeconomic status to target them effectively. Representation is the process by which images, words or sounds indicate issues beyond their literal meaning, and can be positive or negative depending on perspective. The document provides examples of how different groups like women and men are commonly represented in media texts.

1. Audiences and Representations
Learning Objectives:
To develop understanding of the concept of
audience (for Exam Section B AO1 & AO2 also
for Magazine design)
To develop understanding of concept of
representation (for Exam Section B AO1 &
AO2 also for Magazine Design)
To draw attention to links between Practical and
Theoretical aspects of the course.

2. Audience = group that consumes the product
Target group can be wide/mass audience or
specific/niche group
Each audience and member of audience will
consume product in a different way

3. In order to target the most appropriate
audience the producers of media texts will
research using categories such as:

4. Age

5. gender

6. Socio economic group

7. Sexual orientation

8. Consumption history and preference

9. Things you must be able to discuss:
•The fact that all media texts have a target
audience
•The various ways in which both institutions
and producers research and target the
audience
•The ways in which the audience responds
to representation in media texts
•The means by which individuals learn to
consider their role within an audience
•The consumption of media texts by the
audience

10. To target audiences effectively media institutions and
producers use various methods of research to discover
preferences and expectations in that audience:
Qualitative research – opinions and preferences e.g. focus
group shown product their response is used to alter, focus
or confirm the look and content (you should do this for your
adverts)
Quantitative research – Data gathered by:
BARB (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board) – TV
RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) – Radio
NRS (National Readership Survey) – Magazines

11. NRS uses the following socio economic grades or classes:
Grade
Social class
Typical occupation
A
Upper Middle Class
doctor, solicitor, barrister, accountant, company director
B
Middle Class
teacher, nurse, police officer, probation officer, librarian, middle manager
C1
Lower Middle Class
junior manager, student, clerical/office workers, supervisors
C2
Skilled Working Class
foreman, agricultural worker, plumber, bricklayer
D
Working Class
manual workers, shop worker, fisherman, apprentices
E
Underclass
casual labourers, state pensioners
The grades are often grouped into ABC1 and C2DE and these are taken to equate to middle class and working
class respectively

12. For example:

13. Once the target audience is established the product
producers will target the audience by promotion e.g:
In magazines read by the target audience
Internet sites (pop ups banners viral adverts etc)
Adverts between preferred programmes

14. Some other audience descriptors you could refer to:
Segmentation (advertisers):
1.succeeders 2.aspirers 3.carers 4.achievers
5.radicals 6.traditional 7.underachievers
Social Values (social scientists):
1.Traditionalist – keep things the way they are
2.Materialist – have something now, pay later
3.Hedonist – to play, or enjoy life now
4.Post Materialist – to be something later
5.Post Modernist – to have, to be, and to play

15. Magazines themselves are pitched through adverts, cover
presentation and location on shelves as well as where ‘the
shelves’ are. E.g. supermarket shelves now very important

16. ‘It is clear, therefore, that audiences consume the media
texts… …in different ways: they may accept, reject or
negotiate a response to a preferred textual reading and will
often be extremely active within the consumption process’ (in
contrast with early media theories of passive consumption and
influence)
‘an audience will often respond emotionally to what they are
consuming’(they don’t often consciously analyse stuff)
‘We might also have a particular ideological position that is
being engaged by the media text’ (ideology is a set of ideas or
ideals within a society)
‘Remember that whether we read something from a dominant,
negotiated or oppositional perspective it is intrinsically linked to
whatever personal experience or detail the text encourages us
to reflect upon.’
(p25 AS Media Studies for OCR)

17. Audiences are often prepared to question
stereotypes yet frequently relate themselves to
a stereotype or typical audience
e.g. describing yourself as ‘A Guardian
Reader’ or ‘Radio 4 listener’ might be
indicating certain interests, political orientation,
socio economic status (see NRS grid) and
educational experience.
This could help you convey or derive STATUS
or give you a sense of COMMUNITY or
SECURITY. The ‘feeling of belonging’ or
‘identity’
Typical Guardian reader
according to Google

18. As individuals we often define ourselves through groups within
which we are included e.g. different musical tastes:
punk
emo
raver
New romantic

19. Representation
Basically this idea of social groups which are defined through
images, reports, articles etc.
OCR text book defines representation as: ‘the process by
which images, words or sounds are used to indicate
(connote) issues or debates beyond what they literally mean.’
Representations can be positive or negative and this notion is
subjective – different social groupings might have opposing
views of what is or isn’t a positive/negative representation.
(e.g. use of the term ‘nigger’ in Big Brother.)
Debates arise when a stereotype is explored or exploited.
Representation (A-level) from
MediaKnowall site

20. Representations of women across all media
tend to highlight the following:
•beauty (within narrow conventions)
•size/physique (again, within narrow
conventions)
•sexuality (as expressed by the above)
•emotional (as opposed to intellectual)
dealings
•relationships (as opposed to
independence/freedom)

21. Women are often represented as being
part of a context (family, friends,
colleagues) and working/thinking as part of
a team. In drama, they tend to take the
role of helper (Propp) or object, passive
rather than active. Often their passivity
extends to victimhood.
Men are still represented as TV drama
characters up to 3 times more frequently
than women, and tend to be the
predominant focus of news stories.

22. The representations of women that do make it
onto page and screen do tend to be
stereotypical
Characters who do not fit into the mould tend
to be seen as dangerous and deviant.
And they get their comeuppance, particularly
in the movies:

23. Alex Forrest
(Glenn Close)
in Fatal
Attraction
Teena Brandon/Brandon Teena
(Hilary Swank) in Boys Don't
Cry.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171804/synopsis

24. America seems to expect its women to behave better
than their European counterparts - British viewers
adored the antics of Patsy & Edina in Absolutely
Fabulous, but these had to be severely toned down
(less swearing, NO drugtaking) for the US remake,
High Society (which was a flop).

25. Moving Image Media (Film and TV) use the following
devices to suggest the ways the audience should
respond to situations and people: (this is known as
positioning the audience)

26. Characters who offer ‘shorthand’ representations of real
types of people (or stereotypes)
Narrative which is visually presented and demands high
levels of active audience understanding (of what is assumed
to happen between edits e.g. passage of time – the
difference between plot and story)
Mise en scene (costume, props, lighting ‘authenticity’)
Camerawork that ensures continuity and creates drama
through visual conventions
Dialogue, sound and music which create a balance
between ‘verisimilitude’ (the believable logic of the world
within the text – usually diegetic sound)
and drama e.g. dialogue more polished than it would be in
reality and ‘scary music’ non diegetic sound.