This document defines and discusses audience in media studies. It explains that media producers aim their products at a target audience, which they categorize based on demographics like age, gender, socioeconomic status. Conducting audience research is important so producers understand their target audience and create something that will appeal to them. Different factors can be used to segment audiences, including social/economic class, psychographics like personality/values/interests, and basic demographics. Understanding demographics helps media identify markets for their goods and services.

1. Audience

2. What is audience?
• Audiences are different and in media studies the media are particularly
interested in the target audience. This is the audience that media producers
aim their product at.
• Media institutions often put their audiences into categories depending upon
their social, ethnic or economic backgrounds. This is called demographics, they
use this to work out the best way to target their shows and products.
• Media producers have a profile of the group and individuals whom they see as
their intended audience.
• A music magazine with young people will have a target audience and an
example of a TV show will be the American drama Glee.
• For any media text we ask who is the target audience for this text, then we
have to what sort of audience are they and about them, is it a mass audience?

3. Categories of audience
• Profession
• Life cycle stage
• Age
• Gender
• Martial status
• Behaviour
• Demographics

4. Purpose of audience research
• Before finalising any project, research must be done before even
thinking about the initial design. The point of doing this is so that
the producer can get a better insight of the target audience, it
would be pointless creating something that’s not going to appeal
to the right people. It’s important part of the procedure as it’s
time consuming and a waste of money if the product is not
created the way it is expected to be. It’s important for a film to
target a specific audience because everyone has different tastes
in film for example you could like watching romantic or comedy
films but when it comes to action films you can utterly dislike
them.

5. Social scale
A – Upper Middle Class – Higher managerial, administrative or
professional for example a doctor or a lawyer.
B – Middle Class – Intermediate managerial, administrative or
professional and these would be teachers or even farmers.
C1 – Lower Middle Class – Supervisory or Clerical (Nurses,
Carpenters).
C2 – Skilled Working class for example electricians or plumbers
D – Working Class – Semi and unskilled manual workers (Bus drivers)
E – Lowest level of subsistence (Bar staff, general labourers).

6. Segmenting audiences
• Social economic – Is an economic and sociological combined total
measure of a person’s work experience. Main factors: Income,
occupation and education.
• Psychographic – Is attributed to the following factors:
1.Personality
2.Values
3.Attitude
4.Lifestyles
5.Interests
• Demographics – This typically involves the following: age bands, social
class and gender.

7. Demographics
• Demographics are the statistical characteristics of human
populations, such as age and income, that are used by businesses
and the media to identify markets for their goods and services.
Demographics are used to identify who your customers are, where
they live and how likely they are to purchase the product you are
selling. By studying your customers and potential customers
through demographics, one can identify changing needs in the
marketplace and media landscape and adjust to them.