The document discusses audience research and targeting audiences for media products. It defines primary and secondary research methods. It also discusses theories of how to identify and group target audiences, including by social factors, media habits, motivations and how different groups may respond to different message strategies. Key aspects covered include Burton's social and media audience groupings, Hartley's seven subjective categories to further define audiences, Dyer's theory of offering solutions to inadequacies, and how motives and delivery methods should be tailored to different audience groups.

2. What is an audience?

3. Audience Research: Introduction What you are doing now. PRIMARY SOURCES – things you find out for yourself, e.g. through questionnaires and interviews. QUANTATIVE – large quantity of results, which you can change into percentages, i.e. questionnaires. QUALITATIVE – more detailed results. Cannot put into percentages because they cannot be categorised, i.e. interviews. SECONDARY SOURCES – things you find out from someone else, e.g. websites and text books and radial analysis.

4. Here is a writing frame below to help you: Through my research I want to find out what my audience expect to see on …. I am going to use primary and secondary methods in order to find out this information. My primary research will include… Give examples, i.e. questionnaires and interviews). My secondary methods will include… (Give examples, i.e. information from the internet and companies).

8. Audience Behaviour/Motivation : General Audience Behaviour Theory: Richard Dyer states that people will respond to a message if it offers them compensation for something they don’t have. This is his ‘Utopian Solutions’ theory: If we tried to fit an anti-smoking campaign to this, there would be clear motives we could offer, based on theory, e.g. gain money, understand the facts, gain energy, join a quit club. Inadequacy Poverty Confusion Exhaustion Isolation Solution Abundance Clarity

9. Audience Behaviour/Motivation : Abraham Maslow stated that we all have the same 8 basic needs. Therefore if your production targets these, you will have a greater chance of success. Can you present any of these to your audience in order to make them listen to your message?

10. Different audience groups respond to different motives , e.g. teenagers are more likely to respond to a message offering a loss (threat) or gain (offer) relating to image. Elderly people are more likely to respond to an offer of quality or simplicity. University students are likely to respond to a motive relating to freedom, individuality, enjoyment and so on. Similarly, different methods of delivering the message/motive should be used , depending upon the audience, e.g.: Teenagers respond to shock tactics or humour more, as these take into account the extremity and focus of teens’ own lifestyles/experiences; The elderly are more likely to respond to overt (clear and obvious) messages; Women are more likely to respond to emotional material; Men are more likely to respond to factual material; Adults are used to being offered a choice and made to think ; Teens are more used to being told what is right and respond to instructions rather than choice; Educated audiences respond to subliminal targeting, where the message needs to be thought about before it becomes clear.

11. What you are expected to do...

13. AUDIENCE BEHAVIOUR THEORY: Richard Dyer states that people are not satisfied with their lives and therefore the media can persuade them by offering solutions to their inadequacies… The inadequacy that my target audience might have could fall under the categories of isolation (if they are single and lonely) and confusion (unsure about what to do in their relationship). My product could therefore offer the following solutions: sympathy, advice and company. You are to fill in the parts in red