A slideshow on media audiences.

2. Categorising Audiences
 There are many different ways of categorising audiences, there are
theories on how to do this, and ways that they should officially be
categorised, in this, I’m going to look at these different theories to
help me decide exactly how I will do my magazine.
Whilst looking at these theories, however, I will be looking at how
effective they would be and if opinion should come into the
theories, almost as if I will be able to decide what category my
magazine should go into, based on my own opinion, the theories
and ways of grouping audiences.

3. Ratings
 Some things use a rating system, this has been used for a long time
and is an easy way to see if things are liked by an audience, however,
it does have it’s major downfalls.
A criticism of this is that there are different audience markets, and
so the same thing would not appeal to different audiences, also,
with ratings, it only shows a number of people that have tuned in to
watch something and so it cannot tell if a person has enjoyed the
show, will continue watching it, etc.
Another weakness with this is that is does not exactly categorise and
audience, just sees if something has been watched by a number of
people, it would though, show what kind of thing is popular.

4. Income/bracket status
 Based on this theory, a way of categorising audiences is based
on their ‘class’. Usually based on their income.
This ranges from ‘upper-middle class’ people such as doctors,
lawyers, bankers and other professionals all the way down to
‘people at lowest level of income’ such as those who are
unemployed, students, pensioners or casual workers.
The good thing about this as it gives us somewhere to start,
however someone on a low level income could quite easily be
interested in the same things as someone who is ‘upper-middle
class.

5. Young and Rubicam’s four
consumers
 Eventually, the concept of ‘class’ became less fashionable and
advertisers started thinking about audiences in different ways,
the most well know was developed by the advertising agency
‘Young and Rubicam’ known as ‘Four consumers’.
This theory is made up on ‘Mainstreamers’ that make up about
40% of the population who like security and belonging to a
group, aspirers that want status and esteem of others and so
want designers labels and live off credit and cash.
There are also succeeders that have already got status and
control, finally there are reformers who define themselves by
their self-esteem and self-fulfillment.
Again, this theory gives a basis for defining people, however,
that isn’t to say one person may not be a mixture of two or
more, depending on what part of media would be in question.

6. Values, Attitudes and
Lifestyles
 This theory is very similar to ‘Young and Rubicam’s’ theory,
however, it offers a more sophisticated range of audiences,
based on their “Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles”.
This gives a huge range of potential audiences, such as:
Actualisers, Fulfilleds , Achievers, Experiencers, Believers,
Strivers, Makers and Strugglers.
What makes this theory good, is that there is a lot of choice to
pinpoint an audience, however, this could be a criticism as
there is too much choice, and so you couldn’t appeal to a
broader audience.

7. LifeMatrix
 One of the latest theories to tackle ‘Audience’ is the ‘LifeMatrix’
that looks at, and defines ten audience categories in a way that
looks at the person, not just their background.
The ten categories are ‘Tribe Wired’ which are ‘Digital, free
spirited, creative young singles’, ‘Fun/Atics’ which covers
‘aspirational, fun loving, active young people’, ‘Dynamic Duos’
meaning ‘Hard-Driving, High-Involvement couple’, ‘Priority
parents’ referring to those who like ‘Family values, activities and
are media strongly dominate’, ‘Home soldiers’ that are ‘Home-
centric, family orientated and are materially ambitious’,
‘Renaissance women’ who are ‘Caring, active, affluent and
influential mums’.

8. LifeMatrix-Continued
 Also, there are ‘Rugged Traditionalists’ that have ‘Traditional
male values and a love of outdoors’, ‘Struggling singles’ who
‘Have high aspirations, low economic status’, ‘Settled elders’ that
live ‘Devout, older, sedentary lifestyles’ and finally, ‘Free birds’
that are defined as ‘Vital, active, altruistic seniors’.
This theory gives a great insight to peoples personalities, but it
doesn’t quite cover everything, or it doesn’t define them (class,
income, ect) clearly, and so could be inaccurate.

9. Counting The Audience
 All aspects of media are made sure to be doing well and making
profits, so they use different ways of making sure they are/will
get(ing) a good reaction from the audience.
For my print, a way that is commonly used to make sure things
are selling is to measure their circulation (copies sold).
They even have to know these figures accurately for advertisers,
so they know what they are advertising into.

10. Influencing the Audience
Hypodermic Needle
 The most commonly known way (however most out-dated) of
how an audience is affected in by following the ‘Hypodermic
Needle’ theory which suggests the media is like a syringe that
injects ideas into an audience, for example – Violent films
influence violence.
This theory is a reason behind films such as ‘The Exorcist’
originally being banned, however, there is no direct evidence to
suggest films, or any other media provoke actions from people.
This suggests to me, in making my print, that I may have to be
careful in what exactly I put in my magazine, to keep it relatively
child friendly.

11. Influencing the Audience
Cultivation/Culmination
 Because of the difficulty with proving the Hypodermic Needle
theory, a new theory, a more refined one was created.
This theory suggests not that films provoke something, but
cause desensitisation towards specific things, such as violence.
If constantly exposed to violence, then you do not find it as
shocking, so may be more open to committing it.
Again, it is still very difficult to prove this theory, but does not
necessarily mean that it is false.
Again, I could say I need to be careful with what I put in my
magazine, or use it to my advantage with things such as
advertisements.

12. The Audience as People
Uses and Gratifications
 This theory states that people don’t just view media for mindless
entertainment, as people, we expect something from it, some
gratification. The theory goes that we select media on what we
are expecting from it to suit our own needs.
People generally want to achieve four things from media, these
four things are: Information, Personal Identity, Integration and
Social Interaction and simply, Entertainment.
This is criticised however, as we cannot always choose what we
see, such as posters, as so we do not get what we want out of
media a lot of the time. This shows to me that I will have to be
clever in what I put, to try and appeal to all without upsetting
people in what I put at the same time.

13. The Audience as People
Audience as Individuals
 This says nothing has one meaning, we all look at something and
decode it in our own way, to give it a meaning, this is based on
our personality, our gender, what mood we are in, where we are
at the time, and so forth.
There are said to be three groupings of audiences, and how they
receive a text.
Dominant reading – Suggests we have a strong reaction to
something; for example, a McDonalds advert would make us
hungry and therefore more obliged to buy a McDonalds as that
is we perceive that a McDonalds is good, as they want us to.
Oppositional reading – Refers to someone who does not get an
advert, take McDonalds for example again; Someone who is -

14. Continued…
 health conscious or a vegetarian, would not get this advert,
as they won’t see it in the way McDonalds want them to.
Negotiated reading – This looks at people who may see the
McDonalds advert, and understand it in the way that
McDonalds want them to, but also see other sides of the
advert, so they may see that it would be tasty, but they see it
is bad for them as well.
This theory gives good insight into how to write a text for a
magazine, to make it opinionated, but to try and make sure
any point I am trying to make, is made in a clear way and any
connotations it would have, I know about and want people to
see.

15. In Conclusion
 Overall, from all of my research on audiences, I have concluded
that I can’t just base my ideas of how I will construct my
magazine to fit my audience on one theory, I will need to take
into account a lot of different theories, and pick out different
pieces to try and come up with a way that will appeal to an
audience well, and keep it consistent all the way through.
However, I will mainly have to focus on a specific audience, but
there will be secondary audiences.
If I have a specific audience, then I need to try and create it, so
the things I put are perceived in the way that I want them to be.