Media audience: the prospective consumer

*Dr Amit k
Singh
**Mili Singh

Media industry – Media industry produces goods to be

sold in the market as other industries do. Even after
getting the status of industry it always considered to
have moral responsibilities more than any other industry.
The industry is the torchbearer to the interest of common
man. The media industry also provides a forum to
common man when their rights and interest are
confiscated. Bearing the dual responsibility of sustaining
them in the market and campaigning for the peoples
cause is not easy task. If media divert from their later
cause they are criticized more than any other industry.
Even after facing lots of criticism media has changed
from their early version. They had changed their vision
and become profit driven industry.
Though a highly consumer oriented good (the media) is
very different from most other goods like cars, toasters,
washing machines, whereas the latter provides the
means, the former trades in the meaning of life.
J. Blumer, Television and Public Interest,
1992
Media Product
The media have been called the ‘consciousness
industries’. Over and above the product they sell it
different in form and appearance .The media products are
highly abstract and perishable, mostly consumed as soon
as they reached their consumer. Media product in the
language of media is called Genre .The word itself derived
from French word meaning ‘type’ or kind. Genre is a
straight ward means of classifying product according to
elements they have in common mostly narrative firms,
setting characters, subjects and themes .Genre is a
category, type or style of media products. Genre is
repeated set of codes and conventions or system of
signs. Genre has predictable patterns. Different form of
media produces different genre/media products. These
genre are loosely classified as follows-
Film Products- Many genres appears in films and they
may share some common features also. These film
products firm categories having same type of themes and
way of characterization and presentations
1) Comedy- e.g. Golmal, Hera-Feri, Mala Mal Weekly etc.
2) Horror- e.g. Band Darwaja, Raat, Purani Haweli, Jani
Dusman etc.
3) Science fiction- Koi Mil Gaya, Jurasic Park, Mr.India
etc.
4) Documentary- Shyam Benegals’ close to nature,
Satyajit Rays’-Rabindranath Tagore etc.
5) Romance- Heer Ranjha, Soni Mahiwal, Bobby,
Kayamat se kayamat Tak etc.
6) Action- Sholay, Krish, Shanshah etc.
7) New Wave-Buvan shoom, Garam Hawa, Paar etc.
These genres in Indian context are not easy to classify
because themes and presentations are generally
intermingled with each other. We find sense of comedy in
horror films and act of action in Romantic films
TV Products/TV Genre- Genre of Television are quit
distinguished and can be easily indentified. Some of TV
Genre is as follows-
1) News Breakfast news (24×7), Breakfast with India (IBN7)
2) Documentary/Docudrama- Bharat Ek Kho, Seven
wonders (NDTV India) etc.
3) Soap opera- Santi, Sas bhi kabhi bahu thi, Chooti
Bahu etc.
4) Comedy- Office-Office, Mungeri Lal Ke Haseen sapne
etc.
5) Crime drama- CID, Vardaat etc
6) Talk Show- Shidhi Baat, Coffee with Karan,
7) Quiz/Game Show- Hole in the Wall, Kaun Banega
Karorpati
8) TV Advertisement
Radio Genre - Radio is considered as blind media as it
appeals to only one sense but wide variety of genre is
found in this media also. They are-
1) Radio News- BBC News, Pradeshic Samachar, Khabre
etc.
2) Documentary- The Men Inside : a look at the life in
prison
3) Radio drama-Hawa Mahal, in Cigarettes and
Chocolate etc.
4) Radio Advertisements
5) Radio Talk show- Yov Vani, Krishi Charcha. Etc.
6) Musical Program - Binaca Geet Mala, Sugam Sangeet
etc.
Newspaper-One of the first media form, presents the
following genre to its consumer
1.News story
2.Feature story
3. Editorials
4.Advertisement
The above are the list of the major media products to be
consumed by the audience or media consumer. The
above list is not comprehensive as many other media
forms and products are also available in the market. With
the advent of new technology and innovation, new media
forms are developing leading to invention of new media
products.
Understanding Media Audience
If we go to the very basics of communication studies we
find a term ‘Receiver’. Receiver is a vast term which
includes all form of media consumer. Receiver of the
media product includes the media consumer as well as
the target population of the advertisers who could
become the prospective buyer of their products. It is in
practice to use media audience in place of receiver when
we talk about media industry. The receiver of the
message can be classified according to the type of media
they are using.
Table1
Types of Media Correspon
ding
receiver
Books/Newspaper/Mag Reader
azine
Radio Listener
TV Viewer
Cinema Audience
Internet End user

A ‘media audience’ is unlike say an audience for a

political meeting, a theatre performance, a street
performance, a mela or a lecture. Sociologist like to
define an audience as ‘conventionalized crowed’
assembled together A media audience, however, is more
than a conventionalized crowed, but rather a collectivity,
an aggregate of persons who are readers, viewers and
listeners of different media or of their various
components. The media audience has came together (not
in time and space) but in the common act of reading,
listening or viewing.
The definition of ‘media audience’ depends on ones
perspective of the role of communication in society if
communication is done as commodity or as merchandise
or media as a tool for selling that commodity, a media
audience is no better than potential market for product &
services
Noam Chomsky the American professor of linguistics who
has studied many faces of media manipulation contends
that the real product in the media enterprise of today is in
fact the audience itself. Media is engaged in delivering
particular audiences to the real drivers of all media
activities- the advertising. Prof. Chomsky proposed an
alternative view that particular program are made so that
particular audience can be delivered to the advertisers.
McQuil defines audience as “An aggregate of potential
customers with a known social-economic profile at which
medium or message is direct.” Thus media audience not
only acts as media consumer but prospective consumer
for the goods advertised by advertisers. The role of the
audience depends on how media is treating its audience.
The role of media audience changes with the intention of
media. How they are targeting their audience. It is media
to decide who is their main client the audience or the
advertiser. The various roll played by the media audience
can be categorize as follows.

Audience as market-when media use its audience to

sell their products by encouraging them to watch, read or
listen to their content, they are seeing the audience as
their consumer. Media also serve their other client i.e. the
advertiser; by delivering their audience to the advertiser
thus making them (audience) the prospective consumer
of advertiser’s products. More over the revenue
generated by advertising in television, newspapers and
other media gives advertisers an extra ordinary amount
 of power. This power becomes controversial when it is
used to influence the content of news and information
that the media carries.

Table2
Date Program/ch Time Time for Net Net time
annel for advertise time for
progra ment for
advertise
m progr
ment
am
20/03/0 Breakfast 8.30- 8.44- 20 min 10 min
9 news (24×7) 9.00am 8.48am
8.54-
9.00am
20/03/0 Breakfast 8.30- 8.40- 20min 10min
9 with India 9.00am 8.42am
(IBN7) 8.48-
8.50am
8.53-
8.56am
8.57-
9.00am
20/03/0 Choti bhahu 7.30- 7.36- 21min 9 min
9 (zee TV) 8.00pm 7.40pm
7.47-
7.52pm
20/03/0 Pakistan ki 8.00- 8.08- 17min 13min
9 saap 8.30pm 8.12pm
shidhi(special 8.17-
report) Aaj 8.22pm
Tak 8.25-
 8.29pm

The above table shows how TV channels are using their

time slots for commercial purposes. At the time when
audience switch on their TV sets to entertain them or get
informed is partially used by media for their purposes.
Radio stations and the newspaper industries are not far
from this practice. Though advertisement is necessary for
the sustenance of media but priority of audience should
not be lost. After knowing the media give importance of
advertisement we can summaries that media industry is
standing on three poles. Equilibrium is required to
establish for survival of the whole industry

Subscription fee ad revenue

Media
Space and time
Media house
product

Prospective customer
Audien Adverti
ce ser
Produ
ct
The above diagram shows the media industry is standing
on three poles –Media house, audience and advertiser. All
three play their roles and exchange substances of their
needs. Underestimating the role of audience could put
the media in a chaotic condition. An unbalance can occur
if media become oriented towards advertiser keeping
aside the interest of their audience.
Audience as Clint- In many communication process
audiences are considered as the client meaning
beneficiaries of communication. Client means according
to Occupational Sociology ‘the person/organization that
gets the precedence over the interest of both the
employer and the professional.’ For example a client, the
patient gets precedence over the professional, the doctor
and the employer, the hospital authority. Similarly in the
public relation communication the publics get precedence
over the PR personnel and the parent organization.
Audience as Communicator – Here part of audience
work as opinion leaders who pass the communicated
contents to their followers. The effectiveness of this
communicator is not known and changes with case to
case. This type of flow of communication is in accordance
to the two step flow of information hypothesis. Another
approach where part of audience attends the mass media
contents to get the topic to talk about. This is use and
gratification approach where part of audience act as
communicator.
Conclusion – Audience i.e. the consumer of media
product have more potential than any other product’s
consumer so media should treat them with sincerity.
Media been a conscious industry should play the role of
watch dog of society. Instead of becoming the part of
same game where the consumers interest is exploited
media should aware the consumer about their rights and
the possible way their interest could be harmed. They
only can do this by first changing themselves, by keeping
their monetary interest aside and regaining their
missionary role from where they started their journey in
India.
References
Rodman George, Making Sense of Media: An Introduction
to Mass Communication, Allyn & Bacon, Needham
Heights, MA, 2001
Gupta Baldev Raj, Modern Journalism and Mass
Communication, Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan, Varansi,
1997
Windahl Sven, Signitzer Benno H and Olson T, Using
Communication Theory: An Introduction to Planned
Communication, SAGE Publications, London, 1997.
Kumar Kevel J., Mass Communication in India, Jaico
Publishing House, Mumbai, 2000
Bhatt S.C, Indian Press since 1955, Publication Division,
New Delhi, 1997
Mehta Alok, Bharat mein Patrakarita, National Book Trust,
New Delhi, 2007
Fissk,J., Indroduction to communication Studies, London:
Methuen, 1982

*lecturer in Department of Management Mizoram University

**Research Scholar in Mahamana Malaviya Institute of Hindi Journalism, Mahatma
Gandhi Kashi Vidyapeeth, varansi.