Seminar 1

Mass communication. The notion of the audience and public sphere

Methods of audience analysis
1. Give the notion of audience in mass media theory. Comment on the
development of the term and give modern definition.
2. What are the criteria to study audiences? Comment on classifications of
audiences (Blumer, Howe & Strauss, etc.).
3. Comment on the notion of public sphere put forward by Jurgen Habermas.
How has the public sphere evolved throughout centuries? What is the public sphere in
modern Western societies?
4. Comment on such methods of audience analysis as surveys and focus groups:
procedures, drawbacks and advantages.
a survey is a set of questions administered to several—or, preferably, many—respondents.
Surveys are sometimes conducted face-to-face or by phone, but online surveys are increasingly common.
You may collect and tabulate survey results manually, or set up an automated online survey through the
free or subscription portals of sites like Survey Monkey and Zoomerang. Using an online survey provides
the advantage of keeping responses anonymous, which may increase your audience members’
willingness to participate and to answer personal questions. Surveys are an efficient way to collect
information quickly; however, in contrast to interviews, they don’t allow for follow-up questions to help
you understand why your respondent gave a certain answer.

When you use interviews and surveys, there are several important things to keep in mind:

 Make sure your interview and survey questions are directly related to your speech topic. Do not

use interviews to delve into private areas of people’s lives.

 Create and use a standard set of questions.

 Keep interviews and surveys short, or you could alienate your audience long before your speech

is even outlined.

 Don’t rely on just a few respondents to inform you about your entire audience. In all likelihood,

you have a cognitively diverse audience. In order to accurately identify trends, you will likely

need to survey at least ten to twenty people.

A focus group is a small group of people who give you feedback about their perceptions. As with

interviews and surveys, in a focus group you should use a limited list of carefully prepared questions

designed to get at the information you need to understand their beliefs, attitudes, and values specifically

related to your topic.

If you conduct a focus group, part of your task will be striking a balance between allowing the discussion

to flow freely according to what group members have to say and keeping the group focused on the

questions. It’s also your job to guide the group in maintaining responsible and respectful behavior

toward each other.

In evaluating focus group feedback, do your best to be receptive to what people had to say, whether or

not it conforms to what you expected. Your purpose in conducting the group was to understand group

members’ beliefs, attitudes, and values about your topic, not to confirm your assumptions.

5. Select a popular film that has been advertised widely and has created
expectations. Then select a sample of ten individuals from your peer group and ask
them to participate in a focus group that will study how a recent, popular film has
been received. Arrange a screening or make sure that all focus group participants see
the film. Then arrange a focus group meeting and gather information on the topics
listed below. Make sure you prepare well-constructed questions, but do not ask the
participants to write answers. The questions are for your guidance. The focus group
should be conducted as informally as possible, in the form of a friendly conversation.
Find out:
● How much the participants knew about the film before seeing it. How they knew.
● What their expectations of the film were. Why they saw the film.
● How their expectations were met and whether they were pleased or disappointed. Get specific
information on this.
● If they were to make some changes to the film what they would be and why.
● What they specifically liked about the film. Whether they thought it worked well and why.
● How they would compare this film with others in its genre.
If possible, record the conversation. If not, write down some characteristic
phrases that the participants used.
Write the report that describes and discusses the results of your focus group.
Reflect upon your results. Were your initial hypotheses supported? Were you
surprised by what you discovered? What proved to be particularly difficult in
conducting this experiment?
6. Brainstorm some ways in which you find out about the existence of new
entertainment and news items. These could include new music albums or songs, films
and computer games, as well as ‘hard’ news events. Write down specific examples.
Then interview five members of your generation and five members of a different
generation to find out how they learn about similar new items. Discuss your results.
Are generational differences significant? How different are entertainment items from
news events in the way people learn about them? What are some possible reasons for
the choices people make in how they get information? Can you see any relationships
between the ways in which the media are organized (i.e.how they present news events
and how they advertise new products) and the ways in which people get information?
7. Interview five people from the same demographic group to find out how they
use different media, such as the internet, TV, radio and telephone (both land and cell).
What do they use for entertainment/recreation, what do they use for business, and
what do they use for both? Divide your analysis into the categories of time, duration
and purpose.