Attracting a niche audience and meeting their expectations is often a media producers’ intention or

goal.

 Construct an overview of media work that appropriately relates to the statement.

 Summarise the features or characteristics of a niche audience.
 Discuss in detail how the expectations of a niche audience are identified or determined: THE
WHAT OF THE NICHE AUDIENCES: THEMES LIKE GENERATIONAL WEALTH,
NIHILSM, ETC.

 Analyse how media producers meet niche audiences’ expectations: THE HOW OF THE
NICHE AUDIENCE EXPECATIONS: SWAT CODES.

Although attracting a mainstream audience boosts revenue, attracting a niche audience often allows a
higher engagement level and the ability to share emotional and significant themes.
A great example of this is the recent film “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (EEAAO) (2022), by
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, made in USA. In the film we meet Evelyn Wang, a Chinese
immigrant living in America, her husband, daughter, and father. Evelyn runs a small laundromat
business and has a hard time with taxes and doesn’t share a good rapport with her daughter. What
seems a normal day in Evelyn’s life turns out to be full of madness. The film is produced by a stand-
alone studio: “A24” which is a film and television production and distribution company founded in
2012, based in New York City. It is known for producing and distributing critically acclaimed
independent films and TV shows, made for niche audiences. EEAAO is a prime example of A24’s
recent producing which, like previous films, attracted a niche audience by making the film
intellectually and emotionally stimulating and technically excellent.

Typically, media producers create works for large institutions whose primary objective is to make
money. This results in films being produced that are highly formulaic, genre-based and appeal to a
wide range of people. Popular franchises rely on recognisable characters, predictable plots and
narrative structures that utilize binary oppositions like marvel superhero movies or content based on
intellectual property like Harry Potter.
In contrast to this, some media producers have a completely different goal in mind. These producers
aim to create though provoking and insightful content rather than making money. Because of this,
their media doesn’t appeal to a wide range of people but rather a select group of people who are
referred to as a niche audience.
Niche audiences are people who long for more than just the typical action film but rather desire
emotional, and authentic content that represents current issues and themes. For EEEAAO, the
audience consisted of not only the typical prominently young, white audience but included Chinese
and middle-aged people into the target niche audience. This is due to the themes and issues discussed
in the film being heavily targeted at not only existentialism but also parenthood, and the transition
between China and America.

Niche audiences are identified by media producers through their desire of emotional/ intellectual
stimulation and technical excellence, as well as others. By delivering these factors and underlining a
thought provoking and relevant theme or issue, niche audiences are often the people who engage with
the media producer’s content. In EEAAO themes such as nihilism which is shown though the symbols
such as the bagel and its antithesis being the googly eyes. This is done to raise the question: Does
nothing matter or does nothing matter? By clashing the views of pessimistic nihilism with optimistic
nihilism, it creates a thoughtful and dark story over the comedic and bright visuals, in turn identifying
the niche audience and encouraging them to watch the film. Other themes such as individualism and
self-harm are subtly hidden through-out the film to capture a relevant issue, often leading to the
pessimistic nihilism views that many young adults have. Joy is not a nihilist, but rather a depressed
young adult who isn’t given the right to control her own life, like being allowed to mention she is
lesbian to her grandfather. This forced control leads to thoughts and actions of self-harm present in the
film, relating to other young adults and teenagers in similar situations.