Med Info

4 t h Quarter – Reviewer

Audiences
Audiences – a group of people exposed and experiencing media. They can be physically present at the event while
other audiences are not.
Mass Audiences – a convenient term applied to huge numbers of people who constitute the audiences of popular
and/or mass culture.
Audience Fragmentation – a term used to describe the creation of smaller and less heterogeneous. Basically, media
products become specialized to meet the demands of target audiences.

The Notion of the Audience

AREAS OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AUDIENCES OF DIFFERENT MEDIA

• Level of activity and engagement with the media and information text
• Level of interaction with fellow audiences
• Location and space occupied
• Amount of time devoted to watching or viewing
• Accessibility and proximity
TYPOLOGY OF AUDIENCES

 audience as “the people assembled”

 audience as “the people addressed’
 audience as “happening,”
 audience as “hearing’’ or “audition”
Mass Audiences
 The media can be experienced by people even if they are alone. Simply put, we can be in various parts of the
globe, separate by seas and continents, but will still be receiving exactly the same thing.

From Mass Audience to Audience Segments

 As the media have become bigger business, the term ‘market’ has gained in currency. It may be defined as an
aggregate of actual or potential consumers of media.
 Audience Theories
Hypodermic Needle Theory
 asserts that media and information messages, like hypodermic needle, inject their messages directly to audiences.
 Media is described as powerful conduits of messages and audiences as passive recipients of the messages.
 suggests that audiences will believe anything told to them by the media.

Two-step Flow of Communication

 It emerged from studies which analyzed how voters make their electoral decisions in the 1940 United States
presidential campaign.
 opinion leaders actively access information from the media and transmit it to less active sectors the population.
 Thus, the theory has been called a two-step flow with the media as the first step and the opinion leaders as the
second step.

Uses and Gratifications Approach

 It argued that the audience access media and information bringing with them their own needs and desires, which
in turn structures the way how the media is received.
 include information, personal identity, integration and social interaction, and entertainment.

Cultural Effects Theory

 The theory argued that television cultivates in its viewers a way of sensing and seeing the world.
 states that regular usage of television over extended periods of time can shape people’s opinions, views.

THREE MODES OF READING MEDIA TEXTS ON TELEVISION

 First, there is the dominant reading where reader fully shares the text’s code and accepts.
 Second, there is the negotiated reading where the audience partly shares the text’s code and broadly
accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects one’s own
position.
 Third, there is the oppositional reading where the audience takes a directly oppositional stance to the
dominant code of the media and information texts and resists it completely.
 The Notion of Constructed Audiences

ATTRIBUTES OF THE AUDIENCE

G – ender
E – thnicity
A – ge range
R – egion or Nationality
S – ocio-economic group
Audience Demographics
 created by zeroing in on a particular sector of a population that is the intended audience of a media

 The term “demographic” also implies that a segment of the population shares some common
Psychographics
 It is largely derived from the concept of demographics, but is focused on the psychological traits.
 This category is often utilized to provide more substance to the profile of potential media audiences.
 It covers attitudes, personality types, opinions, and motivations
Content Creation
 involves a lot of research, a wide range of options, and management of risks should the initial formats

 Risk management is an exceptionally significant part of content creation. The drive is to sustain the production and
dissemination of a media text.

 Content creators, who themselves are chosen carefully, may also choose to produce material that already has a
track record of success, which could explain the resilience of some genres.

Audience Research
Audience Research
 Traditionally audience research is about
1) gaining an insight on audience preferences, however fluid and ever-
changing these could be in the present period;
2) calibrating audience sizes and reach.
 Historically, it is the radio and television that have relied much on audience research because they are mass
media platforms that cannot accurately count their audiences.
 Beyond television and radio, even print and the Internet has ventured into audience research.
Qualities of Research
Systematic: structured with steps that be followed according to the design.
Logical: guided by the rules of logical reasoning and process of induction and deduction.
Empirical: underpinned by data that is systematically gathered and forms the basis of all analyses
• Replicable: Research findings are verifiable by replicating the study and achieving the same results.
Methods of Audience Research
• Surveys
 are conducted mostly through questionnaires
• Observation
 can be both formal and informal
• Focused Group Discussions (FGD)
 are conducted with a small group led through the structured discussion by a skilled facilitator

Some Useful Discussions on Ideal Situations and Issues on Responsible Digital Citizenship

On Digital Security
This area covers the entire gamut of safety precautions that information technologies invoke—from virus protection,
to data protection. As technologies grow and evolve into something more complex, the need for security systems
become even more compelling.