Audiences

Audiences
An audience is an individual or group of people who read or consume any media text.
Audiences are important because without them the film would produce no profit meaning there would be no media.
The mass media is becoming more competitive to attract more audiences in different ways and stay profitable.
the belief that audiences receive messages during viewing films is long gone. Two theorists Katz and Blumler proposed from their research on audience behaviour that audiences use media for different reasons

1.Information
Finding out events, satisfying curiosity and gaining a sense of security through knowledge.

2.Personal identity
Reinforcement of personal values, finding models of behaviour and an insight into ones self.
e.g. Facebook or twitter

3.Integration and Social Interaction
Insight into circumstances of others; social empathy, identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging, interaction, enabling contact with family, friends and society.

Demographic- is the age, race ,gender, class/status and nationality of the audience.

Psychographic- audiences interests, beliefs and habits.

Niche films are ones that would not have as much marketing or the resources to spend on the production of their film and so they have a small target audience.

Mass films are one that have a large audience and are usually created or backed by the large film companies biased in Hollywood, America.
Mass audience those who consume mainstream or popular texts such as soaps and sitcoms or media and communication that targets a very large group of people. e.g. Top Gear or Friends

The introduction on new technologies such as mobile phones and the internet is meaning that media texts are harder to notice this impacts the people marketing the products and so the media text must gain attention to itself by being louder and more extravagant than the competing media sites.

Audience research is a major part of any media company's work. they use questionnaires, focus groups, pre-film screenings and spend a great deal of time and money finding out who would be interested in their product.

from this link
http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.914
I have learnt about how audiences are categorised.

Group A
-lawyer
-doctors
-scientists
-well paid professionals

Group B
-teachers
-middle management
-fairly well paid professionals

Group C1
-junior management
-bank clerks
-nurses
-'white collar' professions

Group C2
-electricians
-plumbers
-carpenters
-'blue collar' professionals

Group D
-manual workers such as:
-drivers
-post sorters

Group E
-students
-unemployed
-pensioners