Audience theories

Audience theories 

It is important when creating media that we understand are audience as they are the people that make are films a success. And if we know why they consume media we can create media products perfect for them.

Uses and Gratification theory

This is the theory of why people consume media texts this was researched by Blulmer and Katz.They found that individuals use media for different reasons the reasons will be explained below. The positives of this theory is that it is a non judgemental look at catorgrising audiences. My film will be a fiction so it will be watched for diversion.

Diversion-
Escape from everyday problems and routine. E.g. People may play video games to go into a virtual reality and escape from real life.

Personal Relationships-
Using media for emotional and other interaction. E.g. Reality Tv people feel connected to the celebrities and part of there life.

Personal Identity-
 Finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviors and values from texts. E.g. Soap operas is an example of this as it is daily life and real life problems are faced within them.

Surveillance-
Information which could be useful for living E.g. Weather reports, financial reports.

The Hypodermic Needle Model 

This dates back from 1920s it was the first attempt to explain how mass audiences react to mass media. This model suggests that the information from text passes into the mass consciousness of the audience. It states that creates of media can manipulate us and our behaviour and how we think can be change by what media we watch. E.g. Violent video games can be seen to make people more violent and want to commit crimes. This is an example of an idea of the Hypodermic Needle Model.

Two-step Flow 

This was a more sophisticated explanation about the relationships about audiences and texts. It is the idea that directors have to go through text to bring across there opinions to the audiences.This diminished the power of the media in the eyes of researches.

Reception theory 

This extends the concept of active audiences further. It was the study of how individuals receive and interpret text, and how individual circumstances (gender, class, age, ethnicity) affected there readings.  This is based off the encoding/decoding model of the relationship between text and audiences. From this producers can position there audiences this creates a certain amount of agreement of what the code means. This is known as a preferred reading.  

Income and status 
This is a method what looks at peoples jobs and wages to put them in a certain category of audience.This method is floored as a persons wage does not effect what media they want to consume. I will not be using this theory when i am targeting my audiences as it does not effectively catorgerise audiences. On the other hand it gives companies a hint of what these groups of people want to watch such as someone more educated in the upper class may want to watch a informative or a mentally challenging film such as Inception.People of the lower class may want to watch more easy to watch films such as comedies as they do not have the academic ability to follow in depth films.These groups are very sterotypical and inaccurate in what people want to watch.

A-Upper middle class 
Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professions
B-Middle class 
Middle management, teachers, many 'creatives'
C1-Lower middle class 
Office supervisors, junior manages, nurses, specialist staff
C2-Skilled working class 
Skilled workers, traders
D-Working class 
Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers
E-People at lowest level of income 
Unemployed,students,pensioners,casual workers

Young and Rubicam's Four Consumers 
As the idea of class has become very old fashioned, advertises has developed a new method on   categorizing audiences. This method is effective when advertising a certain product to a person however for targeting an audience for a film it has many problems. For example someones status does not effect what media they want to watch. The Mainstreamers group can help film production companies such as WarnerBros in making popular films as the company will target this group as it is the highest percentage of audiences at 40%. For my film I want a niche audience who are interested  in the horror genre this would suit the reformer audience category as they do not want to follow the crowd and care for there own needs.An mainstreamer film would be something such as a Suicide Squad as it was very popular and appealed to a larger audience.  

Mainstreamers-
Make up 40% of the population.They like security, and belonging to a group.
Aspirers-
Want status and esteem of others.Like status symbols,designer labels.Live on credit and cash.
Succeeders-
People who have already got status and control.
Reformers-
§Define themselves by their self-esteem and self-fulfilment.

Life Matrix 
This is one of the latest way of looking at targeting audiences. This catorgrises audiences by looking at there values, attitudes and beliefs. This modern look at audiences makes this method more effective when wanting to target audiences.My film would suit the Tribe wired group as my film will be individual and creative such as them. A home solider would not want to watch my film as they are family orientated and my film will be a 15.

Tribe wired-
Digital, free-spirited, creative young singles 

Fun/Atics- 
Aspirational, fun-seeking, active young people 

Dynamic Duos-
Hard-driving, high-involvement couples

Priority Parents-
Family values, activities, media strongly dominate 

Home soldiers-
Home-centric, family-oriented, materially ambitious

Renaissance Women- 
Active, caring, affluent, influential mums 

Rugged Traditionalist-
Traditional male values, love of outdoors

Struggling Singles- 
High aspirations, low economic status

Settled elders-
Devout, older, sedentary lifestyles 

Free birds-
Vital, active, altruistic seniors