Key Aspect: Audience

Question 1

Name five DEMOGRAPHIC aspects we can use to define an audience.

Answer 1

Age
Cultural background
Gender
Location
Consumption (what material/products they consume)
Class
Nationailty
Education
Employment
Faith/religious beliefs

Question 2

Name 3 PSYCHOGRAPHIC characteristics we can use to determine audience

**Remember VALS: Values, Attitudes, Lifestyle

Answer 2

Aspirer - values brands, celebs and superficial things.

Reformer - thinks before they buy and reasons.

Explorer - keen to try the latest/new things

Mainstream - sticks to the norm (tried and tested)

Struggler - easily led, less likely to budget/manage choices

Succeeder - goal setter, achiever, buys the best

Resigned - doesn’t like change, sticks to what they know, nostalgic

Question 3

Why is audience appeal crucial?

Answer 3

Media producers need an audience to engage with their content in order to

• create demand
• generate sales
• communicate a message
• target all of this at the right people

(otherwise there is no point in creating media)

Question 4

What is a PREFERRED reading?

Answer 4

The way in which the media CREATOR intended the media text to be interpreted/accessed.

Question 5

What is DIFFERENTIAL DECODING?

Answer 5

When the audience take and interpret a piece of media in a way which wasn’t originally intended by the creator

e.g. disagree with a representation, understand symbols in a different way, understand the messages in a new way depending on their own life/experience.

Question 6

What do we call it when an audience combines a preferred reading with differential decoding - finding a meaning somewhere between?

Answer 6

NEGOTIATED reading
(accepting some of the intended meaning, but adding their own thinking and reasoning)

Question 7

What is MODE OF ADDRESS?

Answer 7

The method by which media producers have chosen to communicate with their audience (e.g. direct, indirect, formal, informal approach)

Question 8

What is INTERTEXTUALITY?

Answer 8

When media is created which subtly makes reference to other media production

e.g. The Simpsons - character McCain (aggressive, militant) relates directly to John McClain the protagonist in the Die Hard series. The audience take enjoyment from spotting intertextuality.

**To do this the media creator needs to understand the target audience’s consumption.

Question 9

The FOURTH WALL is a method of engaging the audience further. Explain the concept.

Answer 9

The fourth wall is DIRECT AUDIENCE ADDRESS where the barrier between protagonist and audience is dropped briefly to allow a deeper and direct connection between the two.

e. g.
- Oliver Hardy making facial expression directly to camera (acknowledging the audience directly) in the Laurel and Hardy movies.
- Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag talking to or looking directly to camera.

**Not only in film, this can be seen in magazine covers where the subject looks directly at camera to engage the audience

Question 10

Name one possible downfall of DEMOGRAPHIC characterisation

Answer 10

This can focus too much on loose stereotypes. People will not always fit the mould of the stereotype.