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Media Anxieties and Audiences – Week 2. Media Anxieties and Audiences – Week 2. BCM110 Week Two. 1 What is a media audience? An individual or collective group of people who read or consume any media text. Examples: Radio listeners, Television viewers, Newspaper and magazine readers, Web traffic on w...

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Media Anxieties and Audiences – Week 2.

Media Anxieties and Audiences – Week 2.

BCM110 Week Two.

1

What is a media audience?

Revision

An individual or collective group of people who read or consume any media text. Examples: Radio listeners, Television viewers, Newspaper and magazine readers, Web traffic on web sites.

What are media audiences?

Types of ‘audiences’.

Traditionally? How are they different Why are they important

Traditionally ‘audiences’ were understood as:    

The audience we can see Together in one place At the same time Having ‘the same’ experience

Other Resources

However over time, after the establishment of various communication models, it has not been understood that audiences are either:     

The audience we can see In the same place At the same time Not having the same experience Using mediated forms of communicated to connect with the world.

  

People watching at home alone As part of an audience we cant normally see But we know are watching

OR

Why are audiences important? Without audiences there would be no media. Media organizations produce media texts to make profit – no audience = no profit. The mass media is becoming more competitive than ever to attract more and more audiences in different ways and stay profitable. Impact of new technology and the concept of the fragmented audience Old media (TV, Print, Radio), which used to have high audience numbers must now work harder to maintain audience numbers. Digital technology has also led to an increasing uncertainty over how we define an audience, with the general agreement that a large group of people reading the same thing at the same time is outdated and that audiences are now ‘fragmented’. 

What is a ‘Fragmented’ audience

The division of audiences into smaller groups due to the variety of media outlets. EXAMPLE: Newspapers and magazines – you can now view the hard copy AND online

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version (sometimes free). The aim is to hit as many people as possible/sell more copies/generate a larger audience. But measuring that audience becomes hard! You may have some people that only look online, some that only read the hard copy, or some that do both! These fragments of audiences are called ‘niche’ audiences. The context and genre of what we see, effects how we understand and interact with things. Thus, media producers use particular mediums to connect to particular fragments of audience that like to receive information and certain types of information in a certain way. E.g Twitter people are impatient and like almost instantaneous, quick to read material, Instagramer’s like to see other peoples lives in photos…Periscope people like news as it is breaking… and so on. 

How do institutions make money?

Nothing in life is free. Free apps always have adverts, unless you pay to remove adds. Websites and search engines work hard to target you with ads whilst you consume ‘free online’ versions of your media product. These adverts are carefully constructed and selected for the primary audience for each text. With newspapers, printing less copies and switching to online distribution can reduce production costs e.g. Sunday Telegraph. 

Psychographics:

Every advertiser wants to target a particular type of audience. Therefore, media companies produce texts that target a particular ‘type’ of audience. In terms of commercial media, much of their funding is generated by advertising revenue. Their product needs to appeal to a specific type of audience so that advertisers will pay to promote their product. Most media products can define their ‘typical’ audience member, often with a psychographic profile. Research for target audiences When looking at audiences, there are two main types of research:  

Quantitative research – e.g. questionnaires. Number based, Closed questions to generate exact answers, Very factual; Qualitative research – e.g. interviews, focus groups Analysis of existing products, Open questions to generate answers open to interpretation, Individual preferences

Now there are two types of audiences. Mass audience – often termed ‘broadcast audience’. Those who consume mainstream or popular texts such as soaps or sitcoms. Media and communication that targets a very large group of people (women, men, children, adults etc).

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Examples of media with mass audience… Niche audience – much smaller but very influential. A niche audience is a small, select group of people with a very unique interest. Examples of niche publications… Example Niches: (The Traditional Segmentation Model).      

Group A: Lawyers, Doctors, Scientists, Well paid professionals. Group B: Think about income boundaries; Teachers Middle management, Fairly well paid professionals Group C1: Junior management, nurses, White collar professionals Group C2: Plumbers, electricians, Carpenters, Blue Collar Professionals Group D: Manual workers Group E: Students, unemployed, pensioners

Audiences can also be defined by their GEARS: o o o o o

Gender Ethnicity Age Region, Nationality Socio-economic group

USES and Gratifications Model (Blumler & KatZ) and Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs: o

o

Uses and Gratifications Model: Audiences are active in choosing media to best suit their own gratifications (pleasures). Includes: Personal Identity (self- surveillance), Information, Entertainment – escape and distraction, Social Interaction, to help us socialize with like minded people. Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs outline more kinds of uses and gratifications: o In a 1943 paper called A Theory of Human Motivation, Maslow presented the idea that human actions are directed towards goal attainment. Any given behaviour could satisfy several functions at the same time; for example, going to a bar could satisfy ones needs for self-esteem and human interaction. o It is a 5 level pyramid model. The lowest four levels are physiological needs (Physiological, Safety, Belonginess, Esteem) and the top level is growth needs (Self Actualisation). The bottom levels must be satisfied before the top can. Heres what each level includes:  Self actualization – includes Morality, creativity, problem solving etc.  Esteem- Confidence, self esteem, achievement, respect  Belonginess- includes love, friendship, achievement, respect.  Safety- includes security of environment, employment, resources,

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health, property Physicological – air food, water, sex, sleep, other factors towards homeostasis. Maslow’s idea was that behaviour was not driven by the deficiency needs (the bottom 4) but the growth needs (the top level) and the need to have all the those things to achieve self actualization. 

o

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Note: Some shows can have primary and secondary audiences:

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E.g Big Brother will largely attract students and those in groups c2 & D. Given the nature and content of material in the program and the synergy of coverage that the UK Big Brother gets in The Daily Star (also owned by Richard Desmond who controls a large part of Channel 5) you can see how synergy works. This media text is clearly addressing the needs of a certain type of viewer and reader.

How audiences see new media: BASICS: Every new media form could have two POV about it: o o

Utopian Dystopian

Every new media form that has appeared is greeted with utopian – changed for the better: for the better for wealth and dystopian thinking : changed for the worst- oppression etc and change for the better. Good example of media dystopian view: Wall-E o o o o o

Axiom – proposition assumed to be truth that we pollute the world too much. A human dystopian/utopia/ People looking at screens Are the screens the cause of their obesity? Perfect image of the dystopian future.

Magazines: Is the media making us too fat or too thin? Or is it social circumstances, where someone lives o

Every new form of media inspires anxieties about its possible negative effects:

‘Dangerous Media’ includes:  Popular Literature  Film  Comics - Seduction of the innocent – Fredric Werthom MD  Television  Digital media  Mobile phones Who are its so-called ‘victims’?  Children – our investment for the future  Young people, youth  The uneducated: person talking is never the one vulnerable,

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those aren’t educated and speaking are.  Women (add outcome of second wave of feminism)  Men too now…Violence, terrorism ISIS?  But ‘Not me’ – everyone thinks they aren’t affected. The Dystopian view: FIRST GOTHIC NOVELS: July 1995 – There was 18th Century anxieties about the effect of gothic novels (earlier form of horror) (Jane Austen sent this up in Northanger Abbey),  THEN MASS MEDIA: 19th Century: the emergence of the mass media and a growth in literacy  Famous Red Barn Murder – while a man was on trial , details were given about the trial as a result of the media which caused: o Broadsides (spoken and written attacks on and about him) o Plays/ Vaudeville (types of shows) o Film o Music o Moral dimension: worrying that popular taste was in terrible things.  Every media form has an anxiety surrounding it about its effects.

o

But it also inspires hope about its positive role in society o E.g. Connecting to people overseas, o Crime Stoppers o Entertainment

SO: FOOD FOR THOUGHT: o o o

People use computers and the Internet to do ‘good thing and to do ‘bad’ things… In other words, maybe its not the media that we should be questioning but people. People and their needs don’t change but technology does. E.g. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.

Audience Theories: Media effects Debates. The Magic Bullet Theory/Hypodermic Needle Theory: The most famous audience theory is the 'magic bullet' theory or properly known as the hypodermic needle theory.

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This is when a media subject strongly affect the public in such an influencing way. A good example of this term would be the propaganda in WW2, more specifically, the Nazis. The streets were riddled with posters of mass rallies held by Hitler, these posters were all propaganda to get an increased vote or liking to for Hitler, therefore making him become more successful leader. He was indoctrinating the people and they didn't realise it, they thought what he was doing for the war and how he was killing the millions of Jews was right. The effect that media products have on the public is a subject that has been debated heavily, especially in the last few years with several extremely violent public incidents in being blamed on the video game industry. Some people believe that the violence, drug and sexual content found in a lot of popular media has a direct influence on how and what people think, more so in younger people who are more susceptible. It is for reasons like this that a lot of rating systems exist to try and remove young peoples exposure to these things. BBFC and PEGI exist for films and video games. Both of these organizations show the guidelines on their products for people of the right age. 

The myth of ‘effect’ can also be seen in the:  The Lumiere Film o ‘L’ Arrivee d’ un train au Ciotat 1895 – when people saw the film they thought it was so real that they ran away, out of the café. It underpins the vulnerability and anxiety people feel when media is created. o By the time the movies were 20 years old research was asked to be conducted to see the effects of going to the movieswas it making men be violent or women be flirtatious?  Gustave Le Bon : The Crowd: A study of the Popular Mind 1869 : the idea the people, mass audiences are too easily persuaded by media producers with alterior motives  “ the unreal has about as much influence on them as the real”.

Causality: The idea that something is a proximate cause for something happening. E.g Television being the main cause for childrens aggression. Although there are usually many factors as to why something happens, or is caused, people tend to want to have one thing to blame when something terrible happens.

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Example of blaming the media: • •

The murder of Jamie Bulger 1993- Where two ten year olds killed a two year old. The killers: Performed revenge they had been exposed to themselves in their family setting. Blamed on move Child’s play three- no evidence that they had even watched it. They were exposed to: • Family dysfunction • Poverty • Alcoholism • Marital breakdown • Neglect • Bullying  Judge in summing up: ‘In my opinion the home background, upbringing, family circumstances, parental behaviour and relationships were needed in the public domain so that worthwhile debate can take place for the public good in the case of grave crimes by children… This would include exposure to violent films, including possibly Child’s Play 3, which has some striking similarities to the manner of the attack on James Bulger’  Caused moral panic and two reports to be conducted studying violence on the effects of media o Video Violence and the Protection of Children’ 1994 (no empirical research involving children only looks at the ‘texts’) o ‘Young Offenders and the Media’ 1994 o (starts with the young offenders and what they watch) – favourite prisoner show – neighbors.  Findings: Persistent young offenders do not watch more violent films or television than ‘ordinary’ school children and they prefer soap operas to video nasties (Alison Young, Imagining Crime, 1996.)  What this case reveals: o Social anxieties about ‘bad’ human behaviour provoke a desire to find a reason … o It’s easier to blame the media than to find the ‘real’ cause…

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Moral Panic:  WHAT IS MORAL PANIC?  Theorist Stanley Cohen suggested in his book Folk Devils and Moral Panics, 1972, that a moral panic occurs when a “ condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values

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and interests.“ The media, according to Stanley Cohen, play a massive role in enforcing moral panic – even if it just simply reporting the news.  Cohens Description:  “Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episodes, person or group of persons emerges  to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media;  the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people.”  

HOW DOES IT WORK?

 According to Cohen, the media overreact to an aspect of behaviour which may be seen as a challenge to existing social norms. However, the media response and representation of that behaviour actually helps to define it, communicate it and portrays it as a model for outsiders to observe and adopt. So the moral panic by society represented in the media fuels further socially unacceptable behaviour.  EXAMPLES OF MORAL PANICS. A moral panic sends society in to mass hysteria over a particular issue or event that occurs. The public believe that whatever is reported upon is occurring everywhere.  

 

Moral Panics you can think of? • Specific groups

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  

• Particular conditions • Particular episodes     

Paedophilia, Refugees Terrorism The Child in the Silverback Gorillas Cage ISIS.

Our anxieties about the representation of children in the media expressed in the media (Reflects a desire to return to a state of innocence of which the child is a potent symbol ) Case Studies: Corporate Pedophilia , Art vs. Porn, Sexting.  2006 The Australian Institute releases a Report ‘Corporate Paedophilia’ by Emma Rush and Andrea La Nauze (www.tai.org.au/documents/dp_fulltext/DP90.pdf)   Claims….  ‘Corporate paedophilia is a metaphor… used to describe the selling of products to children… it encapsulates the idea that such advertising and marketing is an abuse of children and contravenes public norms’   Evidence  Based on a discussion of advertisements featuring and/or directed at children  The analysis of magazines intended for girls  The assumption of exposure to adult material – such as video clips   The underlying assumptions  That the sexualisation of children is a real and present danger  That there is such a thing as the ‘unsexualised’ or ‘natural’ child  That childhood sexuality is a source of danger rather than healthy exploration   How do we read images?  The ways in which we read and make sense of an image are very complex  • Semiotics – and the connotations of the signifier. VS:  Library Catalogue!  Catharine Lumby and Kath Albury: ‘Too Much? Too Young? The Sexualisation of Children Debate in Australia’, Media International Australia, No 135, May 2010.   Their Argument  Corporate Paedophilia a very unconvincing and ill informed report based on a very limited sample and poor analysis that understands little about childhood sexuality and the ways in which young people make sense of and use the media. Media Anxieties and Audiences – Week 2.

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 

And the role of the media?  Is it the source of the panic or  The means by which the panic is spread

Art vs Porn  The photographs of Bill Henson  Friday 23 May 2008  Police seize photographs by Henson from RoslynOxley9 Gallery trying to charge him with obscenity.   The Offence   The representation of children by Henson in a photograph feeds into the already existing moral panic about ‘sexualisation’ of children by the media which is circulated in the media. All about context: Is the statue of David ‘a masterpiece – or just some guy with his pants down? (Simpsons Quote) Pornography:  Linked to women’s oppression, but things like 50 shades of grey, manga and traditional porn are consumed by women.  Linda Williams argues the investigation of sexuality has gone on for a very long time, more anxiety now than there has ever been before,   Linda Williams  The feminist rhetoric of abhorrence has impeded discussion of almost everything but whether pornography deserves to exist at all. Since it does exist [and women consume it too] we should be asking what it does for viewers, and since it is a genre with basic similarities to other genres, we need to come to terms with it. (4-5) It is a form of human expression and we need to understand it.  What is this anxiety about children, sex, and the image REALLY about?  Of what ‘social anxiety’ is it a symptom? Note: The invention of childhood questioned by Phillipe Airies  When was childhood invented?  When does one become an‘adult’?  Talks about how it was a creation of man to categorise children making restrictions on what they can do.

Cultivation Theory: The cultivation theory was proposed by George Gerbner .

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It is one of the core theories of media effects. The theory argues that the media generally presents an image of the world that does not reflect reality and people end up perceiving the real world in a distorted manner. As it focuses on the long-term impact of frequent exposure to television and has been widely used in the study of violence in television. The theory has been used to explain how chi...