Entry 7 - Audiences and Consumption

What do audiences do with the media that is produced? Well this could be watching a programme, listening to a radio station or even looking at a website, but not only this, some people go to more of an extreme and create fandoms or even their own subculture. All of this then becomes important to media companies as they like to know who they are targeting and it also allows them to find the best ways in doing so.

There are four main ways of researching an audience, this is by using a Questionnaire, focus group, interviews or ethnography. All of which allows a company to target specific people with questions or even in the case of ethnography, looking in the right place. Not only are these research methods important but looking at subcultures and fandoms can also help. When looking at subcultures in particular, it shows how various groups of people go off and do their own thing, which might not necessarily be what society wants them to do but to a company this makes them interesting as it allows them to see what meanings they have made from certain text instead of coming to a conclusion based on stereotypes. Fandoms again help producers see who they are targeting as it allows them to pinpoint their exact target audience.

From this, is shows just how much an audience member can ‘influence their own media experiences’ (Lull, 1995:73), and with the rise of the internet, it has allowed more doorways to do so.

My own research has then allowed me to understand that by conducting research into an audience member once they are a fan of something is a lot more effective than doing it before in a controlled environment. In this case then, it allows the producer to ‘ask incisive question about the fans actual viewing environment, responses and/or use of the text(s)’ (Gray, 2003: 67) which is exactly what they want.

Bibliography

Gray, J. (2003). New Audiences, New Textualities Anti-Fans and Non-Fans. International journal of cultural studies, 6(1), 64-81.

Long, P and Wall, T (2012) Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (2nd Edition), London: Pearson.

Lull, J (1995) Media, Communication, Culture: A Global Approach, Cambridge: Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers.

Entry 6 - Audience

From the reading, the focus on the audience of any given media text shows them to be a 'receiver, reader or even an interpreter' (Long, 2012: 277). From this it shows that any individual can take a text and get a different outcome to someone else who has viewed it. However due to this does it mean that we don’t always do what was intended by the producer of the text. For example, when looking at a photograph, you can create your own ideas around it, but then once you have looked into its background, your whole idea can be changed and you are later seeing what was intended by the photographer. 

Another idea that is put forward is that we are unaware of other audience members when consuming a particular media text, however with the growth of social networking I feel that this is no longer the case due to the fact there are Facebook and Twitter pages where people can go to share their opinions. With this in mind it allows media institutions to enter ‘into relations’ (Hartley, 1987: 127) with their audience, collecting data on the interactions they might have as well as picking up on their dislikes and likes. This can then be used when future media products are being created.

From further reading the idea of researching an audience to see what they like was a key theme in chapter 14 of the book Desperately Seeking the audience (Ang, 1991) with one source stating that even though the creators of a product are interested in their audience, they are more interested in whether what they have made has been seen properly by the audience member, with him stating ‘ They would like to have their finger continually on the audiences pulse in order to see whether the aims of their programme policy are being realized’(Werkgroep Luister- en Kijkonderzoek 1963).

However, even though that was a key theme in both readings, Propaganda was also something that was touched upon in the media studies textbook and I felt this was important when it came to the audience. This is because people can be susceptible to what they read, see and hear. Examples of this are advertisements on the telly where perfume, cars and even concert tickets are being ‘sold’. Even though they are not all directly aimed at one individual audience member, they are sending you messages such as the perfume will find you love, something that has been seen in the Lynx adverts. In the words of Edward Bernays, propaganda is used ‘to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise’ (Bernays, 2004:52) and from the Lynx advert we can see how it’s put into action.

Bibliography

Ang, I. (1991) Desperately Seeking the Audience, London: Routledge.

Bernays, E. (2004) Propaganda, New York: Ig Publishing.

Hartley, J. (1987) ‘Invisible fictions: television audiences, paedocracy, pleasure’, Textual Practise 1(2): 121-38

Long, P and Wall, T (2012) Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (2nd Edition), London: Pearson.

Werkgroep Luister- en Kijkonderzoek (1963) ‘Report to the NRU and NTS Administration’, 6 November. 

Entry 5 - Discourse

Discourse Analysis allows an individual to examine a text, this includes imagery, sound and even spoken and written language (Smith, 2007). With this in mind, it then allows us as individuals to question, analyse and interpret the text we are viewing, whether this would be in depth or not. For instance, if you were shown a picture of a family, you might read into the reason they are posed in a certain way, what they might be doing in that environment or even why that image has been used with text, but someone else might just see the family. In the long run, this all comes down to the individual’s background, but also just as important the ideas that the creator might have already put across in the text.

Not only this, but it is important to recognise that a text could influence a viewer, this came across in the reading where the New Zealand Government implemented a ban of tobacco and advertising after it was said young people’s behaviour was being influenced (Health NZ,2005). In theory this shows the power advertising has over certain groups of people, but it also shows how a younger group of people have seen the good in the advert whereas an older generation might not of. This is a perfect example of discourse analysis.

From further reading into the subject area it states that discourse analysis starts from the individual making an assumption of what they think is going on, this means that even if it isn’t right, their ideas ‘play an active role in creating and changing’ (Jorgensen and Phillips, 2002) the reflection on the text.

After reading into discourse analysis more, I have begun to understand that not one person might be alike in what they take from something. As a photographer this is something to think about when taking photos as its likely people are going to pick up on other things which to me makes it interesting.

Overall, I feel that both readings have shown me how everyone reads into things differently but what surprises me is that this comes down to their ‘social identity’ more than any other factors.

Bibliography

Smith, P & Bell, A (2007). Media Studies: Key Issues and Debates. Unraveling the Web of Discourse analysis. 79-100. 

Jorgensen M, Phillips L (2002) Discourse as Theory and Method. London: Sage.

Entry 4 - Genre

In this week’s set reading I have been able to learn more about genre and narrative, picking up on the factors that bring together different media products.

The use of genres 'are meaningful to both producers and consumers' (Long, 2012: 72). This is because genre as a whole helps us as a viewer to pick things we like, such as a type of film (Action/Comedy) or even the type of music we like (Pop/Rock). This all comes down to ‘sets of codes and conventions’ (Long, 2012: 72) used over and over again. In terms of photography, this could mean using a certain model which in most cases shows a woman to be photographed, the same lighting or even the same camera settings. All of these things will then draw is in time and time again.

The narrative is also important, not because it allows the producers to see what we like but because it ‘encourages us to read specific parts of the text’ (Long, 2012: 82) such as the storyline but it’s not only this. It becomes a ‘method of recapitulating past experience by matching a verbal sequence of clauses to the sequence of events’ (Labov, 2013: ). For instance when watching a film with a hero, villain and princess you automatically assume the hero will slay the villain and rescue the princess, this all comes down to the fact ‘we are accustomed to the film style’ (Long, 2012: 89) but also because it has become so natural to us. This isn’t something that only one person has touched on, the theorist Vladimir Propp also created a theory that suggested there were many of the same features in ‘folk tales’.

However, it’s not just film that follows these patterns. Even though it might not be noticeable, we as an audience create our own story to go alongside a photograph we might see. This could come from us posing questions or even just talking about what can be seen. An example of this is when I first seen Peter Kennard’s Tony Blair selfie (Phillips, 2013). At first look I thought it aimed to show peoples thoughts surrounding the war, however this wasn’t the case as it showed him to be in an oil field following an Anti-war campaign done by the artist, however this was able to show me how you build up your own ideas.

Bibliography

Long, P and Wall, T (2012) Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (2nd Edition), London: Pearson.

Phillips, K., 2013. New Statesman. [Online]
Available at: http://www.newstatesman.com/art-and-design/2013/10/response-peter-kennard-and-cat-phillips-censorship-flourishing-our-public-spa
[Accessed 24 March 2015]

Andrews, M., Squire, C., & Tamboukou, M. (Eds.). (2013). Doing narrative research. Sage.