What is an audience – an audience is an individual collective group who read or consume any media text.Examples- radio listeners, television viewers, magazine reader, newspaper readers.

Why are audiences important – whiteout one means there would be no media and there wold be no profit been made of that media. The mass media is becoming more competitive than ever before to attract more and more audience in different ways and stay profitable.

Mass audiences – those who consume mainstream or popular text such as soaps or sitcoms. Media and communication that target a very large group of people (woman, men, children, adults etc.) some examples would include; x-factor and the big bang theory.

Niche audience – much smaller but very influential. It is a small, select group of people with a very unique interest. Some examples would include; bird magazines and the telegraph.

Audience segmentation – audience e can be divided in to segments or categories based on demographic and psycho-graphic profiling. Audience segmentation and profiling is crucial to media producers so that they have a clear idea of who they are targeting; who is there “typical” reader/viewer. They gather information on their audience by using a range of research methods.

DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE  –

-age, are they aged 9-12 or 18-24 or 55-70

– Gender, male or female or mixed

-ethnicity, racial background/religion

-social-economic status, income/occupation

A- UPPER CLASS TOP OF THERE JOB (lawyers, doctors)

B-MIDDLE CLASS NOT AT THE TOP

C1- WHITE COLLAR LOWER MIDDLE CLASS

C2-BLUE COLLAR WORKING CLASS

D- SEMISKILLED- MANUAL LABOUR

E- UNEMPLOYED

-geographical location, local/national/global/rural/urban/south east/Yorkshire etc.

ADVANTAGES –

-its straight to the point information

-easy to retrieve

-applies to everyone

-cheaper

DISADVANTAGES –

-you have to be a stereotype to achieve the results.

PSYCHO-GRAPHIC PROFILE-

A description of the target audiences lifestyle, interest and attitudes.

To “know” you audience really well its best to know their demographic as well as their psycho-graphic profiling.

THE 4 C’S – CROSS-CULTURAL CONSUMER CHARACTERISTIC.

MAIN-STREAMERS – the large group, they are concerned with sustainability mainly buying well recognised items

ASPIRES- people who are seeking to improving them self’s, they would buy high end items to feel better about them self’s.

SUCCEDERS – there are on top of their game, they would buy products that are of the highest quality to show them self’s off.

REFORMERS – these people are idealist who is eco-friendly products.

INDIVIDUAL- they buy high end produces for the image and not what it does.

ADVANTAGES –

-more personal

-find out more about there opinions

DISADVANTAGES –

-it takes long to retrieve them

– not as straight forward

-sometimes to personal.

-more expensive

The best way to retrieve your results is to use both phychographic and demographic profiling so you get the best of both worlds.

  • A comparative evaluation of quantitative and qualitative research methods.

– Qualitative Research is primarily exploratory research.  It is used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations.

– Quantitative Research is used to quantify the problem by way of generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics. It is used to quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and other defined variables – and generalize results from a larger sample population.

We used all:

  • Quantitative primary research (questionnaire survey)- good because its personal but its a hassle to make the questionnaire
  • Quantitative secondary research (NRS data)- good because it was straight forward but it didn’t have that personal opinion and touch.
  • Textual analysis (your analysis of the magazine).- this is good also but its is a stereotype opinion of us which some other people may disagree.

The survey worked the best (Quantitative) because we found out what the people thought about the magazine and there personal opinions. But on the other hand we used the NRS data and that also worked well but in my opinion not as well simply because it was just one lump sum and not personal.

I think we could have improved our results by increasing the amount of questions on the questionnaire and also giving it to more people. Also we could organised focus groups and information seasons.