Audience Research

Defining The Audience
As Mass

For many reasons, Media producers and Institutions like to consider audiences in groups. This is particularly true of advertisers, who have led the way in targeting groups of consumers. Producers and Institutions quickly identified that there was not just one audience or one market, the audience can be segmented and marketed into different ways depending on the way they have been defined.  Some obvious ways to classify audiences are age, gender, race and location. 
However, you can also classify audiences by their class:


A:  Upper Middle Class
Top Management, Bankers, Lawyers, Doctors and other professionals.
B: Middle Class
Middle Management, Teachers, many "creatives" like Graphic Designers.
C1: Lower Middle Class
Office supervisors, Junior managers, Nurses, Specialist Clerical Staff etc.
D: Skilled Working Class
Skilled workers, tradespersons (White collar)
E: People at lowest level of income
Unemployed, Students, Pensioners, Casual Workers.


(Information Source: Audience Research Booklett)


Primary Research: Questionnaire

In my opinion, people's taste in music is classless. However, to find this out i am going to put together a general Music Questionnaire to find out if there is any connection between people's: age, gender, race and class with what their favourite style of music is. This will help me identify my audience for my Music Magazine and if there is any connection between the class of the person to what type of music style they enjoy the most. 

I'm going to print out 75 simple, straight to the point questionnaires and hand them out to a variety of different people of all ages, races, genders with different occupations.  

 To the right is the exact questionnaire i handed out, i asked for the person's "job" so i could match it up with their class because most people aren't aware of their class.

Questionnaire Conclusion: I found no correlation between class and what style of music was preferred. However, i did find that students (class E) aged between 15-25 circled more than one music style on the questionnaire except Folk, Jazz and Country whereas several people (mostly class B) aged 45+ only circled one particular style of music which was generally Rock, Country and Disco. This shows me that the older generation prefer mostly one specific type of music compared to the younger generation who likes a mixture of music styles.

To allow the questionnaire results to be consumed easily, i have constructed it into a bar chart (to the left) displaying which music styles were most popular within certain age groups. The bar chart shows that people within my age (the red bar) favoured Hip-Hop, RnB and Pop music the most. Because of this i am considering making my Music Magazine about Hip-Hop/Rnb/Chart Music. I am interested in targeting people of my age and upwards because i know what the lifestyles of people of my age are all about and i can relate to what they want. This bar chart has helped my view my questionnaire results more clearly which is alot helpful.

Defining The Audience

As People

Uses And Gratifications Theory

According to this theory, we all have different uses for the media and we also make choices over what we want to watch. This means when we encounter a media text, its not just some kind of mindless entertainment- we are indeed expected to get something from it; some kind of gratification. In this model the person has the power to select a media text that best suits them and what their need is. 
The four kinds of Gratification that have been identified are:

• Information: When we want to find out about society and the world- satisfying our own curiosity about what is happening around the world. This would fit into when watching the News or watching Documentaries, they give us a sense that we are learning.
• Personal Identity: This is when we are wanting to look for models in the Media for our behaviour. For example, we may identify with characters we see on a soap like in "Coronation Street". These characters help us to decide if we agree with other characters actions and even the own character's actions. Also if the particular character succeeds in something then we feel better about ourselves. For example that warm, happy feeling at the end of a programme when a character triumphs.
• Integration and Social Interaction: This is when we use the media in order to to find out more about the circumstances of other people, watching a show helps us to empathise and sympathise with the lives of others and maybe even of the characters in a programme as friends even though we might feel a little embarrassed admitting it! Also television programmes help us to get on with our own lives and maybe even talking about it with friends. 
• Entertainment: When sometimes we may just use the media simply for enjoyment, relaxation or to fill time.

(Information Source: Audience Research Booklett)


The Uses and Gratifications Theory is extremely important when creating a Media text. When it comes to Information, I need to put something on the front cover that makes the consumer want to know about something that is in the magazine. For example if something has happened in the music industry, people will want to know and learn about what has happened. Personal Identity is also essential, putting someone who is healthy, attractive and in some cases a real person (not been edited to be made look skinnier/prettier) makes that person want to be like them and look like them. You don't want someone looking un-healthy and un-attractive on the front cover as this could set a bad example to the targeted audiences and people wouldn't want to buy it. Integration and Social Interaction is important in the process of creating a magazine, even just simply having the main cover image looking into the camera would make the consumer feel drawn to the magazine and instantly interested. If the person was looking down, the audience wouldn't be able to connect with what the magazine is all about. Entertainment is again very very essential when designing and producing a Music Magazine, the cover and contents of the magazine needs to be bright, colourful, full of information and layers to make it look exciting and aesthetically amazing. The magazine cover with the most stuff on it will attract the audience more because of how exciting it looks.


Consumer Habits
Consumer habits is the study of when, why how and where people do or don't buy a product. 
When would you read a Music Magazine?
When it comes to music magazines people would normally read them at any time of the day, either in the morning at breakfast, or during the day or at night time when relaxing in bed. Overall it is in the person's power when wanting to read the magazine.
Why would you read a Music Magazine?
 When studying why people would want to read a music magazine there are several reasons, maybe to read about their favourite music idols, look up on touring dates for bands and solo artists, wanting to ring up and buy tickets, looking at the latest fashions, reading about the latest music orientated gossip and news, maybe even to collect the issues and if there are free gifts, to collect them aswell.
How would you read a Music Magazine?
When reading a music magazine there are a variety of ways people prefer to read them. Some people like to read each individual page in order taking in all the information and images. However, people who are in a rush might just have a flick through and stop at something that might take their fancy at that particular time like for example the fashion pages. People of a young age might just flick through and look at the pictures and some people might buy the magazine just for the latest gig dates for instance.
Where would you read a Music Magazine?
You could read a music magazine anywhere, at home, at work, on long journeys in a car/train/bus or plane.

Main Task & Action Plan

Main Task Brief:

• Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine.

All images and text used must be original, produced by the candidate(s), minimum of FOUR images per candidate.

The deadline for the portfolio research and planning is the 17th December 2010. To maintain excellent time management i am therefore going to write an action plan to keep on target and organised with the main task research and planning. 

Action Plan


Research Into:
Audience:
Categorisation/How the audience is targeted
Consuming habits
Audience effects theories
Interests
Expectations/Engagement
Audience Prompting

Institution:
Key companies
Regulation and control
Production processes
Distribution processes
Marketing and promotion

Conventional Features:
Case Study of AT LEAST 3.
Laura Mulvey
Web 2.0 (Tim O'Reilly)
Media Studies 2.0 (David Gauntlet)
Mediasphere: 360-degree environment for consumption (John Hartley)
Any Audience Theory ("Uses and Gratifications" and "Reception Theory"
Postmodernism 
"We Media" (Gillmor, 2004)
Genre (Mark Reid)
Narrative theory (Nick Lacey, 2000)
Narrative Theory (Todorov)
Character Theories (Propp or any others)
Theories on representation


Action Plan:
(10th November- 20th November).
For my audience research i am giving myself around 10 days for the whole section. 
 For categorisation i'm going to be looking into how music magazines are presented to target audiences by using the layouts/colour schemes according to different genres and types. For consuming habits i will be researching into consuming habits by looking at what the consumers gets out of the magazine like what they're looking for and what they do with it after purchased. I will also be researching Audience effects theories like "Uses and Gratifications Theory". I will also be looking into Audience interests possibly by interview/questionaires/direct questioning. Expectations/Engagement and Audience profiling is also other subjects i will be researching into to gain knowledge of what the audience wants.


(20th November-30th November)
For my Institution research i am giving myself around 10 days to complete.
For key companies i am going to looking into popular publishing companies for magazines like "IPC Media". Regulation and companies which means making the magazine appropriate with no swearing or nudity otherwise it could offend the consumer and put people off from buying it. i will also be researching Production processes, Distribution processes and marketing and promotion. 


(1st December-17th December)
And again for the 3 case studies i will be giving myself around 17 days depending on time-consuming each of the three subjects are to complete.  I will be choosing an appropriate subject according to what is appropriate for the print based main task. 

Final Preliminary

Final Front Cover

I am very pleased with my magazine cover, i think it looks professional, well set-out and i really like the text font and style. However, i do think i have made the overall look of the cover too girly and only appealing to girls. It is suppost to be an all-girls school but this magazine will be sent to parents aswell. To improve the cover i would change the colour scheme and add less girly colours like yellows and greens for example. I would also change the badge to something that makes more of a statement instead of just a love-heart with the school name inside. Also i would have a photo of a student with more of a convincing smile to convey the sense of achievment and happiness.

Final Mock-Up Contents Page

I decided to include the same colour scheme displayed on the front cover to make it look like the same magazine. I think it is a simple layout but obviously including photos and font it would look aesthetically pleasing. When constructing the Main task contents page i want it to look very overloaded with different fonts, colours and images but i want them to all to look co-ordinated and not messy otherwise it will look less effective.


Typical Reader Profile


The typical reader of the "Sunny Side News" School Magazine is children attending the school 12-18 years old. Also parents and grandparents etc of the children. Teachers at Sunny Side may also read this magazine.