When a media producer creates a media text, they must always consider their target audience and the way that they will respond to the text. It is impossible to identify exactly who will consume a product and thus, producers conceptualise who their audience may be. The way that audiences are conceptualised can be very stereotypical – male audiences will like action films whilst female audiences will prefer romantic comedies, for example.
By definition, an audience is a group of individuals who are temporarily defined by an experience or event, such as their concurrent consumption of a media text. Misconceptions of audiences can suggest that they must be in the same place, but audiences do not have to be united by physical space but the action of consuming the text and “the literalness and quality of being ‘in the act’ of consuming media products” (Long and Wall, 2009, p. 276).
Ultimately, the audience is vital to the existence of the media; organisations produce texts for profit and without an audience, there would be no profit. As the media has become more financially driven, mass media has become more competitive in order to attract more audiences on different platforms as audiences are becoming more fragmented. Sales of newspapers and CDs may be in decline, but the audience continues to consume the content online on phones, tablets and computers.
The emergence and integration of new media into everyday life has allowed audiences to become more involved in texts because “life in contemporary societies increasingly revolves around the media” (Alasuutari, 1999, p.17). They are given opportunities to interact and become active audience members, rather than passive. Sceptics may believe that this is not the case, suggesting that the media can brainwash audiences and pretend to empower them whilst simply continuing to broadcast their own ideals.
Propaganda, “the intentional, conscious and active process of managing information and ideas to achieve effects of a political or social nature” (Long and Wall, 2009, p. 286), was particularly prevalent during wartime, but evidence of such can be seen in modern media too. By conceptualising their audience, media producers are able to tailor their message to suit the individual beliefs of their audience.
It is too easy to consider audiences as a mass group, but “audiences are more than a ‘concept’ and media institutions therefore depend upon the actual individuals who make up their audience” (Long and Wall, 2009, p. 281). It could prove interesting to investigate how media producers cater for the individuals who do not fall into their target audience but may still consume the product – Twitter, for example, may be aimed at a younger audience, but there may be elements in the platform that accommodate more elderly users too.
Bibliography
Alasuutari, P. (1999) Rethinking the Media Audience: The New Agenda. United Kingdom: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Long, P. and Wall, T. (2009) Media Studies: Texts, Production, and Context. United Kingdom: Pearson Longman.
New Media and Photography Reading Diary 