media ratings and target marketing all have to do with the audience member/ consumer. the consumer holds the power in what a company sells, and what a network shows.
therefore the consumers attention is very valuable to companies.
The idea of when you are a audience member is a frequent question in media studies, however since the age of the passive audience member its safe to say we are always being subjected to content, ads, campaigns etc.
this has changed the consumers behaviours, for example commercials we dont have time for, so whats the solution? fast forward and skip them. Now the advertisers need to work harder to find a way to market to us, without it seeming like they are.
how do they do this....
easy they find out your browser history and advertise to you that way, or make you sit through a 30 second clip before your youtube clip, even better make you watch an ad before you play your game so its free. this is a silent contract we as the consumer are signing to markerters we understand that they want our information to make money, and we want to use their resources ( facebook, candy crush etc.)
Again audiences are hard to describe, but to marketers its essential, companies break down consumers into categories so they know what to market and sell to you specifically. they do this by target marketing through age, gender, race, geography and so much more.
in seminar we discussed specifically how wal mart is able to track your every sale and knows what you want, as their target marketing.
we also talked about the idea of veiwablity, again how and when are you a audience member, if i have a show on but am in the kitchen doing the dishes, am i a audience member for the show? this is challenge companies face when trying to count their show ratings. although a couple of options are available such as a survey, a box connected to your tv, and a pager size adapter to tell marketers what they want to know.
while the reading discusses how the united states is estimated to spend 60 billion in digital ad spending, the age of advertising on television is disappearing, due to PVR, netflix etc.
the new way is to display at least 50% of pixels for one second to th consumer, as an effective way to get the consumers attention.
I believe this can be achieved because we are so use to skimming things, driving by things fast and not stopping to smell the roses, we are living in a time in need of fast pace marketing.
overall target marketing is the most essential to marketers when trying to figure out their marketing strategies and product development, our views and attention will always be worth something.
of what a public opinion is, public opinion refers to ' group consensus about what matters of public concern which has developed in the wake of informed discussion.
and lets distinguish the difference between an opinion being that its your thoughts/feelings
while knowledge is based on something that can be proven.
in our society public opinion serves as a primary means of communication from the citizens to their government, ( as seen in elections ).
like everything else with media, there is never a distinguish answer of whom were discussing. the question of "who" is a member of the public is always changing depending upon historical context ( historical movements gave audiences the ability to gain legitimacy) and the agendas of those measuring public opinion.
As we talked in class a major theory which explains this is Agenda Setting, Agenda setting theory describes the powerful influence of the media - the ability to tell us what issues are important.
in lecture we were able to watch clips of older news clips which have the ability to shift an audiences view. This lead to the discussion of news priorities, which asked whats most important in the news story. Today the most important news would be the Blue jays score update and the Canadian elections.
when discussing public opinion politics comes up often, when elections are getting close, its common for political parties to release videos displaying other party leaders in a negative light, in hopes that their video will alter your opinion on this party/ party leader and therefore not vote for them in the upcoming election.
This video clip example of a political party talking negatively about other parties and highly of themselves leads into the article: If theres a news agenda. This article discusses the differences between news that is presented to you in the style of hard news ( regular news broadcast) and the alternative "funny news" such as comedians like John Oliver on late night shows discussing the same issues as were discussed in the news that day. the theory is that because the news is presented to the audience in a comedic way and not so heavy not only will more people watch it, for its considered entertaining rather than educational, but the comedians perspective however right or wrong is simply a slip of the issue, or not the whole story. If it was the whole story it would translate into hard news, therefore funny news is a way for the public to gain an opinion on political issues as an example, but its not always the most accurate or informative.
in seminar we focused on how the media's agenda setting easily alters celebrity appearances because they are talked about so often by such an array of perspectives, while not being able to actually ever meet the people that are being discussed the publics opinion is suggested to change often.
we also discussed the idea of audiences becoming more active, there being mediated communication and the fourth wall, as well as asked if audiences should be interactive. in my opinion yes i believe audiences should be able to participate in the discussion whether it be electing a new political representative, voting for your favorite television star, or simply voting on what the schools cafeteria menu should posses. everyone should be able to voice what they think.
finally as always the question comes up about HOW we measure such things. however when it comes to public opinion it isnt so vague and questionable, measuring public opinion is done in a variety of ways such as surveys, face to face, straw polls, random sampling, census etc. although some such as straw polls arent a very accurate representation of an entire population, it is a way to capture the publics views in the best ways we know so far.
The topic, "effects of media messages" is essential to the study of audiences because audiences are exposed to such a variety of different media formats everyday such as: print media, television, movies, video games, music, cellphones, various kinds of software and of course the internet.
because such a variety of media formats are readily available for audiences to consume its important to remember to use a broad perspective on media effects in order to understand the incredibly wide range of influence the media messages carry.
Personally when I hear the phrase media affects my mind goes towards the negative impacts media has on us, such as watching violent TV causes aggression in youths, or how hearing a radio broadcast can cause direct effects on its listeners, or how medias unrealistic image of the female body creates young females to become self conscious and anorexic trying to meet media standards.
However true these statements can be showing negative affects of media messages
Lecture example of "Social Learning Theory" created by Albert Bandar exploring how children are socialized by their environment. An experiment took place where some children were made to watch as an adult as he betted a plastic Bobo doll, while others weren't exposed to this. Then all of the children were individually put into the same room were they found themselves to with the Bobo doll. The results showed that the children whom had watched the adult be aggressive towards the doll, displayed similar characteristics, while the ones who did not witness the violent acts were not violent themselves. Thus the plastic Bobo experiment displays an example of negative effects of the media.
Textbook example of the "War of The Worlds Broadcast" of 1938 a time when listeners ate, slept and dreamt about what the radio told them to. During this particular broadcast, actors were given the famous script of the novel, "War of The Worlds" while enhancing the broadcast with realistic background sounds which would have been described in the book. The broadcast intention was to be a source of entertainment for its listeners however the broadcast ended up leaving listeners leaving their homes with their families believing the world itself was being taken over by aliens. This shows the direct effects media messages can have.
There are also examples of positive media affects as shown in audiences were "The Ice Bucket Challenge" a challenge encouraging audiences to pour cold water on themselves to display for a brief second what it feels like to have mls, each video was promoted to donate to mls funds to find a cure. This is a positive example of effects of media messages because it promotes good behaviour, for a good cause.
In seminar this week we discussed how hard it is to study audiences effects of media due to a variety of reasons: inadequate technology, miss representation, active vs passive audience etc. which lead us to discuss the many hardships in actually trying to study audiences and how studying audiences have changed over the years. this topic was backed up by the article we were suppose to read for class, "Taking audience research into the age of new media: old problems and new challenges" this article discusses how in the past audiences were mainly reported by ethnographic studies. the main example was the example of the study of romance novels, and how it was previously assumed that middle aged women simply read the medium to pass time, however due to a change in how we study audiences from a passive stereotype to a active member allowed for research to conclude that women read romance novels for many reasons, for submission of the male characters, to enhance their love life's, etc. not to simply pass the time.
an end thought, audiences are always changing, we as the audience are finding new ways to consume media and participate in the media we choose, therefore as we change the technology and research to study us will have to change organically as well.
Hi, my name is Kyrstin and I'm starting this blog "Audience Studies" as a way of showing my understanding and interest in the evaluation and importance of audiences today. A little about myself is that I love to be apart of audiences, in all its forms. Im an active user on social media accounts, I am a highly invested consumer of television shows and often go on for days about the latest episode of Teen Mom, Big Brother, etc. Along with my favourite activities outside of school and work is to go to a sporting event, or a concert. Hope you enjoy, my take on audiences today!
A little history of Early Audiences
As far back as 400 BC is our histories earliest records of audiences forming. It was during this time that the Greeks performed plays for all of Athens free for all to attend.
As time moves forward we see the Roman theatre in 100-300 BC continue the lively traditions of the Greek theatre.
As well as audiences forming in churches during the middle ages ( 500- 1400 ACE) to listen and perform bible scenes.
Elizabethan audiences gathered in the mid 1500s for audience members to simply enjoy life.
Greek/Roman theatre (BC)
church in the middle ages
until nearly the 18th century audiences were considered over active, rowdy members of society. Often the audience would engage with actors, talk during plays as a sign of enjoyment.
It wasn't until 1865, after the American civil war a true definition of theatre came to be, and audience rights, to be active during a play etc. became poor manners.
which translated audiences during the 20th century to become passive.
I believe this definition best describes what an audience is:
" An Audience is a group of people who participate in a show or
encounter a work of art, literature ( in which they are called "readers" )
theatre music ( in which they are called "listeners" )
and video games ( in which they are called "players" )
This definition best describes all the ways in which we can be an audience, times have changed since the beginning of audiences with the Greek and Roman theatre, today audiences arent limited to a single show as their only way of being an active audience member. Today being an audience member is unlimited to its options, do you play video games, and chat online with members, do you have any social media accounts, do you have a favourite television show you follow, or band you like to see when their in town? There are so many opportunities for you to be an audience member, you might not even know you are one.
Heres an example of how multi audiences are being formed from one "show".
In this example, you are an audience member if you are sitting in the audience of the Ellen Degenerous show, you are an audience member if you are watching the show from home, You are also a audience member if you are a Twitter member, following or participating in any of the tweets, or hashtags. Overal in todays an audience member has had an evolution from being a single audience member to now being a audience member on various levels of both passive and active members.
SO the Big Question, why do we care about audiences?
Audiences are so powerful in todays society, the power of the internet has allowed videos, tweets, and photos to go viral almost instantaneously across the globe. Meaning that a single person can send a message around the world, to promote, discuss, enjoy and stop acts of violence, discrimination etc. at all times. This relates to the textbook, the idea that media messages can lead to changes in individual audience members is the thrust behind the "effective perspective", which emerged in the 20th century as the dominant paradigm in the field of media studies.
An example, is how a young women simply doing yoga in her living room, came across the knowledge that cats can do it to. This woman's discovery has lead to the world being able to view her idea, support if they wish and spread the message of helping orphaned kittens.
Although, this message and video doesn't save the world by any means, the audience this video acquires will help save and give homes to orphaned kittens which might not have been possible. The power again is the multi audience, this is through the internet, which allowed for a single video about cats/ and yoga to go viral, anyone who is an audience of youtube can view or come across it, yoga ethusiates may follow or look up yoga titles, of audiences who follow the news this story was published by CBC, and by audience members who are animal lovers. This video can lead to individual audience members, as the effective perspective, making a change.
Reflecting to today's audiences, and how they are being discussed, lets hit it close to home with the Toronto Blue Jays. A baseball team which didn't always make it to the playoffs, and didn't always get the support of Toronto as it is today.
overall the Toronto Blue jays audiences are being talked about today in every news outlet possible, its the fans that make a team, and its the team that connects the fans.
