Media Products for Specific

Audiences
Critical Approaches
Lilly Grant
Addressing Audiences
Captivating an audience is when a quantity of approaches &
techniques are employed in hope to influence and encourage
people to your product or service.

Producers need to be aware of what audience they are aiming

at in terms of:

Age Gender Interests Class etc.

Over time the audience will change the producer needs to

be able to adapt the product to change with them.
Selection of Content: Words
There are 3 main groups of words that address an audience:

.Emotive Words

.Slogans

.Descriptive Words
Selection of Content: Images
Media products use a technique called association. This works by Using images
such as a cartoon character or a countires flag in the hope you'll shift your
positive feelings about the image to the product.
Selection of content: Sound
Sound can play a vital role in attracting and targeting a specific audience, this is
because the sound does a variety of things such as:

Increase attention, making an ad more likely to be noticed, viewed, and understood.

Enhance enjoyment and emotional response.
Aid memorability and recall.
Forge positive associations between brands and well-loved tunes through (Term:classic conditioning).
Enhance key messages.
Influence intention and likelihood to buy; and overall increase sales.

Example:

The 2013 The Bear & The Hare featured Keanes 2004 track Somewhere Only We Know re-recorded
for the John Lewis ad by Lily Allen. The song didnt only feature as the soundtrack to the original
cartoon by adam&eveDDB. It was also released as a multi-format single, and download and CD sales
took the song to No. 1 where it stayed for some weeks, providing countless opportunities for radio
DJs and media columnists to talk about (and talk up) the campaign and the retailer.

https://youtu.be/NW2EmATcb6o

(Other examples include the coca-cola jingle, when we hear the jingle we think of the brand another example
is fitting music, Sony Bravia Jose Gonzalez Song fits with theme.)
Selection of Content: Colours
It is important that marketers, designers, and advertisers, choosing a branded
color scheme that sells. As colour can influence our actions and reactions to
everything we do; it plays into our sense of identity, into our choices, into
our relationship with the world around us.

For example:

A design suite using vibrant

colours which will appeal to
its vast range of creative
users
Selection of Content: Fonts
In film the style of writing and the fonts used for both the title and the ending credits
and sometimes within the product. So depending on the genre of film depends on the type of
font they use for example for Batman they used a font that formed into bat ears within
the corners.

Another is Sleepy Hollow; this font is shown in the old fashioned style italic style, as
the film itself is based in the olden times. Link to website:
http://www.madtuts.com/2010/02/85-famous-tv-movie-fonts/

Fonts are also very important in the print media industry, the genre of the magazine will
affect the font and what age it is targeted at, for example varied fonts you would see in a
lifestyle magazie aimed to target adults in contrast to a children's magazine that would
use simple and easy to read fonts.
Construction of Content
The content would be dependent upon the method or technique that you employ in order to effectively
address your audience.

You need to consider:

Layout

Captions

Anchorage

Narratives

Each of these is carefully selected to appeal to a certain audience i.e. bright, loud colours for
younger readers.
Construction of Content: Narratives
A narrative is a structure & storyline.
Single strand (one plot line)
multi stranded (lots of characters with lots of different storylines, think Love
Actually)
Enigma Codes (puzzles we need the character to solve and that keep us interested)
Character Types (Hero, victim villain)
Flashbacks
Construction of Content: Layout
Case study: Magazine

Once the context is written up and put together, the production of the layout is begun by arranging the words
and images.This all depends on the age specific for a particular magazine. Colour schemes are also used to
help deduce an audience specific. In this Doctor Who magazine, the layout is quite interesting:

The layout for this

magazine is aimed at an
older audience, maybe
adolescents at the
youngest due to the small
writing yet the eye
catching array and the
use of imagery and fonts.

The text is in front of a larger picture that sums up the whole episode. The writing is very small to the side,
suggesting that this might be for an older audience. The title is large and draws all the attention at first glance The
smaller writing is in columns and paragraphs, making it easier to read as its a question and answer page between an
interviewer and a cast member. There is also a smaller picture with a caption to quickly sum up what is occurring, There
are some sentences that are of a larger font than the rest of the page There is also a quote that has been highlighted
and brought out using the same font as the title only smaller.
Construction of Content: Captions
Captions are used in magazines to give an
extremely brief explanation of the picture

Q magazine has used a drawn picture of

David Bowie and captioned it: The Man Who
Changed The World. The way this is
presented suggests its for an older
audience, it wouldnt appeal to younger
readers as it would to adults/young
adults. The words Changed and World
stand out, drawing immediate attention to
the picture. The other image is still a
title, it explains what is going to be on
the next page through an extremely brief
description. The writing suggests its for
older readers, maybe as young as 20 the
colours used are dull and the only vibrant
thing which draws attention is what the
model is wearing.
Construction of Content: Captions
Captions can also be a short
explanation,these are used to briefly
describe the picture a reader is looking
at.

For example the image of these characters

from a film magazine with a description on
the secrets behind the film avatar. The
colours are quite bright and the font
formal and easy to read, so would appeal
to teenage and an adult audience.
Construction of Content: Captions
Adequate descriptions are still a
captions, its a larger description of
what you can see. Magazines such as
Kerrang use these to make the pictures
seem funny, making the picture seem
different to what is actually going on
later explaining it in articles.

In magazines to do with art, the images

are briefly explained, by briefly, its
still a larger description. Kerrang is
mostly aimed at adolescents and young
adults, maybe going as old as 30+. When
making these captions, they try to make
them humorous and often succeed, making
the consumer laugh will make them want to
buy the magazine more regularly.

The other magazine has very long

explanations of the art work, the text is
more formal and aimed at an older audience
there is little or no humour all
serious which is what the some ofthe older
audeicne prefer. .
Construction of Content: Anchorage
This basically tells the reader what to think about an image.
A man called Roland Barthes came up with the theory that
different people think different things about one image.

Using one image and using alternate captions can interpret

what might be occurring it could be the truth or it could be a
lie, it depends what the picture and caption might depict.
Angry Protester Refuses to Leave
Its absolutely vital when creating a story on these particular
subjects that what is written in the article is the 100% truth, if
the picture doesnt match up with the words, readers will
begin to notice and file complaints. Newspapers and tabloids
are the usual anchorage experts, using the images they put
in to exploit criminals, they make sure that the images they
use matchup and use this to their advantage, veering the
consumers in the way that they want them to think.
Peaceful Protest Ruined by Police Brutality
 Codes & Conventions
These are essentially rules and
In film:
regulations that media products Codes & Conventions 3 types:
have to follow, the different areas
Technical
of these rules are: (Camera technique + shots etc)

Colour Scheme Symbolic (Clothing, colours, scenes etc)

Written & Audio (Music, verbal slogans,

Photography catchphrases etc)

The codes and conventions give meaning to

Writing Style and Language the product or service rather than it just
being text. They help the audience to
Text/Picture Ratio contextualise and should therefore be
considered in media related work.

Fonts

Mode of Address
Codes & Conventions: Linguistic
This will depends on the target audiences age and gender. A younger audience will have more simple
and easy to read language whereas, an older audience will have more sophisticated and a wider
vocabulary.

Example: This double page spread is from a

magazine called NME. NME is a modern,
mixed rock magazine.

Their magazine is aimed at teenagres &

young adults both male & female.

This can be seen in the type of language

they use a mix of formal and informal
language also simple language and slang
that the audience would understand.

https://sophiemillermedia.files.wordpre
ss.com/2013/11/screen-shot-2012-10-
01-at-10-16-54.png
 Codes & Conventions: Visual
The main image on the front cover is
usually very famous singers or the
newcomers. Especially those that has
been in the press a lot as being well
known which is what teenagers like
the most and are fascinated about it.

NME has a simple colour scheme. It

uses colours such as red, blacks and
white. In the magazine they have use
alternate background and font/text
colour so the pictures dont blend in
with the pictures and they stand out
more.
Codes & Conventions: Symbolic
NME uses its logo or the masthead on
the contents page in order to raise
publicity of this magazine to encourage
the reader to recognise their Logo NME.

The big picture of the celebrity on the

cover shows importance.

This magazine has a Band Index which

allows the buyer to look for specific
bands they want to read about. This
allows readers to know if they would be
interested in the included bands.

NME has used their logo NME in the

corner next to the page number to promote
their magazine
Audience Feedback
There is no guarantee that an audience will like the product that is produced
There is also no guarantee that the product will be liked by a large amount of
the targeted audience There are ways that this information can be received
such as:

Focus Groups

Audience Panels

Trailing

Complaints
Audience Feedback: Focus Groups
Focus groups are a group of people
brought together to discuss designs,
ideas, thoughts and interests in the
magazine.
Kerrang has a data promise for their
focus group. They promise to ensure the
safety and confidentiality of the
personal information that they receive.
They then use this collected information
for their benefit:
Adapting to audience change.
Changing certain things that consumers
dislike/want changing.
Include anything that a majority of the
focus group think is a good idea.
Focus groups are widely used as a
means of qualitative research, as
opposed to giving an independent
answer, people are free to discuss
with other group members. Focus groups
rose in popularity during the First
World War in order to review the
effectiveness of propaganda. A problem
with focus groups is that, more than
often, the setting can be intrusive,
normally there will be a person of
authority questioning people with a
means of recording that audio leading
to people holding back possible
responses or giving a bias answer
based on what they believe should be
said; along with this the participants
have no means to anonymity, thus
leading to a lack of confidentiality.
 Audience Feedback:Audience Panels/ Trialing &
Testing
Test screenings are held very highly in regard by producers, directors and film studios. If the film does not
appeal to it's target audience- it's a useless product. Test screenings often cause changes to a film's final
cut- they can be as simple as a title change, to a complete re-edit and reshoot of certain scenes.

Showing the film to an audience before the release to gauge reaction. Test screenings will tend to be diverse
in their selection of viewers to generate diverse feedback which is normally in the form of a questionnaire.
One of the most famous screen tests in the history of television was the Batman TV show of the 1960s,
receiving the worst scores in the history of screen testing, scores were in the high 40s with the screen
test average for other shows being the mid 60s. Even after revision of criticism and making changes it was
still rated as low and only aired due to the amount of money spent during production. A popular method of
gather audience feedback is test screening; this is previewing the
Audience Feedback: Reviews
Third parties are now primarily responsible for gathering audience feedback from a panel,
one of these companies is BARB who collect data from viewing habits in British homes via
TV, PC, tablet or smartphone; this data allows producers to see who their audience
demographic is and how many viewers they have. Audience panels essentially give producers
an illustration of their specific target audience once the product is released, meaning
that they can measure how accurate their audience research was.

Reviews can be left on social media or websites such as IMDB another way is in other media
platform newspapers and ,magazines can give rating for films.
Audience Feedback:Complaints
There are regulatory bodies where the audience can complain, or alternatively they may complain
online or to a contact put on the product.

Regulatory Bodies:

BRITISH BOARD OF FILM CLASSIFICATION (BBFC)- The British Board of Film Classification are an
organisation that gives films individual classifications, with ratings from U for Universal to R18

FILM DISTRIBUTORS ASSOCIATION (FDA)- is the trade body for theatrical film distributors in the UK -
the companies that release films for UK cinema audiences

OFFICE FOR COMMUNICATION (OFCOM)- regulate the TV, radio and video-on-demand sectors, fixed-line
telecoms, mobiles and postal services, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate.

PRESS COMPLAINTS COMMISSION (PCC)- The Press Complaints Commission deals with complaints about the
editorial content of newspapers and magazines (and their websites) and the conduct of journalists.
The organisation protect the rights of individuals, whilst preserving suitable freedom of expression
for the press.

ADVERTISING STANDARDS AUTHORITY (ASA)- The Advertising Standards Authority is the UKs controller of
advertising across the mass media, includes acting on complaints and also checking the media to take
action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements. .
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