Audience Research

Audience

ˈɔːdɪəns/

noun

1. 1.

   the assembled spectators or listeners at a public event such as a play, film, concert, or meeting.

   
   

   "he asked for questions from members of the audience"

There are 2 different theories when it comes to audience:

• Effects Theory- assumes the audience is passive in the process of making meaning of the text, in other words spoon fed the meaning
• Reception Theory- assumes the audience is active in the process of making meaning of the text, therefor text has numerous possible meanings, some of which can be defined by audience

Stuart Halls theory:

• encoding- when a message is made into a piece of text intentionally
• decoding- when the audience interprets a meaning from a piece of text

There are 3 ways we interpret text:

• dominant- when a viewer recognises the meaning and agrees
• oppositional- when a viewer recognises the meaning and disagrees
• negotiated- when a viewer brings their own ideas into the interpretation of the texts

Our Audience:

In order to ensure that our promotional materials appeal to our target audience, we decided to create a focus group to provide us with feedback as we go. As of yet our focus group has commented on the promotional videos we've analysed. Going forward, the focus group will give us feedback on our own work.

When putting together our focus group, our goal was to come up with a representative sample of our target audience. In order to do this, we began by pinpointing our target audience and creating a profile of a typical member.

Audience Profile:

Gender: Both Male and Female

Age: 15 - 30

Registrar's General Social Scale: B - C1

Selby's Psycho-graphic Cluster: Drifters

Audience Description:

A typical target audience member of the Alternative Rock genre would be either a male or female in their mid to late teens, most likely studying in secondary school or college. They are a fan of a range of rock genres and use music as a form of escapism and to identify with. They most likely enjoy gigs and festivals and consider themselves quite rebellious and perhaps an 'outcast'. The average listener in the UK is middle class.

Focus Group:

With these things taken into consideration our focus group will contain 4 people who all share a characteristic with our typical audience member. Our focus group ranges in ages from 16-19 and have a 50/50 ratio of males to females.