“Media Industries manipulate media audiences. It is the industries that are in control, not the audience.” Explain how your product could be consumed by your audience.
This essay is based on the idea of uses and gratification theory, which was created by Blumler and Katz, followed from the fact that they felt the audience is free to choose what they watch and how the audience view what is being shown to them. This is seen to have an active audience, as the audience will choose what they want to believe and when, how and why they’ll use it. Compare this to the hypodermic syringe theory which has a passive audience. The uses and gratifications theory takes on board 4 types of gratification. These are, information, entertainment, personal identity and integration and social interaction. Information is what we want to find out about society and the world, this means satisfying the curiosity of the audience. Entertainment is where the media (in this case music magazine) create enjoyment, relaxation or can be used to fill up time. The third, personal identity is where the audience can seek a role model from who they are reading about. And finally integration and social interaction is where we can empathise and sympathise with the person/people we are reading about.
In order to fit my music magazine in with the uses and gratifications theory, I made my magazine fit the information needs of the audience. My magazine targets its audience by the use of interviews, reviews of songs and albums as well as my double page magazine spread which was “Two weeks in the life of…” The above informed my audience of what Hannah Louise does in her spare time and also tell the audience more about the new teen pop star. I chose to apply interviews to my work as this would satisfy the curiosity of my target audience; this is what I intended to happen as through my primary research (questionnaires) I found out that the majority of my audience would want to see an interview in the magazine in order for them to learn more about the artist. This is the same principal for my double page spread with “Two weeks in the life of…” with both of these I felt that it gave the audience enough information to understand more about the artist.
For entertainment purposes my magazine would supply my audience with a range of quizzes to keep them entertained as well as competitions to enter for the fans and other readers. I chose to add these to my magazine as from my research I found out that my target audience wanted to see these in the magazine, therefore I felt as though I had to add them as they were a key ingredient to the magazine and the audience. I chose to add the quizzes to my magazine as I believed that they could supply the audience with some form of relaxation or enjoyment which is the target of the gratification, entertainment and this is the aim of the gratification theory of entertainment.
To me this was the main basis of my music magazine as I felt that adding a personal identity side of my magazine it would appeal more to my target audience. By creating the type of magazine that I did; I came up with the idea that the person reading the magazine could compare their lifestyle and their choices with the lifestyle and choices made by the pop star. As well as the reader being able to relate to the singer via the choice and lifestyle comparisons that are similar. Thirdly, the magazine would give the audience some idea on the types of clothing worn by the singer and whether the clothing that they wear fits the same genre as the clothes that the audience wears.
The category of integration and social interaction, I found harder to gain ideas for, as the research I did didn’t go into as much depth as the other three (personal identity, entertainment and information.) However from this section the audience could learn about how the singer/pop star lives and acts in their everyday life and how they react to different situations. This includes the different environments they are in as well as how they deal with the environment. This included my double page spread as it showed the audience how the singer acts in the different environments; this includes when Hannah went abroad to Italy and how she acted to the change of setting. They could then link this back to the personal identity as these can be linked to different situations, including social interaction. The audience could also either sympathise or empathise with the singer, by reading into the situations she is put into.
This essay is based on the idea of uses and gratification theory, which was created by Blumler and Katz, followed from the fact that they felt the audience is free to choose what they watch and how the audience view what is being shown to them. This is seen to have an active audience, as the audience will choose what they want to believe and when, how and why they’ll use it. Compare this to the hypodermic syringe theory which has a passive audience. The uses and gratifications theory takes on board 4 types of gratification. These are, information, entertainment, personal identity and integration and social interaction. Information is what we want to find out about society and the world, this means satisfying the curiosity of the audience. Entertainment is where the media (in this case music magazine) create enjoyment, relaxation or can be used to fill up time. The third, personal identity is where the audience can seek a role model from who they are reading about. And finally integration and social interaction is where we can empathise and sympathise with the person/people we are reading about.
In order to fit my music magazine in with the uses and gratifications theory, I made my magazine fit the information needs of the audience. My magazine targets its audience by the use of interviews, reviews of songs and albums as well as my double page magazine spread which was “Two weeks in the life of…” The above informed my audience of what Hannah Louise does in her spare time and also tell the audience more about the new teen pop star. I chose to apply interviews to my work as this would satisfy the curiosity of my target audience; this is what I intended to happen as through my primary research (questionnaires) I found out that the majority of my audience would want to see an interview in the magazine in order for them to learn more about the artist. This is the same principal for my double page spread with “Two weeks in the life of…” with both of these I felt that it gave the audience enough information to understand more about the artist.
For entertainment purposes my magazine would supply my audience with a range of quizzes to keep them entertained as well as competitions to enter for the fans and other readers. I chose to add these to my magazine as from my research I found out that my target audience wanted to see these in the magazine, therefore I felt as though I had to add them as they were a key ingredient to the magazine and the audience. I chose to add the quizzes to my magazine as I believed that they could supply the audience with some form of relaxation or enjoyment which is the target of the gratification, entertainment and this is the aim of the gratification theory of entertainment.
To me this was the main basis of my music magazine as I felt that adding a personal identity side of my magazine it would appeal more to my target audience. By creating the type of magazine that I did; I came up with the idea that the person reading the magazine could compare their lifestyle and their choices with the lifestyle and choices made by the pop star. As well as the reader being able to relate to the singer via the choice and lifestyle comparisons that are similar. Thirdly, the magazine would give the audience some idea on the types of clothing worn by the singer and whether the clothing that they wear fits the same genre as the clothes that the audience wears.
The category of integration and social interaction, I found harder to gain ideas for, as the research I did didn’t go into as much depth as the other three (personal identity, entertainment and information.) However from this section the audience could learn about how the singer/pop star lives and acts in their everyday life and how they react to different situations. This includes the different environments they are in as well as how they deal with the environment. This included my double page spread as it showed the audience how the singer acts in the different environments; this includes when Hannah went abroad to Italy and how she acted to the change of setting. They could then link this back to the personal identity as these can be linked to different situations, including social interaction. The audience could also either sympathise or empathise with the singer, by reading into the situations she is put into.
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