CHAPTER 5 CONSTRUCTING

AUDIENCES
Mass audiences
LESSON 1 – The Notion of Audience
 The word audience has its roots in the idea of a
 We are all audiences.
spectator or the captive set of listeners or viewers
 Producers and creators of media and information- the
assembled in a more or less public and common
creative people, media executives, marketers, those
space
who decide on what should be shown and distributed,
 The dramatic change that has happened because of
and those who decide what should not be are
the advent of technology is that media now can be
audiences of their own work and of the work of others
experienced by people even if they are alone.
 Audience is a highly valued concept in media and
 Listening to a song on Spotify or watching a video clip
information production.
on Youtube, we become part of the mass audience
 Audience evokes images of gatherings of people in a
even though we are separated from all other
specific location.
members of this mass by both time and space
 They are imagined as a mass of people congregating
 The idea of a mass audience came from the invention
in space as in the case of live shows, a smaller group
of photography, film, radio, and television
of people in a cinema or a smaller family unit gathered
 These developments allowed media that might have
in the living room.
been restricted to just a few to be transmitted to huge
 This gathering of people in various spaces could be
numbers of people in different parts of the world.
the first image that comes to the mind of media
 These platforms include now electronic media
producers and creators
gadgets such as PCs, tablets, and mobile phones,
 The audience is the receiver in the process of
expanding audience access at unprecedented levels
information communication.
 Audience is the reader, listener, viewer and spectator From "mass audience" to audience segments
(Dictionary of Modern Journalism)
 Segmenting audiences customize the content to a
Six features of audiences today (Mcquail 1997) specific sector of the society, thus improving the
quality of the material that will most likely be relevant
1. Audience plan and organize viewing and listening,
and appropriate to the needs and desires of the target
even the performances or events themselves
audience.
2. Audience engages with events that have a public
 Audience segmentation, according to Turrow (2014),
character
is the direct result of channel fragmentation, a
3. These events are secular in nature
phenomenon that started way ahead before the web.
4. Audiences engage with an event on a voluntary basis
 In the 70s, under the grip of martial law, Philippine
5. If there are audience and spectators, there are
television was confined to five channels, one of which
performers, authors and media creators
was government-owned.
6. Spectator engagement is physically located even if
 After the EDSA revolution and the restoration of
the audiences are scattered in various physical
democracy in television broadcasting, the number of
locations
channels rose to more than 100
Different Media, Different Audience  Cable television was introduced in 1969.
 In the decade of 90s cable TV gained ground with the
• Level of activity and engagement with the media and establishment of Sky Cable
information text  Decades of expansion both in traditional and cable-
• Level of interaction with fellow audience satellite TV have resulted to channel fragmentation, a
• Location and space occupied situation marked by the increase in the number of
• Amount of time devoted to watching or viewing channels and the personalization of program content
• Accessibility and proximity to a niche market
 Today, the attention of the audience is divided across
Nightingale proposed a typology of audiences
multiple channels and platforms to include movie-on-
• Audience as "the people assembled" and paying demand (video-on-demand) services such as NetFlix,
attention to a media performing before them iFlix and Amazon Prime
• Audience as "the people addressed" referring to a  The advertising industry also benefits from audience
group of people who were imagined by the segmentation
communicator in the creation and dissemination of the
1. It becomes easier to decide which airtime
text, such as the women who are advertisers think
will align with their target markets
should be patronizing the product
• Audience as "happening" which could be the 2. It makes advertising messaging and
experience of reception alone or with others as an content creation more specific to target
interactive event, like live streaming on the internet of markets
a global event

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  Globalization has allowed target audiences to expand, • The individual has the power, and he/she selects the
with new nationalities and user segments emerging as media texts that best suit his/her needs and wants, so
factors to consider he/she can derive some gratification

LESSON 2 – AUDIENCE THEORIES

• From the side of the creators and producers, the Kinds of gratification that can be derive from media
audience is the perceived receiver, the viewer, and
• Information. We want to know about the society we
the end user of the media texts that will come out of
live in. We want to make sense of the world.
the production cycle
• Personal identity. We watch TV to validate our
• Media corporations spend a huge amount of funds
understanding and appreciation of our identities
trying to learn about their target audiences
• Integration and Social Interaction. WE can integrate
• Television executives prioritize audience research as
and interact with social groups through media
a prerequisite before embarking on any media project
• Entertainment. We use media for enjoyment,
• Politician on the campaign trail conduct poll studies to
relaxation, or just to fill time. We are attracted to TV
finetune their campaign messages to win over a
programs that provide us with the simple pleasure of
bigger fraction of the voting population
song and music or fictional programs that engage us
Two main school of thoughts about the audience with engaging narratives with plot twists and dramatic
conflicts
• On one end, the assertion that media and information
messages emanate from powerful structure and the Cultural Effects Theory
audiences are passive recipients.
• Cultivation theory regards the role of television in
• On the other end, the belief that audiences create or
shaping the viewer's perceptions, beliefs, attitudes,
generate their own meanings from the media and
and values.
information texts and are therefore considered active.
• The development of the cultivation theory as the
In between two ends of this spectrum is a give-and-take product of a more expansive cultural indicators project
situation, where the audience exercise their ability to interpret that pursued three directions:
meanings enabled or constrained by their personal
1. How media messages are produced and
circumstances and the context surrounding their communities
disseminated
Passive or active audiences
2. The content of actual media messages probed
PASSIVE through a message system analysis

• •Audiences accept media messages 3. How exposure to media messages influences the
• Audiences easily Influenced recipients' conception of the real world
• •Do not make own use of texts or interpret in own way
CULTIVATION THEORY
ACTIVE
Cultivation theory is a sociological and communications theory
• •Audiences are involved in their interpretations of that examines the ways exposure to media (primarily
media texts television) affects individuals and society.
• •Audiences create their own meanings
EXPLANATION
• Audiences question and respond to Institutions
Cultivation theory is a social scientific theory that explains the
Passive Theories
long-term effects of media on people who are exposed to it for
• The hypodermic needle theory emerged in the late long periods.
1920s and gained prominence until after World War II
It posits that the messages and themes in the media shape
• It asserted that media and information messages
people's attitudes and beliefs about the world, even if they are
injected messages directly to their audiences
aware that the messages are not entirely true or representative
• Media was described as powerful conduits of
of reality.
messages and audiences as passive recipients.
• Audiences simply take in and believe anything and EXAMPLE
everything told to them by the media
• Audiences are largely homogenous and For example, people who watch a lot of crime dramas may
undifferentiated, thus, media texts generate the same come to believe that the world is a more dangerous place than
interpretation it is, even if they know that the shows are fictional. This can
• The uses and gratification approach argued that the lead to moral panic in society.
audiences accessed media with their needs and
To counteract this phenomenon, there is a need for greater
desires, which in turn structured the way media is
media literacy.
received.

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 • The cultivation theory was developed when TV was For example, the viewer might totally see the advertisement as
the most dominant media platform a sham, a blatant attempt to turn women into passive
• It builds on the relationship between the amount of consumers aspiring for something they can never have
time spent watching TV and the behaviors cultivated because the whole advertisement is a scam
by such practice
• For instance, voting behavior can be influenced by The Notion of Constructed Audience
exposure to media platforms with a particular political
• Something is constructed when there is a deliberate
slant
attempt and effort to turn an idea into material reality.
• The strength of the cultivation analysis was the focus
• The audience for teleserye does not exist per se, but
in some studies. For instance, some studies sought to
the creators and producers build in their minds the
develop empirical means to assess the relationship
kind o people the teleserye will attract
between the amount of viewing time vis-à-vis behavior
• Media outfits, as they embark on a media project,
and the attitude and opinions of the viewers
start off with the question, "Who is the target
audience?"
• Constructing target audiences is making audience
 In decades to come, more complex insights on specific.
audience reception would emerge. We need to invoke • By identifying why this product is relevant to a
our basic understanding of encoding and decoding particular group of people and by bringing in that
messages. imagined group of people to the drawing table, the
 Meaning and power always intersect in media and media text actually constructs the audience for whom
information texts • There is at least one dominant it is intended.
message coming from media's tendency, consciously • A target audience is a specific group of people
or unconsciously, to reproduce the meaning preferred identified and aggregated from selected population
by the most powerful groups in society segments who are the intended users. The
 On the decoding side, the media and information texts information they generate helps them develop media
are always open to a range of meanings in terms of messages that will attract this group or in the case of
interpretation advertisers, help them recommends products that will
 There is a notion of a polysemic text. "Poly" implies be potentially attractive and useful to this target
plurality, while "semic' is a Greek word sema meaning audience. They speak to your interests, work around
audiences see various meanings in the signs that are what will attract you, and avoid what might drive that
in the media and information texts. away
 Polysemic texts carry multiple meanings. Audiences
can make multiple meanings out of media texts How Audiences are Constructed
 An individual's interpretation of a media text is shaped • Demographic audience analysis enables media
by the social circumstances surrounding him/her and producers to tap into similarities and differences so
by the contexts that govern his/her existence. Social they can narrow down their target audiences
factors are summed up as the triumvirate of class, • Demographic information includes attributes such as
gender and ethnicity age, gender, or geographic location and socio-
Context is the set of conditions that locate a media and economic status
information text in a particular historical period and social • Media producers are guided by the acronym GEARS
context that should include the social institutions like business to build a demographic audience analysis
and economic institutions. the mass media, art and culture. It  Gender
also includes current issues, even political movements, and the  Ethnicity
social forces competing to gain access to power  Age range
 Region or nationality
Reception and resistance  Socio-economic group

Three modes of reading media texts on TV(David Morley)

1. There is the dominant reading where the reader fully shares

the text's code and accepts and reproduces the preferred
reading. For example, the shampoo commercial featuring
luscious hair of a woman ignites the desire to have the same
hair as the product endorser so women will buy the product

2. There is negotiated reading where the audience partly

shares the text's codes and broadly accepts the preferred
reading but modifies it in a way that reflects one's own position,
lived experiences and opinions

3. There is the oppositional reading, where the audience takes • Psychographics is largely derived from the concept of
a directly oppositional stance to the dominant code of the demographics but is focused on psychological traits. It
media and information texts and resists it completely.

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 covers attitudes, personality types, opinions and
motivations
• Consider the producers of a Saturday afternoon teen
show who would like to illustrate the current lifestyle
habits of their viewing public. They build a research
design to probe into the psychological habits of their
target market. The researchers find out certain
elements about the target viewers: 13-16 age group is CHAPTER 6 MAKING SENSE OF
mostly apolitical; 17-19 age group find delight in
discussing social issues MEANING: VALUES, LIFESTYLE, AND
• The research company, after the first season of the
telecast, declared thar their findings, indicate three
IDEOLOGY IN MEDIA
types of viewer who are drawn to the TV show: those LESSON 1 – MAKING SENSE OF MEDIA: FRAMES OF A
who follow their favorite performers; those who are STORY
drawn to the narratives; those who seek lifestyle and
role models • Common Assumptions and implications of media and
• The TV producers can refer to the result of the information
research to finetune their narratives to sustain a base • In planning, producing, and creating these texts,
of loyal viewers. As such, there might be changes that choices must be made and decisions implemented.
will be implemented mid-stream, such as narrative The producers and creators make choices. Their
revisions, changes in the line-up of performers to choices reflect their values, opinions, and points of
appeal to the fans view.
• Integral and viral to the creation and production
process is the selection of what to include and what to
exclude. The selection of news sources implies that
there will also be other sources that will either
corroborate or invalidate the opinions stated by the
news source
• The process of inclusion and exclusion is best
illustrated by the way we frame an event or a scene
before we click the shutter of the camera

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

 Study design - Empirical research (experimental,

quasi-experimental, observational studies, evaluation
studies, qualitative studies, mixed methodology
research, meta-analysis, systematic review)
 Participants - Aged over 18 (students, Instructors,
adult learners)
 Game Intervention - Games for knowledge
acquisition/ content understandings, skills,
engagement, motivation, emotion. Games for
educational purposes
 Types of selected research - Journal articles and
Conference papers
 Written language – English and French

Exclision Criteria

 Study design - Non empirical studies (thesis, reports,

reviews
 Participants - Ages younger than 18
 Game Intervention - Non-game-based learning tools
and technologies. Games for entertainment purposes
 Types of selected research – Thesis, Reports,
Reviews
 Written language - All other languages

• In the production of media text, the creators will focus

attention on certain events and place them within a
field of meaning

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 • Framing is the way creators and producers organize • Local TV programming has always valorized the
and present the events and issues they cover. They lifestyle of the rich and powerful classes engendering
focus attention on certain events or elements and aspirational directions for its viewers
place them within a field of meaning. • Mass advertising encourages people to patronize
• Framing is also called agenda-setting. products that encourage certain lifestyle
• In the feature story or investigative report, the frame
can be a powerful organizing tool for storytelling
• Frames can be both enabling and constraining to
audiences.
• Framing is a process of putting together the elements Propaganda and Persuasion
to create or produce a media text and the process of
not including some elements in the creation and • In 1872, three Filipino priests Gomez, Burgos, and
production of a media text Zamora were sentenced to die because of their
• These choices will inevitably bear the values, alleged participation in the uprising in the Cavite
opinions, and points of view of the media creators and Naval Yard. Feelings of anger were stoked. This event
producers. Every decision they make lifestyle to inspired the Propaganda Movement, spurred by
portray, opinions expressed by major characters, the young men whose families could afford to send them
actions in the plot-are enfolded in the media text to study at Spanish universities in Madrid and
Barcelona
Media and the Status Quo • The leaders of the Propaganda movement used the
power of the written and spoken word to advance their
• Status quo refers to the prevailing state of affairs in
causes
society and social institutions and the relationships
• Today, the means of disseminating propaganda have
that exist between institutions and social classes
evolved into more technologically advanced channels
• The prevailing state is that very few hold economic
• With The rise of social media, every internet user has
and political power elite that discriminate, exclude,
been given access to advance his/her personal
and marginalize those who do not have economic and
opinion, thus making him/her a bit of a propagandist
political resources.
• Propaganda means to disseminate or promote
• Mainstream media and how it supports and
particular ideas.
perpetuates the status quo have been the cause of
• In Latin, it means "to propagate" or "to sow"
many reservations and resentment about the
• It has been used in history to advance religion and to
institution's role in society
justify conquest
Values and Attitudes • Essentially, propaganda is about communicating
ideas designed to persuade people to think and
• Values are a special kind of belief that endures and is behave in a desired way.
very unlikely to change. • When you update your status on FB. when you
• As a belief, it can be prescriptive and can serve as a express an opinion about a social issue, or when you
guide for a person's behavior. share, re-tweet, and circulate information, you are
• Values are principles that we use to judge the worth of attempting to influence how people think about
an idea or a practice matters and issues, and you are marshaling
• Value systems are coherent and consistently aligned resources to change or further their opinions
sets of values from which you derive your sense of • Terms that are associated with propaganda are spin,
identity and integrity news management, and public relations
• Attitudes are the affective expressions of our • Propaganda is a deliberate, systematic attempt to
responses to events, circumstances, or people shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct
• In cognitive psychology, attitude may be described as behavior and further the desire of the propagandist
a predisposition to react favorably or unfavorably to a (Jowett and O'Donnel)
situation, event or person
Seven Propaganda Devices (institute of Propaganda
Lifestyles Analysis IPA)

• Lifestyles are ways of living and consist of interests, 1. Bandwagon

hobbies, behavior, and opinions of an individual, or
family group. It asserts that everybody is doing it and convincing members of
• Both tangible and intangible elements combine to a group to jump onto the bandwagon. It leaves the impression
render the kind of lifestyle that an individual is that if you don't join the rest, you will be left out and be at a
predisposed to lead disadvantage Example: Everybody's doing it, don't be left out"
• Tangible elements could be the social class. largely cries out an advertisement
determined by income and other material possessions
2. Card stacking
as well as the spaces inhabited
• Intangible elements could come with the values and It involves making a biased argument by combining falsehood
attitudes a person or a group is predisposed to and leaving opposing evidence hidden or discredited. The
• Media exposes its viewers to lifestyles that may be team organized from the famous magician's trick of "slacking a
different from what they know
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deck of cards that appears to have been shuffled but stacked
in a certain order to favor the trick that will be played out.

Example: Current economic managers and planners blame the

previous administration for the economic slump

3. Glittering Generalities LESSON 2 - MEDIA AND IDEOLOGY

These are vague, broad statements that will connect with the • Today, the word ideology is associated with rigid
audience's beliefs and values but don't say anything political beliefs or with social movements espousing
substantive. Most slogans fall under this category radical ideas about reform and revolution.
• When someone is admonished as "being too
Example: An electoral candidate woos the voters by making ideological". It only means that one subscribes to
this his clamor call " I will lead this country out of the dark." some political ideology and is unyielding to other
beliefs.
4. Transfer • A French aristocrat and revolutionary coined the term
ideology from the Greek idea "form pattern" - logos
It is a technique that carries the authority of a person to
denoting discourse
promote one's message. The person's credibility is transferred
and eventually, fused with the message. Sometimes it uses Examples of Ideologies
symbols, such as the flag, to evoke a sense of patriotism.
There can be lots of different sources of ideological beliefs and
Example: A product uses the symbols of the Philippines flag to values: religion, politics, education, etc. Can you think of any?
connote it's nationalistic intent
• Capitalism Conservatism
5. Plain Folks • Socialism
• Vegetarianism Christianity
It is used by propagandists to give the impression that the one
• The Nuclear Family
carrying the message or the spokesperson comes from a
• Environmentalism
humble origin, or identity with the masses and so will keep their
• Feminism
interests to hear.
Marxism
Example: Politicians carrying babies to win votes or directing
traffic in a busy street Karl Marx 1818 – 1883
6. Testimonial • Class Conflict- A ruling class harmfully controls a ruled
class
It involves using the voice of the people to speak for the
• Oppression - A moral, political, social and economic
message or to endorse a person, an idea, or a product.
system in which some groups are held down so
Example: The use of a disenfranchised framer to speak for the others can benefit
cause of other framers • Exploitation - treating people like things
• Alienation - When an oppressed group does not seem
7. Name-Calling themselves authentically, but as the oppressor defines
them
It creates fear and prejudice by using negative words to create
• Karl Marx believed that ideologies were systems of
an unfavorable option or hatred against a group, beliefs, ideas,
thought perpetuated by the ruling classes to preserve
or instructions they would have us denounce
an existing social order that only serves the interests
Example: The head of the executive branch of the government of the ruling classes. For example, the ruling class
discredits the Catholic Church by calling its names or calling can perpetuate religiosity through the church
out as excessive institutions they support

• Persuasion is a complex, continuing interactive process in

which a sender and a receiver are linked by symbols, verbal
• Ideology means a more coherent system of concepts
and nonverbal. through which a persuader attempts to
and beliefs held by an individual or a group. This
persuade the persuadee to adopt a change in a given attitude
coherent body of concepts and beliefs flow through
or behavior because the persuade has had perceptions
social institutions such as the school, the church, the
enlarged or changed
law, and the media
• Media is a purveyor of ideology
• Ideology flows through the systems of meaning that
define and explain reality to its audience and to the

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 representations of character and events and to the
inclusions and exclusions of the content in media
messages
• For Marxism, ideology is always hinged on the idea of
false consciousness.
• False consciousness means that what they receive is
not the ideology of their own class but the ideology of
the powerful classes in society
• Ideology is a powerful mechanism that exerts control
over the people. especially the oppressed classes that
are forced to accept the ideology of the ruling class.
• Antonio Gramsci asserted a more expensive idea,
hegemony, the interaction of power, cultures, and
ideology
• Persuasion enforces consent, and it is the media's
cultural leadership that enforces this as they produce
and reproduce ways of thinking
• The idea of power as "hegemony" has also influence
debate about civil society

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