Students should have knowledge and understanding of how the media forms target, reach and address audiences, how audiences interpret and respond to them, and how members of the audience become producers themselves.
Students will be required to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of how media products reflect the social, cultural, historical and political contexts in which they are produced. Not every question in every exam series will require the analysis of the four contexts but students will need to be familiar with all of them in relation to a range of media products.
In the following table, the column headed Content includes the mandatory material which all students should study. The column headed Guidance Notes includes pointers and suggestions to help schools and colleges interpret and deliver the content where these are appropriate. These Guidance Notes will be supplemented by further support materials (the CSP booklet).
3.7.1 Theoretical perspectives on audiences
Content | Guidance notes |
|---|
Theoretical perspectives on audiences including:- active and passive audiences
- audience response
- audience interpretation.
Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory. | The role of audiences in the creation of meaning and the degree of effect of media messages upon audiences. |
3.7.2 Range of audiences
Content | Guidance notes |
|---|
How and why media products are aimed at a range of audiences, from small, specialised audiences to large mass audiences. | Requirement for commercial media producers to create audiences which can be sold to advertisers. |
3.7.3 Targeting
Content | Guidance notes |
|---|
The ways in which media organisations target audiences through marketing. Understanding of the assumptions organisations make about their target audience(s). | Role of genre conventions in the targeting of audiences. Techniques used in the marketing of media products: - guerilla and viral marketing
- trailers, tasters and teasers.
|
3.7.4 Categorisation
Content | Guidance notes |
|---|
How media organisations categorise audiences. | Segmentation and variables:- geographic
- demographic
- psychographic.
|
3.7.5 Media technologies
Content | Guidance notes |
|---|
The role of media technologies in reaching and identifying audiences, and in audience consumption and usage. | Use of online resources to collect audience data. Audience research institutions including the Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB), Radio Joint Audience Research Limited (RAJAR), Pamco, Nielsen. Research techniques: - quantitative/qualitative
- primary/secondary.
|
3.7.6 Interpretations
Content | Guidance notes |
|---|
The ways in which audiences may interpret the same media products very differently and how these differences may reflect both social and individual differences. | - Reception theories.
- Active audiences.
- Preferred and aberrant readings.
Active audiences. Influence of social variables on audience perception. |
How audiences may respond to and interpret media products. Why these responses and interpretations may change over time. | |
3.7.7 Media practices
Content | Guidance notes |
|---|
The ways in which people’s media practices are connected to their identity, including their sense of actual and desired self. | Identity and audience membership. Fans and fandom. Talking about the media. |
3.7.8 Social, cultural and political significance
Content | Guidance notes |
|---|
The social, cultural and political significance of media products:- the themes or issues they address
- the fulfilment of needs and desires
- the functions they serve in society and everyday life.
| |
3.7.9 Audience responses
Content | Guidance notes |
|---|
How audiences may respond to and interpret media products and why these responses and interpretations may change over time. | How changing cultural values with reference to, for example, gender roles, ethnic identities have influenced contemporary perceptions of historical products. |
