MEDIA AUDIENCE

- Psychology & Sociology of media audience

Audience-A group of people within hearing; specifically a group of people listening to a performance, speech etc. ; the crowd seeing a stage performance.

audience analysis-An audience analysis involves the study of the pertinent elements defining the makeup and characteristics of your audience

IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE

Knowing your audience—

age, gender education level,  language and 

culture  —is the single most important aspect of developing your speech.

Analyzing your audience will help discover information to create a link to establish common ground between you and the audience.

. “THE BENEFITS OF UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE.”  You want to analyze your audience prior to

your speech so you can create a link between you, the speaker and the audience during the speech.

You want to be able to step inside the minds of the audience to understand the world from their perspective. Through this process you can find common ground with the audience, which allows you to align your message with what the audience already knows or believes.

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. There are very simple methods for conducting an audience analysis such as interviewing a small group about its knowledge or attitudes, or using more involved methods of analyzing demographic studies of relevant segments of the population

.sociological studies of different age groups or cultural groups for knowledge.

use a questionnaire or rating scale to collect data about basic demographic information and opinions of your target audience

Gerbner (2002) sees a cause-effect relationship between screen violence and real-life.

Orbach (1991) and Wolf (1990) argue that there is a causal link between representation of (US) size zero models in magazines and eating disorders.

MEDIA- CULTURE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

. Culture identifies the ways in which people live and represent themselves which includes fashion, sports, architecture, education, religion and science. It also includes a society’s mode of communication: the process of creating symbol systems that convey information and meaning such as symbols become culture manufacturing machines. When we listen to music, read a book, watch a TV or scan internet, we try to connect to something or someone. We interpret it in our way and absorb certain things in our lifestyle.

Mass media are the cultural industries that produce and distribute cultural products to large number of people.

In US in the 1950s, the emergence of TV and rock and roll generation invited public debates.

Ads tend to glamorize every product and hence a brand consciousness is part of today’s culture.

In 20th century, critics and audiences established a hierarchy of culture i.e. high culture and low culture. High culture includes ballet symphony, art, museums and classical literature and alike. Low culture includes soap operas, rock and rap music, radio, comic books, commercial masala movies.

Popular mass media like movies, TV, rock music distracts students from serious literature and philosophy. It also exploits classic works of literature and art.

The best example can be Parineeta transformed into a commercial movie. Today, it is best remembered as a Vindhu Vinod Chopra’s flim and not best seller novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhya. Thus mass media creates a movie buff culture taking audience away from legendary art and classics.

Some talk shows and soap operas have routinely encourage fighting among family friends and family members. Some programs exploit personal problems for commercial gain and public spectacle. Reality TV shows like Big Brother (Big Boss) is highly edited versions of reality as they are too explicit for TV viewing. This endangers peace

. Shilpa Shetty – A victim of racist attack became insult of international cultural group and it was even discussed in the House of Commons.

. Multitudes tend to imitate their favorite stars in every way. They like to copy their dressing quotient, style and general demeanor. An example can be of Lage Raho Munna Bhai, that started a wave of Gandhigiri all over the country. People started walking on the forgotten path of Gandhism. It was a revival of a legend who otherwise had been restricted to just a national holiday.

The involving of people to “Vote for Taj” campaign fostered feelings of patriotism and nationalism. Every Indian experienced a sense of pride when Taj was announced as one of the wonders of the world

ORIGIN OF DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION

The expressions such as Development reporting or Development news were coined during the early seventies when UNESCO, UNICEF and UNDP were willing to fund and encourage a new kind of reporting. The Press of the west was critical of these agencies. .

Consequently, the UNESCO formed the McBride Commission. This commission organized hearings in developing countries.. The developing nations were slow in learning that the western media were out to destroy their social, economic and political canvasses in stealthy fashion.

The progress of development reporting in India was slow due to the following reasons:

The mass media were catering to the needs of the urban literate readers. The newspapers & magazines publishers were developing content for the urban people and not for the mass markets. Hence, their content was urban oriented.

The journalism training institutes did not pay attention to the concept of training in development reporting.

The corporate publishing sector was driven by monetary gain. It did not depute development reporters to cover the news of development. It also did not start the in-house training programs to upgrade the reporting skills and research techniques of its existing set of reporters.

Hindustan Times can be given the credit of starting the concept of development reporting in India. Its editor, B G Veghese, took the initiative in this context.

The times of India started a feature on agriculture and appointed an agriculture correspondent in its Delhioffice. Later, Indian Express covered news and events related to environment, economic development and social conflicts..

CRISIS COMMUNICATION An organization can withstand both

issues and crises better if they have established good, long-term relationships with publics who will be affected from decisions and behaviors of the organization.

Organizations should accept responsibility/be accountable for a crisis/issue even if it was not their fault.

At the time of a crisis/issue, an organization must disclose all that it knows about the crisis or problem involved. If it does not know what happened, then it must provide full disclosure once it has additional information. Provide facts.

At the time of a crisis, an organization must consider the public interest to be at least as important as its own. Public safety, for example, is at least as important as profits. Therefore the organization has no choice other than to engage in true dialogue with publics and to practice socially responsible behavior when a crisis occurs [as well as before and after

POSITIVE EFFECTS Media provide news and information

required by the people. Media can educate the public. Media helps a democracy function

effectively. They inform the public about government

policies and programmes and how these programmes can be useful to them. This helps the people voice their feelings and helps the government to make necessary changes in their policies or programmes.

IMPACT OF MEDIA

NEGATIVE EFFECTS The traditional culture of a country is

adversely affected by mass media. Entertainment has become the main

component of mass media. This affects the primary objectives of media to inform and educate the people.

Media promote violence. Studies have proved