Thriller Genre - Audience research

Dear Readers,

Understanding the importance of an Audience
So before I can jump to conclusions about who my coursework  is aimed at I need to understand the importance of an audience so I can aim my coursework at the right people. Everyone has been in an audience. We have all been part of a group of people who come together to experience music, film, theatre or other live event. So when I looked up an audience in media terms, I found out that the audience is any group of people who receive a media text, and not just people who are together in the same place.‘Audience’ is a key concept throughout my media studies, because all the media texts we do, or watch are produced with an audience in mind. So an audience is part of the media world – "a product is produced and an audience receives it." This is because an audience is part of how the media world make it's money;  Advertisers need an audience who will see or hear their advertisements and then buy the products.Audience research is a major element for any media producer. So for me I will need to carefully look up what ages / companies/ genders will watch my 'Thriller' coursework. Companies are set up to carry out audience research for media producers, broadcasters and advertisers but I will do it by myself. So to help me I looked up what these companies do. These research companies use questionnaires, focus groups, one to one interviewing, and electronic devices to find out about people’s life styles, and television viewing habits as well as the type of products they want to buy.

Above is the age rating categories

So a focus group I've used prevouisly who unanimously told me a Thriller would be the most effective when I showed them different 2 minute AS coursework of other students, helped me establish that my audience range would be around 16plus. So the age rating on my coursework would be recommended at 15 due to the scary/ jumpy scenes that I may produce. The reason I wouldn't show to any younger viewers is the imposed nightmares and mentally scared scenes might be to much to handle and it would be unethical/unprofessional for me to allow children to watch it. Proper media companies would show short extracts or trailers for up and coming programmes are often shown to focus groups to see how they react. If they don’t like something then the producers may make some changes. Hollywood films are regularly ‘trialled’ in front of cinema audiences in America. In some cases the ending of the film is changed because the trial audience do not like it. Sometimes several endings are filmed and the trial audience asked to choose the one they like best.Media producers spend a lot of time and money finding out who the audience for a programme or media product might be. It’s a serious business; media producers want to know how the audience is made up. A mass audience is very large, so ways of breaking it down into categories have been devised.

So until next time you lot...bye!

#TheMediaofaNewGeneration