Media Audiences

What Media Audiences covers

Media Audiences is assessed in all three sections of Unit 1 at AS. In Unit 3 at A2 each section assesses a different area of the conceptual framework, studied against a wider range of critical perspectives. It covers what an audience is, grouping and categorising audiences, targeting, attracting and reaching an audience, media effects and Albert Bandura, cultivation theory and George Gerbner, reception theory and Stuart Hall, the end of audience and Clay Shirky, fandom and Henry Jenkins, uses and gratifications, interaction, participation and specialised audiences, regulation, protection and audience harm, researching and measuring audiences, audience positioning and preferred readings, audiences and social and cultural circumstance, audiences and media technology and analysing an audience for a product.

The 16 subtopics

Each one has its own page. WJEC AS Media Studies students sit this topic in the first year.

• What an audience isAudience, in media study, mass audience and niche audience.Open →
• Grouping and categorising audiencesFour demographic categories used to group audiences, demographic profiling and psychographic profiling.Open →
• Targeting, attracting and reaching an audienceTargeting an audience, four ways a product signals its target audience and audience being attracted rather than targeted.Open →
• Media effects and Albert BanduraMedia effects model, hypodermic needle model and social learning theory.Open →
• Cultivation theory and George GerbnerHeavy and light viewers in Gerbner's work, mean world syndrome and mainstreaming, in cultivation theory.Open →
• Reception theory and Stuart HallReception theory, hall's three reading positions and preferred reading.Open →
• The end of audience and Clay ShirkyCognitive surplus, many-to-many communication and risk of news reaching the public through unverified material.Open →
• Fandom and Henry JenkinsTextual poachers, in Jenkins's term, convergence culture, as Jenkins uses the term and collective intelligence.Open →
• Uses and gratificationsFour categories of gratification usually given, information or surveillance gratification and personal identity gratification.Open →
• Interaction, participation and specialised audiencesAudience interaction with a media product, four ways an audience interacts with an online product and second screen.Open →
• Regulation, protection and audience harmAge classification, content moderation and argument that audiences should be trusted rather than protected.Open →
• Researching and measuring audiencesRatings figure, circulation, for a printed publication and unique visitor.Open →
• Audience positioning and preferred readingsText hailing or addressing its reader, difference between positioning and manipulation and balanced conclusion about positioning.Open →
• Audiences and social and cultural circumstanceInterpretive community, reading that changes with the audience's circumstances and cultural proximity.Open →
• Audiences and media technologyRecommendation algorithm, filter bubble and attention economy.Open →
• Analysing an audience for a productFirst question in analysing a product's audience, difference between the intended and the actual audience and product whose actual audience differs from its intended one.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Media Audiences further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Demographic profiling vs Psychographic profiling

  Demographic profiling: describing a group by measurable social characteristics. Psychographic profiling: grouping it by attitudes, values and lifestyle.

• Targeting an audience vs Reaching an audience

  Targeting an audience: designing and aiming the product at a defined group. Reaching an audience: actually getting it in front of them.

• A filter bubble vs An interpretive community

  A filter bubble: a narrowed range of material served by a system. An interpretive community: a group whose shared background produces similar readings.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is meant by an audience, in media study?

   Model answer

   The people who receive, use and make sense of a media product, considered as a group with characteristics a producer can address.

2. 2

   Why is audience a constructed category rather than a natural one?

   Model answer

   Producers define the group they want and then address it, so the audience is partly brought into being by the product that speaks to it.

3. 3

   What is a mass audience?

   Model answer

   A very large, dispersed and largely anonymous audience for one product, of the kind broadcast television and national newspapers were built for.

4. 4

   What is a niche audience?

   Model answer

   A small audience defined by a shared interest, taste or identity, which a product can serve precisely rather than broadly.

5. 5

   What is a specialised audience?

   Model answer

   One brought together by a particular interest or need rather than by demographic similarity, such as the audience for a hobby magazine.

6. 6

   Why has the mass audience become harder to reach?

   Model answer

   Distribution has fragmented across channels, platforms and on-demand services, so no single transmission reaches everyone at once.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Media Audiences revision questions

Is Media Audiences examined at AS in WJEC Media Studies?

Yes. It sits in AS Unit 1 and A2 Unit 3, which you take in the first year, so it is on the AS paper as well as counting towards the full A level.

What does Media Audiences cover in WJEC AS-Level Media Studies?

16 subtopics: what an audience is, grouping and categorising audiences, targeting, attracting and reaching an audience, media effects and albert bandura, cultivation theory and george gerbner, reception theory and stuart hall, the end of audience and clay shirky, fandom and henry jenkins, uses and gratifications, interaction, participation and specialised audiences, regulation, protection and audience harm, researching and measuring audiences, audience positioning and preferred readings, audiences and social and cultural circumstance, audiences and media technology and analysing an audience for a product. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Media Audiences organised?

By the WJEC 603-1976-8 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.