Essay On Media Ethnography

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In a society surrounded by media the producers have to prioritize there audience, who is consuming there product such as TV, radio and newspapers. This can be done by calculating how many individuals are consuming and what type of gender, age and class they are or by more in-depth research such as ethnography and interviews.
Classifying media audiences according to class can be seen as useful particularly within the media industry in regards to the sale of advertising. For instance, newspapers are aimed at different class’s, the Daily Mail being aimed at the higher classes containing political information, business based, discussing economic problems and using a different type of terminology which would not apply to the interests of the working class. The Sun on the other hand, is aimed at the lower classes as it contains gossip type information, is light hearted and is not materialistic based. This therefore, is useful for media companies as they know what to advertise and where, for instance placing an advert for a Bentley would not be useful within the Sun due to the consumer it’s targeted towards. This therefore, is a key motivation for media companies as they are able to identify what to advertise and where. Age is another factor which is useful in order to place media in the right direction to the appropriate audience. The Times being a prime illustration here which is aimed at those over the age of 35. The presentation being formal, the sophisticated logo, lack of colour and the fonts used as well as the information initially provided by the newspaper similar to the daily mail for the interests of the upper class individuals. These characteristics are important as they draw in certain age groups as well as potentially deterring younger individuals this allows newspaper companies to ensure they are attracting there target audience. However, demographics such as gender could be seen as not useful when classifying media audiences. Gender restricts readers due to the stereotypes they hold, for instance magazines which are aimed at men such as car magazines with gender based titles. Women do still read these magazines but a very small minority due to the gender stereotype it sends across. This therefore, can become problematic for media producers when classifying an audience as both genders can hold similar interests which consequently restricts there consumer market. Official statistics based on media audiences are monitored and shown on websites such as ABC, which presents circulation figures for newspapers and magazines monitoring how many people have brought a copy (Abc.org.uk, 2016). RAJAR
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These methods show meanings, interpretations, and you’re able to view the audience first hand whether you’re watching those consuming media or asking them questions on how they consume the media. One example of TV ethnography is by David Morley. Within this study Morley taped the discussions of group viewings of TV programmes in order to analyse if individual’s class position affected their interpretation of the media text (Morley, 1992). A criticism of this ethnography is the researcher bias it holds. Morley chose his own groups of people to study comparing this to official statistics a more generalizable group of people would be researched. However, ethnography offers an immediate response due to the taped discussions providing more valid date compared to official statistics which relies on retrospective data collected from questionnaires taken after the TV programme has been

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