Audience Matters Final

Media Violence

Intent to cause harm (ex: hitting someone)

Aggression

Increased likelihood of displaying behaviors that could cause harm

Negative effects of having a TV in your bedroom

Increased obesity in children and 2x as likely to start smoking

How does exposure to media violence effect aggression

Studies have shown that consuming media violence increases aggression in children

Crime rates vs violent media consumption (ex: violent video games)

Crime rates have gone down while consumption of media violence have increased

Why have crime rates gone down while consumption of violence has gone up

Because people are inside more often and have less face to face interaction, there are less opportunities for violence.

Mediating influence

Restrain our behavior as we mature

• even if exposed to violence as a kid, you grow to understand that violence is wrong

Writing for executives

Writing to get funding, not a specific audience

Writing for standards

Writing that meets a specific standard (ex: journalists being honest)

Writing for themselves

Writing for your own interests

Audience is a fiction

Author never knows who their audience will be when creating material

Audience is real but info is limited

Audience exists but the only information you have is from the small amount who gives feedback

Consumer

Intakes the shows, products, and services advertised to them (passive)

Constituent

Active mobilized force looking for info to at on (active)

The daily me

Everyone has control over what news and entertainment they gravitate toward

Produser

Someone who produces and consumes at the same time

Symthe’s concept of the blindspot

The idea that there is always a price tag on what the audience consumes

Audience fragmentation

Division of mass media audiences into smaller groups based on your viewing choices

Audience fragmentation: Between-media

Fragmentation because of different media options

Audience fragmentation: Within-media

Fragmentation because of competition within a medium (ex: different channels)

Audience segmentation

Companies intentionally dividing mass audiences into smaller groups based on common traits

Types of market segmentation

Demographic: your features

Geographic: location

Psychological: interests

Behavioral: what you do

Implications of audience fragmentation

• Audiences are extremely active (in their choices)

• Increased quality of program (shows have more chance to attract audience + advertisement)

• Research and data prioritized (to identify audience)

• New media seeks cheaper alternatives

How analytics are used for audience fragmentation and segmentation

Companies use your data/viewing habits to put you into groups

Media and social rules in the domestic sphere

Appropriation: How the a family takes ownership of technology

Objectification: How the tech is arranged within the home

Incorporation: How the tech is used within the home

Conversion: How messages from the tech are spread within the family

Gendered tech within the home

What a man or woman is more likely to own, and who has ‘control’ over what

ex: the man has control over the TV when he gets home from work

Time-space distanciation

Time and space are becoming less relevant with personal devices

How do personalized devices create mobilized privatization

Personal devices let you have control over every aspect of watching which makes it more isolated and individualized.

High holiday

Events where society shuts down to watch coverage of event

• Goes against idea of audience fragmentation, brings together communities

Ritual

Pattern of behavior we engage in commonly

Liminal ritual

Rituals that mark a period of uncertainty as we transition between states (graduation)

• Unites audience and brings change

Media ritual

Ritual where we drop everything and suddenly start a transition (ex: 9/11)

Dylan and Katz’s theory on rituals

Rituals bring audiences together to reflect as community and gives opportunity to figure out how to respond

Couldry’s theory on rituals

Rituals gives those in power an opportunity to establish new dominant narrative (lay new groundwork)

Major players in marketplace of attention

Users

Media

Media measures

Users

Collection of people or distinct groups, drive media decision making

Media

Where content is available, the ease of access creates more competition

Media measures

Shows relation between media and users

Why is attention a valuable resource

Because its limited

Content fatigue

Idea that the audience gets overwhelmed with the amount of data given to them

6 steps to build an audience

Crafting your skill with things others care about

Get involved

Cultivate the audience

Research competition

Become unique

Be consistent

Crafting your skill

Finding common ground with your target audience and introduce them to things more important to you

Getting involved

Interact with relevant existing communities

Cultivating the audience

Create for your people and make a relationship with them

Research the competition

Figure out what your competitors are missing

Becoming unique

Be more interesting than your competitors

Being consistent

Post on a set schedule

Barriers to adopting new tracking tech

Financial restraints

Businesses afraid to invest in new tech (could become irrelevant)

Existing contracts for existing tech

Less initiative to shift to new tech (if old tech benefits company more)

Cross-platform measure

Ways to track your data across multiple media

Lets companies complete picture of the audience they track data of

Biztainment

Combination of entertainment and business

• Advertisers want to engage customers and make the product part of the experience

Cookies

Small programs on a site that tracks your activity on that site

• Measure number of unique devices that visit their site and track activity on the site

Why do companies collect data?

The more data a company collects about you, the more they know your interests/tendencies and can give you ads for products your more likely to buy

Data

The content of the message

Metadata

Information about the content

Encoding

Message creation, shaped by intentional or unintentional decisions made by the sender

Decoding

Audience interpretation of their message, affected by their personal experiences and beliefs

Three types of interpretations

Dominant reading

Oppositional reading

Negotiated reading

Dominant reading

Reader understands message exactly as sender interpreted it

Oppositional reading

Reader rejects message for one of their own making

Negotiated reading

Reader blends its own views with the sender's views

Steps in communication process

Message is created and encoded by the sender → sent through the noise → received by audience → message decoded by audience

Knowledge

What the audience needs to know to have better understanding/perspectiv

Risk

Possibility of audience feeling loss or gain

Four types:

• Functional

• Economic

• Psychological

• Social

Authenticity

Form of truth within the performance

Collective engagement

Audience perception that they’re engage with performers or other parts of the audience

Functional risk

Does the presentation meet audience expectations

Economic risk

Impact of cost on decision making process

Psychological risk

Degree message poses threat to self image of audience

Social risk

Does the performance challenge the audience’s societal role

Ways to measure fandom

Involvement

See who shows up to conventions

‘Fandom’ website - gives fandoms an opportunity to share information

Why study fandom

Because the depth of engagement is becoming more important

Roles of fandom

Create a social community

Protect the canon

Become a consumer activism base

10 types of fan-fiction

Recontextualization - adds short stories or missing scenes

Expanding time line

Refocalization - shift story's focus to minor character

Moral realignment - Invert morality of universe

Genre shifting

Crossovers

Character dislocation - recreate main characters

Personalization - bring fan into story

Emotional intensification - explore psychological motivation of characters

Erotica

Digitalization

Ability to turn all media into binary codes of 1s and 0s

• Allows content to be consistent and shared across all platforms

User-generated content

Content created by users

• Allows the audience to become creators

Participatory culture

The audience is both creators and consumers

How is crowdsourcing related to the audience

The audience plays a part in the creation of content

Fundamental assumptions of literary criticism

Structuralism and semiotics:

Formalism

Psychoanalysis

Reader response

Postmodernism

Critical race theory

Marxism

Feminism

Queer theory

Structuralism and semiotics

Structuralism: The principles of language and how they shape our perceptions

Semiotics: what constitutes the meaning of a word

Formalism

Ignore the sender & receiver and focus only on the text for the meaning

Psychoanalysis

Audience interprets messages based on psychological state

Reader response

Real meaning of text is in audiences interpretation, focuses on audience

Post-modernism

Attempts to prove that language is inherently variable, rejects idea of singular interpretations. Direct attack of structuralism

Critical race theory

Racism is an inherent feature in American life, shows and challenges systemic racism

Marxism

Looking at texts from economic, capitalistic lens to critique capitalism

Feminism

Looks at inequalities between men and women in literature

Queer theory

Challenges fixed ideas on gender + sexuality

Internet of things

Connection of things, other than computers, to the internet

Why is the internet of things important?

Leads to smarter targeting (provides more info)

Supercharges social media (allows you to always be connected)

Assumes you are sender and corporations are the audience

Machines will be able to communicate with you

Data will move quickly and more smoothly with integration