Audience

How do people make sense of and give meaning to cultural products?

Targeting an audience

Movie companies aim different films and artists at different audiences. They do research to help them find out what people want to see and how to market their film and other promotional material.

How?

Researchers use:

·         Surveys

·         Polls

·         Focus groups

·         Questionnaires

And more commonly:

·         Blogs

·         Social networking tools

To share ideas, films and images and gain feedback.

They also talk to people!

Researchers may set up test screenings to gouge audience reaction to a film – you can’t exactly do this but you can gouge ideas, get initial reactions and show your plans to people and see what they think.

When an audience consumes a product they bring many things with them. For example:

·         Upbringing

·         Education

·         Lifestyle

·         Emotions

·         Culture

·         Knowledge

·         Attitudes

·         Expectations

Possible questions to ask:

·         Age?

·         Gender?

·         Hobbies?

·         Living?

·         Favourite movie genre?

·         Where they live?

·         Favourite music genre?

·         What videos have they seen?

·         Favourite book genre?

What we need to find out?

·         Identify who are target audience is

·         Identify what they want and expect in the opening moments of a film

·         Ask about previous successful films

·         Careful about personal questions