Hoorcollege 9 – 22-11-2017
Chapter 15 – Audience Theory and Research Traditions
Last part of the course focus on recipients.
Four types of audience:
1. People assembled: proximity, location, time
2. People addressed: inscribed audience similar to addressed audience, we have to
go to the sender of communication,
inscribed audience we just have to go to the recipients.
3. Audience as happening: ad hoc/impromptu read out pamphlet etc.
4. Audience as hearing: participatory.
Who is the audience?
Message centred: everyone who wants to be reached.
Sender centred: everyone who is intended to be reached.
Audience centred: everyone who is reached.
Why audience research? Use information to sell advertisements. Get to know your
audience.
Concepts of audience reach:
The available (or potential) audience
The paying audience people that pay for a message
The attentive audience people who block persuasive messages
The internal audience people who actually think about your message
The cumulative audience can be much bigger than the people you reach in the
first try (two-step flow). Everyone who is reached by your message.
The target audience very important, companies are interested in a special group.
Price of advertisement is decided with one of these concepts.
Biocca’s audience activity hierarchy of internalisation:
- Selectivity
- Utilitarianism
- Intentionality some things are done subconsciously, intentionality is not this
- Resistance to influence some things are filtered by people
- Involvement actually taking an action after you read the message (vb. talk about
things with friends, like something on Facebook).
Commercial audience activity hierarchy:
Message offered: 10.000 brochures are created,
Message receivable: 9.000 people have mailboxes,
Message received: 8.000 are received by people,
Message registered: 3.000 are registered by people,
Message internalized: …
Message involvement: 500 people actually do something
, Media vs. Audience
Become important in de 1990’s, most of the money came from advertisements audience
became important REACH.
How do people read the media? Emotionally connected etc.
A lot of people go to bijv. Transformers, so you have to pay a lot of money to advertise in
Transformers. De film was niet zo goed, de score was laag, wat ervoor zorgde dat de prijs
van de advertentie naar beneden ging.
Market vs. Cultural perspective
Market saw audience as consumers, no apparent universal identity, temporary formation.
Cultural perspective saw audience as social group and not as consumers. Being part of an
audience is not as temporary as we thought.
If we are only interested in reach or readership just focus on audience (one
element of basic model of communication)
If you are interested in audience AND sender/message (more than one element of
the basic model of communication) mixed methods.
Three audience research traditions:
1. Structural tradition: Define reach and social composition of audience, needed for
media to sell adds (first tradition, huge amounts of money are concerned with this
tradition).
2. Behavioural tradition: Early research preoccupied with media effects. The audience
was conceptualized as passive recipients. Later research considered the audience as
more active (also started in 1920’s but was less important. Early theories like
Chapter 15 – Audience Theory and Research Traditions
Last part of the course focus on recipients.
Four types of audience:
1. People assembled: proximity, location, time
2. People addressed: inscribed audience similar to addressed audience, we have to
go to the sender of communication,
inscribed audience we just have to go to the recipients.
3. Audience as happening: ad hoc/impromptu read out pamphlet etc.
4. Audience as hearing: participatory.
Who is the audience?
Message centred: everyone who wants to be reached.
Sender centred: everyone who is intended to be reached.
Audience centred: everyone who is reached.
Why audience research? Use information to sell advertisements. Get to know your
audience.
Concepts of audience reach:
The available (or potential) audience
The paying audience people that pay for a message
The attentive audience people who block persuasive messages
The internal audience people who actually think about your message
The cumulative audience can be much bigger than the people you reach in the
first try (two-step flow). Everyone who is reached by your message.
The target audience very important, companies are interested in a special group.
Price of advertisement is decided with one of these concepts.
Biocca’s audience activity hierarchy of internalisation:
- Selectivity
- Utilitarianism
- Intentionality some things are done subconsciously, intentionality is not this
- Resistance to influence some things are filtered by people
- Involvement actually taking an action after you read the message (vb. talk about
things with friends, like something on Facebook).
Commercial audience activity hierarchy:
Message offered: 10.000 brochures are created,
Message receivable: 9.000 people have mailboxes,
Message received: 8.000 are received by people,
Message registered: 3.000 are registered by people,
Message internalized: …
Message involvement: 500 people actually do something
, Media vs. Audience
Become important in de 1990’s, most of the money came from advertisements audience
became important REACH.
How do people read the media? Emotionally connected etc.
A lot of people go to bijv. Transformers, so you have to pay a lot of money to advertise in
Transformers. De film was niet zo goed, de score was laag, wat ervoor zorgde dat de prijs
van de advertentie naar beneden ging.
Market vs. Cultural perspective
Market saw audience as consumers, no apparent universal identity, temporary formation.
Cultural perspective saw audience as social group and not as consumers. Being part of an
audience is not as temporary as we thought.
If we are only interested in reach or readership just focus on audience (one
element of basic model of communication)
If you are interested in audience AND sender/message (more than one element of
the basic model of communication) mixed methods.
Three audience research traditions:
1. Structural tradition: Define reach and social composition of audience, needed for
media to sell adds (first tradition, huge amounts of money are concerned with this
tradition).
2. Behavioural tradition: Early research preoccupied with media effects. The audience
was conceptualized as passive recipients. Later research considered the audience as
more active (also started in 1920’s but was less important. Early theories like
