Samiiras..<3//Weblog;

Theory into practice [Tasks];

Task 1; 

My mother is a receptionist, whom therefore I would say, she is in the working class (C2-D), and my dad is also in the working class. My older sister is in the lower middle class because she is a student at Manchester University. And my little sister is a student at high school. I’m also in the lower middle class because I am a student at college. Having to categorize us all together into one class though, I would say my family is in the working class (C1-D). My neighbours are also in the same class as my family, they are in a working class, because their father works in a shop, and the mother used to be a dinner lady at a primary school, which she doesn’t work as anymore though, because she had a baby.  My best friend is in the Upper middle class or middle class, because his father used to be a very successful business man and so is he himself now. His brother works at a shop though, but because they have many factories and shops of their own, as well as a company, he is a good business man. This therefore makes him be in the upper middle class/middle class (A-B). All Media Industries know what audience they are attracting. Once they do or start something new, they would make a decision straight forward on what type of audience it would attract. This is what we can see through Newspapers and Magazines. The Times and The Guardian are categorized to an audience of the social Grades of ABC1, other newspapers such as The Sun and The Mirror are categorized more into the social grades of C2DE. We know that these newspapers are categorized to that group of people, because;

·        The way the newspaper has been written, the language

·        The way the newspapers has been laid out, pictures, writing format

·        What the advertisements are like in the newspaper, more expensive or cheaper items.

These are just the main ways of which I think you would be able to notify what sort of social group a newspaper can be recognized for, whether its for an ABC1 or C2DE group. As example: A lower class worker, from the C2DE social group, wouldn’t want to read a newspaper which includes advertisement of expensive items such as; a holiday boat, or the newest cars, because they would be able to afford buying it. And an upper middle class worker wouldn’t want to read a newspaper with second-hand items, or news stories and features that don’t appeal to their interests. 

Task 2:

As you can see, on this yachting websites, there are luxury boats, second homes, jets and other expansive luxury items on sale. Most, of which are at a minimum price of $2 Million. So already from how much these boats, jets etc. are, we can see that they are aimed at the upper middle class because they are the ones that could actually afford to buy such things and would be more into them as an interest and as a hobby. This would be because they are wealthier and have enough money to spend it on buying such things, as it fits with their lifestyles.  A lower working class pupil, wouldn’t even think about going onto such a website or looking at such a magazine, because they would know straight away that it would be way to expensive for them and therefore couldn’t buy it anyways.  Advertisers would also only advertise expensive items such as these yachts, if they knew their readers would be able to actually be able to afford to buy one maybe at the end. This is why, you wouldn’t find a yacht, or a jet to buy in a local newspaper, as most local readers wouldn’t be able to afford to buy it. Wealthy people are also more likely to be interested in collecting antiques, yachting, consuming expensive organic food, investing in property and many other activities because of the time and money they have.  But not only wealthy people have hobbies or can afford to enjoy themselves, many men from the C2DE social group enjoy going to watch their favourite football team when they play in a match. Sky Sports as an example would advertise more suitable things to that group of people during the half time and breaks, such as; Drinks and Food. Especially drinks such as Beer, and for food, quick fast food. While they are watching their favourite footballs match on television at home. Also, Radio stations would be talking about football to interest their aimed audience with what they like.  

Task 3:

 As well as there are media products aimed to different people regarding to their lifestyle and wealth. There are different media products aimed at different sexualities, such as Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and homosexual media products are aimed to those sort of people than a magazine for a man or woman that would be straight.  

So, on a Gay Magazine front page would usually see a guy with no top on, as on a magazine that is for men who are straight, you would see just females that are nude. This is because gay men would find the gay man with no top on, on the front page of the Gay magazine more attractive than the nude females on the magazine for a straight man.   Gay Men are obviously having more different interests than a man who is straight, and that is why advertisers advertise different items to the two different sexualities, certain products and lifestyle accessories will appeal to gay audience. There are different Television channels as well as Movies, Books, Music and other media products that are specially advertised to Gay/Lesbian Communities.

Task 4: Where people live or where they come from can have a very big effect on what they think and will interest them. Across the globe there are huge differences in the way people live. Some major issues in some countries may be minor issues in other countries or vice versa.

In local newspapers, you can find out a lot more about what is happening in your local area than in national newspapers. This is because each local newspaper, only tells you about what is happening in your local area (around you), where as national newspaper, tell you what is happening around the country etc.

 

Some national newspaper, you can see in it the contents of the news, things like, what has happened lately around the world, as in the Local newspaper below, you can see that it straight away talks about what has happened in its local area, and doesn’t content news of what happened around the world.

The ‘Salford Advertiser’ local newspaper is different to other local newspapers such as ‘Stockport Express’, because it only talks about its own local area or maybe the areas close to it, and such as Stockport, it would only talk about its own area, and maybe the areas near or close to it.

Task 5: So as you can see now, from the examples and explanations above, every person is categorised into a different group which could be, social-economic status, Interest and lifestyle, sexual orientation, gender, age group and location. This wouldn’t tell us too much about somebody though, as a person might be stereotyped and fit in to a group that they might not personally even belong to, or put themselves in to.  But as an example;  I would put my older sister into a more ‘Asian Female 18+’ group, and I would put my best friend, into a more ‘Asian Male, 18+’ group with an interest in football, cars and a social-economic status of being an upper middle class/middle class.   

Task 6:

 There are many different media products, such as; 

• The Jewish Chronicle

This media product I think would be aimed at to a Jewish audience, as the media product is names ‘Jewish Chronicle’. It is the world’s oldest and most influential Jewish newspaper, the London-based Jewish Chronicle has a 164-year history of editorial independence. 

• The Catholic Herald

This one would be aimed at a Catholic audience, which you can also see by the name of it, it is the Britain’s leading Catholic Newspaper.  

• The Scotsman

This would be audienced to the Scottish population, as you can see it from the name, ‘Scots’man.  

• B4U

This is aimed at an Asian audience, as the name ‘B4U’ stands for Bollywood for you.B4U is the no. 1 Bollywood media product in India. It is also the largest Bollywood product that provides latest and exclusive news, gossips and music. 

• Sunrise Radio

Sunrise Radio is there to service West London’s Asian community. It was the UK’s first 24 hour Asian Radio Station and in fact the first independent 24 hour Asian Radio Station in the World. 

• In Britain

This is a media product that is audienced to anyone around the world, that would want to visit Britain. 

• 1Xtra

This is a media product mainly aimed at young people, it contains all sort of urban music, and is also aimed at all kind of ethnic backgrounds.   

• BBC Asian Network

This is aimed at an Asian Community, as it is named ‘BBC *Asian* Network. BBC Asian Network is a BBC national radio station orientated towards British Asian life, culture and music in the UK and other topics from a British Asian perspective targeting British Asians aged under 35. 

• Pobol Y Cwm

This language might not be recognised by everyone, but it is actually, welsh. Which therefore means, it is aimed at a welsh population.  

• Ebony

This is aimed at an African/Caribbean ethnic background. Ebony magazine is one of the oldest African American magazines and most successful.  

• The Tablet

The Tablet is a weekly Catholic newspaper, published in London, which was founded in 1840. 

• Searchlight

This is a magazine aimed at anyone, it has no special group of ethnic or religious community that it is aiming its magazine at.    Genre There are many different genres in the media. Genre is a set of criteria for a category of composition. The term is often used to categorize a subject to a particular audience.As an example; You have many different types of music, which means, you will have a different type of audience to each type of music. These different types of music, can also be called, different type of genres, as an example, RNB is a type of music, but is also a genre, and rock would be another, as well as jazz, dance etc. The cinemas brings out different movies, so just like in music, each film is categorised into a different genre, such as: comedy, thriller, action, horror, etc. You also can get different genres in movies, books, magazines, websites, etc.Genre is useful for the media producers, as it makes it easier to create a media product for each type of personality than. If they didn’t have the different genres, they would have difficulties to make a media product suitable for every person, whether child or adult, old or young. Having genres though makes it easier, as you could say that this week we are create a media product for children, and next week one for adults that like thriller movies. It is also better for them, because by having genres they can predict a bit of what kind of people would find the created media product attractive. So they would know, for about what size of an audience they are aiming their product at and therefore know how good they would have to make it, to make it popular within that audience. Example; 

If the media product would be only targeted to a small audience, they wouldn’t have to spend that much money on it, as if the audience was larger, this is because the product would still get popular within that small audience even though if didn’t get produced as well as it could have been, but within a larger audience, it wouldn’t get as popular because it would be seen as one of the ‘not so good once’.

 

Genre;

There are many different genres in the media. Genre is a set of criteria for a category of composition. The term is often used to categorize a subject to a particular audience.

As an example;

You have many different types of music, which means, you will have a different type of audience to each type of music. These different types of music, can also be called, different type of genres, as an example, RNB is a type of music, but is also a genre, and rock would be another, as well as jazz, dance etc.

 You also can get different genres in movies, books, magazines, websites, etc.

The cinemas brings out different movies, each film, is categorised into a different genres, such as: comedy, thriller, action, horror, etc.  

Media Studies; 

In today’s Media Industries, the media works towards specific audiences with their different amount of products. The media has broken down the chain of International Media products so much that we now have also National and Local Media products.  Here are some examples of what each International, National and Local Media Products Produce;  

• International Media Products à Films, Music

• National Media Products à Newspapers (they are all around Britain, e.g: The Sun)

• Local Media Products à Channel M, Key 103, BBC Manchester, XFM and free newspapers, such as the: M.E.N.

 The reason for having produced “local free newspapers”, was first thought of being a not so good idea, because they are “free” and therefore not making money, but the Media than had the idea of giving out so many free local newspapers, because they would sell spaces to advertisers to advertise their products to the population, so therefore that would make up the money of giving out free newspaper. And giving a thought to it, there would be many advertisers wanting to advertise their products on this local free newspaper, because so many people would buy it and actually look at it and get attracted to some of the products.  Some programmes are targeted to individual cities even if they are a National Media Programme. e.g: Galaxy. Galaxy is a big Radio Station which is spread out throughout all of the UK though, such as; Birmingham has their own Galaxy Radio Station and so has Manchester and many other cities. All these different products are aimed at different parts of the population.  All of them apart of BBC Manchester are Commercial Media Programmes. The Public Service Broadcasting has been there since the 1920’s à BBC America is totally different to what Britain has done. In America while watching television you would be seeing advertisements every 5minutes at least, known of people who have visited America and than compared it to the British television. So of what we know, Americas television programmes are all very much made of advertisement, where as Britain television programmes are equalised because there are some programmes that have more advertisement than others, but even the once that do, don’t have as much advertisement as you have on American television.  Another way of how television advertises products, is through “Teleshopping” which still only comes on at certain times on certain channels. 

ITV à Commercial Commodity

OFCOM à this is a website where people can give complaints to the producers of television channels, if they find something racist or sexist as example.  

Delivering an audience to advertisers.

Music	Games	Cinemas
Can’t predict the market	Cover the genre’s or Types of Games	Features in common with music industry and games
Many Products	Few Products	More Products than games but uncertain market

  

TV	Radio	Press
Make a variety of programmes in Genre types	(PSB)Make a variety of programmes in genre types	Small number of national Papers (8)
The less successful ones dropped quickly		Magazines à fine tuned to specific Demographic à Attractive to Advertisers

Why is the media so important?; 

It is important to study the media and understand the purposes of it, because it is such a big role in our lifes. The media is with us every day, and is something we live with 24/7. Whatever we might be doing, the media can be included in it. What we see about the world had been shown to us through the media. Everything that goes on around us is been to us through the television, newspaper and other media wise programmes. How we see another country, is also shown to us through the media. Not, everything might be true, but the media is who tells us the mainstreams about what is happening in the countries/cities around us. The media is who we believe and the media is also one of the main processes that make up our opinions and ideas about social problems and about the world. What we also know about the government and the presidents ideas etc. are being told to us through the media. 

Understanding what the media producers think about the audiences;

Once the producers know what sort of audience they are targeting at, they will start to process what they want to do. E.g.; on radios they would look at what age group they are targeting, so once they know which group it is, they would start processing on what they could advertise on their channel, after they have created an audience through their music programming. XFM is a new radio channel which plays indie music, this was first only known in London but we have now got one in Manchester too. S0, advertisers on this channel would therefore focus on different things to sell than what they might sell on Key 103 or Galaxy, since these channels target another group of the audience.

Social Grades and Demographics; 

The NRS social grades are a system of demographic classification used in the United Kingdom. They were originally developed by the National Readership Survey in order to classify readers but are now used by other organisations for wider applications and market research.

 The grades

Grade	Social class	Typical occupation
A	upper middle class	doctor, solicitor, barrister, accountant, company director
B	middle class	teacher, nurse, police officer, probation officer, librarian, middle manager
C1	lower middle class	junior manager, student, clerical/office workers, supervisors
C2	skilled working class	foreman, agricultural worker, plumber, bricklayer
D	working class	manual workers, shop worker, fisherman, apprentices
E	underclass	casual labourers, state pensioners

The grades are often grouped into ABC1 and C2DE and these are taken to equate to middle class and working class respectively.

Demogrphic;

Demographics refers to selected population characteristics as used in government, marketing or opinion research, or the demographic profiles used in such research. Commonly used demographics include race, age, income, disabilities, mobility (in terms of travel time to work or number of vehicles available), educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, and even location. Distributions of values within a demographic variable, and across households, are both of interest, as well as trends over time. Demographics are frequently used in economic and marketing research.

Media Audiences;

A media audience is all those who consume or interact with media products. A target audience may be identified as either mass or mainstream or niche and the product may be marketed to reach that audience; alternatively an audience may be constructed.

Audiences for television fiction;

As the number of broadcast channels has grown, and the new technologies of satellite and cable television have offered even more channels, the measurement of audiences and the competition for audiences has become even more important to broadcasting organisations.

As more channels are available to view, the audience becomes more fragmented although time spent watching television remains about the same. This is what makes broadcasting broadcasting organisations very concerned to capture a significant share of the audience for their own programme, especially if they rely on advertising for funding. Only the BCC is not funded by advertising, but the BBC has to justify its compulsory liscence fee by demonstrating that a significant share of the population is watching its prgroammes. Broadcasters funded by asvertising are especially concerned to capture desireable sectors of the TV audience, like 18-25 year olds for instance who have relatively high disposable incomes which they could spend on the consumer products adcertised on television. Although the average age of ITV’s audience has been increasing for many years, the channel has successfully targeted valuable 10-34 year olds with non-fiction programmes like ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ which gains 42% share of the 18-34 year olds. Chanenel 4 has scheduled a sequence or ’strip’ of comedy programmes one after another on Friday evenings, in the 1990’s and into the 2000’s, like ‘Friends, Frasier, Trigger Happy TV and Whose Line is it Anyways’  has attracted a high proportion of young adult viewers in the A, B and C1 social claseses with these programmes.

The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB);The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board is responsible for providing estimates of the number of people watching television. This includes which channels and programmes are being watched, at what time, and the type of people who are watching at any one time. BARB provides television audience data on a minute-by-minute basis for channels received within the UK. The data is available for reporting nationally and at ITV and BBC regional level and covers all analogue and digital platforms.Viewing estimates are obtained from panels of television owning households representing the viewing behaviour of the 24+ million households within the UK. The panels are selected to be representative of each ITV and BBC region. The service covers viewing within private households only.