Target Audience Research.

Audience research is vital in the film industry. This is because without an audience, a film company will make no sales, and therefore no money. Because of this, it's very important that an audience reacts well to a film and that ideally a lot of people go to view it in cinemas.

It's also important to research audience so that's it's clear who the film produced is aimed at. Producers need a target audience so that they can create something that is going to attract those people to go and watch it, preferably the biggest target audience possible.

Audiences are usually categorized using their demographics which are the different characteristics of people. People can be categorized by things such as:

• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Religion
• Income

Social class is another way of categorizing audiences and the different classes go from A-E:

• A - Upper Middle.
• B - Middle.
• C1 - Lower Middle.
• C2 - Skilled Working.
• D - Working.
• E - Lower Class / Students (People receiving no income).

After looking at different theory's regarding the media's relationship with audience, I have thought about which I think best explain's this relationship.

In my opinion, the Hyperdermic Needle theory best explains media's relationship. From examples of this theory put to work, most notably that of Orson Well's 1938 radio performance of 'War of the World's' (which was taken as being completely real by many), I know that audience rely on media for information and have a relationship in which audience are dependent on media. This can be proven from the fact that people instantly believe Well's performance even though it wasn't real. This tell us audience follow the word of the media and look up it as a source of information and knowledge. Surveillance seems to be the main use of media, especially from the reaction to the 'War of the World' performance because people want and expect to find out what's going on in the world from the media.

Though I believe 'surveillance' to be the main use of the media as a whole, there are other reasons people choose to use it, such as:

• Personal identity - When you see a celebrity in the newspapers and on TV, some people often compare themselves to those people. For instance, making comparison's between style.
• Diversion - Diverting yourself from the real world, this may be to relax and forget stress or simply for fun.
• Personal Relationship - Often, the media is always a good way to interact with others because there's always something to talk about. For instance, upcoming movies, new music ect..