Audience profiling
This is what all media institutions need to do before launching a new product (in my case a documentary). When they do define their audience they need to consider key factors;
Age, Gender, Race and sexuality, education, occupation, annual income and disposal income, these are known as 'demographics'. Not only those but they need to be consider the current lifestyle, culture, media interests, buying habits and loyalty to brands.
A method of audience profiling would be SES (Socio-economics Status), this is where the population (adult) are defined by what they do. There are 6 groups;
Group A: Higher management - Bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals
Group B: Middle management - teachers and graphic designers
Group C1: Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses - white collar
Group C2: Skilled manual workers - Plumbers, builders - blue collar
Group D: Semi-skilled & unskilled manual workers
Group E: Unemployed, students, pensioners, causal workers.
Group C2: Skilled manual workers - Plumbers, builders - blue collar
Group D: Semi-skilled & unskilled manual workers
Group E: Unemployed, students, pensioners, causal workers.
Quantitative research (TV viewing figures)
Sampling techniques where the findings are shown numerically and the researcher are able to estimate future events or quantities for their samples which they investigated. This method allows media producers to see the figures of TV viewings. For example; www.barb.co.uk is a site where you can view the highest figures of TV channels. Purposely I feel that this is not a good site to find the documentaries defined audience as it may show which documentaries are trending however, it doesn't show whether what age, race or gender they are. People like different things and if they were a different age, race or gender this can effect the research.
On the other hand, the bright side of this is that the researchers are able to find what the peak times are for channels/programmes of documentaries this can help with defining their audience.
Qualitative research
This research is where a small number of individuals from the audience produces different insights to the attitude and feedback about the media product. The researchers don't only receive the audiences opinion but they also find out why they think that. It helps the researchers understand the motivation and feelings to why they think that. This research can be done through face-to-face interviews, surveys or focus groups. I believe this is very useful towards the documentaries as it goes into detail with what the audience are looking for and it helps carefully define the audience for the media producers.
Psycho-graphics
These are similar to demographics, however these deal with the audience's behavior and personality rather than focusing on what work they do. The psycho-graphics explain why they do what they do, whereas demographics describes the audience.
The chart for the psycho-graphics:
Main-streamers: Seek Security: domestic, conformist, conventional and sentimental.
Aspirers: Seek status: materialistic, acquisitive, orientated image and appearance. Younger people & sales jobs.
Succeeders: Seek control: Strong goals, confidence, work ethic and organised. Higher management, professionals.
Resigned: Seeks survival: Right & authoritarian values. Interested in the past & tradition. Older people.
Explorers: Seek discovery: energy, individualism & experience. Younger demographic students.
Strugglers: Seeks escape: Dis-organised, alienated, few physical skills. Buys alcohol, junk food, lottery tickets. D & E Demographics.
Reformers: Seeks enlightenment: Freedom of restrictions & personal growth. Independent judgement, anti-materialistic but aware of good taste. Higher education and selects products for quality.
This is a good chart to use to define an audience for a documentary as it is more detailed and can offer a larger audience for the media producers to work with as they know why they do the jobs that they do instead of categorising them into larger groups, this narrows it down.
Age & Gender
This is an important part for defining audiences for a new media product. Before continuing to do Qualitative,Quantitative, Demographics, Psycho-graphics and SES research the media producers would need to decide on a age and gender they are aiming to focus on.
Types of Documentaries:
There are 6 different types of documentaries, Docusoaps, Reality TV, Fly on the Wall, self reflective, Docudrama and Fully Narrated.
Docusoap is a hybrid genre which is observational on the events going on in the programme. It's a documentary series which follows individual/groups of people. It started in the 90's and was popular because the audience liked the idea as they followed a real soap opera. They follow a central protagonist which enables the audience to know the character. An example would be Big Fat Gypsy Wedding (The trailer below)
Reality TV is fatual TV and it progressed through 1989 - 1999. It includes useful information in a form of 'entertainment'. The programmes would include authentic material which contains serious information using a camcorder, obsevation, surveillance and commentary. An example would be COPS, a clip below shows some shots for what it is like.
Fly on the Wall is where the camera is based on 'the wall' but the people within the programme ignore it, like its not there. The most well known TV show like this is Big Brother a short clip is shown below.
Self Reflective is where the camera follows person/group around however, they know its there.
Docudrama is a reconstruction of events that have already happened. An example would be 'I didn't know I was pregnant' a clip shown below.
Fully Narrated is narrated all the way through the the documentary. For example, Human Planet. This is used to convey the exposition and dominate what they see.
http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/market-research/what-is-quantitative-research-
http://www.slideshare.net/Kelly_1991/documentary-structure
http://www.slideshare.net/mattwako/how-media-producers-define-their-target-audience-19065036
http://www.slideshare.net/TaylorSykesSmith/types-of-documentaries
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