NEWSPAPERS - MEDIA AUDIENCES
INTRO - APPROX 45 MINUTES
This is an edition of The Media Show which features the editor of The Guardian, Katherine Viner: a must listen for Media Studies students!
- Which political party does Katherine Viner say the paper would be affiliated with, if any?
- She stated that The Guardian has a 'distant' relationship with the government.
- The Guardian is not a labour paper, and if they were attached to any party it would be the Liberals.
- They are a news organisation that has a broad range of perspectives from soft right to the left.
- What word beginning with 'p' does she say is the key to The Guardian?
- Pluralism.
- They don't line up behind parties or individuals, but ideas and policies.
- Their 'reporting should always be fair.'
- How many new supporters have The Guardian gained since March? What could be the reason for this?
- In March, they had 366 million browses around the world.
- Since the start of March they've had more than 200,000 new supporters - their highest monthly numbers 'ever seen'.
- Half of those have started a monthly subscription with The Guardian.
- 'People have a very emotional relationship with The Guardian'
- 'We Need You'
- Audiences read 2.2 billion stories from March
MEDIA AUDIENCE AND NEWS
- The Publishers Audience Measurement Company Ltd (PAMCo) is an organisation run by by the newspaper and periodical publishers and advertisers.
- Their figures for newspapers include such demographic categories as age, gender, class and region.
- News industries use these categories to sell their audiences to advertisers.
Facts and Statistics:
- Approach (ad liking) is 27% higher on newsbrand sites
- 60% of newsbrand readers do not consume any other media at the same time as reading newspapers
- Newsbrand readers are 2.1x more likely to want to find out more after watching a video ad on a newsbrand website
- image-based ads outperform price-based ads
- The newspaper you read explains 71% of the variance in your views. That's far higher than simple demographics such as age (16%) and income (3%).
- Print ads are becoming more effective over time
- Ads on newsbrand sites are 30% more likely to be actually seen
- 85% of respondents: "Seeing a brand or product in newsbrands gives me more confidence that it's right for me".
- Brands using video advertising on newsbrand sites are 2.4x more likely to be considered trustworthy.
SOCIAL CLASS CATEGORIES
These categories can be combined to make the middle and working classes.
| Categories | General Social Class | Proportion of UK Population |
| A, B, C1 | Middle Class | 54% |
| C2, D, E | Working Class | 46% |
CASE STUDY STATS
Data from Sept 2017. Figures are slightly lower now.
| Print Audience | Daily Mail | Guardian |
| Circulation | 1.3 Million | 0.15 Million |
| Readership | 2.9 Million | 0.9 Million |
| % Men | 48 | 51 |
| % Women | 52 | 49 |
| % 15-34 | 10 | 27 |
| % 35-54 | 15 | 30 |
| % 55+ | 75 | 41 |
| % AB Adults | 27 | 62 |
| % C1C2 Adults | 56 | 31 (22% C1) |
| % DE Adults | 17 | 7 |
| % London | 26 | 40 |
| % Midlands | 19 | 17 |
| % South and South East | 15 | 12 |
| % North West | 12 | 11 |
ANALYSIS OF AUDIENCE
These figures clearly show that The Guardian readership is much younger, more upmarket (middle class), much more London based and slightly more male than the Daily Mail readership.
The differences in the audiences for the print newspapers are huge. They are much less for the online editions.
The Mail's Online Audience is, compared to the Guardian's:
- Only very slightly less upmarket
- Only slightly older
- Only slightly more female
- Slightly less London based
INFLUENCE OF CONTEXT
- Social and Cultural Contexts will influence how audience are categorised. Class has become a much less significant predictive factor in how people behave, including which brands they buy, compared to, say, the 1930s. this is due to social and cultural change. This means that, though news industries still sell audiences to advertisers is terms of class, they are more likely to use psychographic categories (categories based on psychological traits, taste and lifestyle, the sort of material Facebook is very useful for analysing). The Guardian, for example, sells its audience profile using the following terms:
- Progressive audience
- Active fashion and tech consumers
- Well traveled
- Finance savvy
- Highly afterwards and well educated
- Engaged, influential and well connected
- With a passion for food, art and culture.
HOW NEWS TARGET AND ADDRESS AUDIENCES
You will need to learn this for Question 1-2 as we do not know which papers you will get!
| Broadsheet Newspapers | The Guardian, Telegraph and Times have a markedly what market audience and more London- based readers. |
| Red Top Tabloids | The Sun and Mirror have markedly down-market audiences and fewer London-based readers. |
| The Guardian | Has the most London-based features but also have a Northwest audience reflecting its Manchester roots–both are strongly Labour supporting areas. It has the youngest audience of all these newspapers and the most female audience of the broadsheets. |
| Daily Mail | Have the most female and the oldies audience of or newspapers, and the most evenly spread readers in terms of social class. |
| Sun | Is the most male newspaper and has the youngest audience of the tabloids. |
| Mirror | Is the most northern newspaper, perhaps reflecting it's working class audience and support for the Labour Party. |
| Daily Telegraph | Now is the oldest audience of the broadsheets. |
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: DAILY MAIL
The contents of newspapers will reflect the social make of all their audiences as the newspapers tries to meet and address that audience.
- For example, the Femail section of the Mail Online addresses its female audience with topics similar to woman's lifestyle magazines. The newspaper reflects its social mix by including both sensationalist celebrity coverage and a fairly detailed business section.
- The travel section attract advertisers aiming at the time rich older audience, with a bias towards adverts for cruises.
- The Mail strongly populist viewpoint, supporting ordinarily people against a hostile world, may address the beliefs of an older, conservative audience with a sense of pessimism or grievance.
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: THE GUARDIAN
The contents of newspapers will reflect the social make of all their audiences as the newspapers tries to meet and address that audience.
- The Guardian attempts to engage and address is ought markets, younger audience by extensive coverage of high culture. For example, the Saturday Guardian include a review section dedicated to literature and a guide supplements which covers opera, classical music, arts, Dan, film and television. No parts of The Guardian are gendered as this was deemed sexist.
- The business section of the Guardian concentrates more on issues affecting consumers than those for investors, perhaps addressing a more left-wing audience.
- The travel section tends to serve the more Independent Traveler, though the Guardian does offer a range of packages to suitably cultural destinations.
- The Guardian website hearts–news, opinion, Sports, culture, lifestyle–suggest that the website is addressing a younger audience by giving the last three bigger prominence than in the print newspaper, but still retaining broadsheet ethos.
- The Guardian’s moralistic, liberal viewpoint may address the beliefs of a younger, more liberal and optimistic audience.
ONLINE MEDIA
- The fact that the websites for The Guardian and Mail Online are so different in style and content, yet fairly similar in terms of audience may court, might lead to the conclusion that:
- These differences in style and content are not so significant as online as they are in print
- The online audience is less loyal to any other one newspaper, possibly arriving at the websites by a click-through from social media feeds.
INFLUENCE OF CONTEXT
- The growth of consumerism, impact of feminism, rise of multiculturalism, changing attitudes to sexuality and political/ historical context all have a strong impact on how news targets and addresses audiences.
TECHNOLOGIES, AUDIENCE CONSUMPTION AND RESPONSE
- The most significant discussion is between the consumption of print and online news. Printed newspapers offer a very different kind of consumption to online newspapers.
- Audiences are more likely to be loyal to a print newspaper so the design may be more strongly affected by what the audience expects.
- Audiences seem to expect less of the quality of news and thoughtful content on the website but expect a higher speed of response by the news organization.
INFLUENCE OF CONTEXT
- Social and cultural context is reflected in the audience's expectations of a fast speed response. This is the worlds we live in now!
- Cultural context of the prestige and respect audiences often give to print newspapers.
Comments
Post a Comment