TV News: Audience

Audience: notes

Uses and Gratifications (Blumler and Katz)

Researchers Blumler and Katz suggest that media audiences are active and make choices about the way they consume media.

They suggested there are four main uses or gratifications (pleasures) that audiences get from the media.

Diversion: escapism or entertainment.

Personal Relationships: using the media for emotional interaction (e.g. developing affection for characters on TV)

Personal Identity: finding ourselves reflected in texts or learning behaviour and values from the media.

Surveillance: Information useful for living (e.g. news, weather, traffic news etc.)

Audience revision: Demographics

Demographic classification:

• Age
• Gender
• Education
• Social class
• Race/ethnicity
• Job/profession/earnings
• Home (city/village/countryside)

Planning a TV news running order: blog task

1) Name the TV news programme you created a running order for in this morning's lesson.

2) List the five stories you chose and explain why you chose each one.

3) Use the Uses and Gratifications theory to explain why ONE of the stories appeals to the target audience for that programme.

4) Now choose one of the other TV news programmes we have focused on and choose a five-story running order for that programme. The four TV news progammes are:

• Channel 4 News
• BBC News at Six
• BBC3 60 Second News
• BBC Newsround

The available stories are:

• A tweet by Miley Cyrus telling a fan to ‘get a life’ has started a ‘Twitter storm’.
• Israel has shelled a residential area of Gaza killing around 25 civilians.
• Gunfire has been reported on the streets of Moscow although no there are no details as yet regarding who has opened fire or why.
• A well-known politician has been named on Twitter as being investigated by police for fraud.
• Cheryl Cole has announced she is pregnant.
• David Cameron’s office has announced he will be visiting Washington next week to meet President Obama.
• An anti-austerity march against government cuts has been held in London today and was attended by 50,000 people. The protest was calm.
• A new series of BBC drama Sherlock achieved record viewing figures last night.
• Lady Gaga is in London and has been spotted jogging in Hyde Park.
• A woman has been convicted of murdering her husband. He was a wealthy banker and she a stay-at-home mum.
• Two prisoners convicted of armed robbery have escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in West London.
• 20 people were killed in 15 different road accidents over the previous weekend.

5) Explain why those stories fit the target audience for the programme you have chosen.

Complete this for homework if you don't get it completed during the lesson - due next Tuesday.