Understanding How Media Audiences Respond To Media Products
A personal insight about the way audiences responded to each commercial backed up by theories, debates and responses.
Opinions vary a lot from one person to another and not every person shares the same likes, dislikes and interests. Not all media audiences respond to media products in the same way, for example; not everyone who sees an advertisement promoting a particular product will want to buy it. Media audiences can respond passively or actively towards a media product. When there is a passive consumption of a media product, it is said that all of the audience respond in the same way to what they are being told by the media. On the other hand, if individual members of an audience respond in different ways depending on their opinions, experiences, and personalities, this will be an active consumption of the media product.
In order to discover how different types of people react to advertisements promoting similar products, I carried out a questionnaire asking questions about two chosen commercials, one promoting a mobile phone designed for the elderly, and the other one promoting an iPhone. My audience was composed of seven males and eight females of different age groups ranging from sixteen to sixty-six years old. The age of the person plays an important role in advertisements too. In fact, when people answered the question of which advert is the most effective, six people said that it was the first commercial and nine people said that it was the second commercial. Now when we take a look at the ages, we discover that these are reflected by the answers as there are approximately four people who are of nearly an old age. They might have found it effective because it is a product designed especially for people of their age and over, and then might see the other product as confusing. On the other hand, the other nine people who liked the second advert are of a younger age and this might reflect their answer.
In the past, the audience response to media products was based on the Hypodermic Needle Model Theory. This is based on a passive consumption, where we see that what media producers ‘inject’ into the audience, will be the audience’s response. Nowadays, this is not so, and we can see this especially from advertising. The answers that I got from my questionnaire reflect the Uses and Gratification Theory. This theory is based on the active consumption of the audience, where individuals are independent thinkers who respond in different ways to media products depending on their experience, values and understanding of the audio-visual product. All the people who responded to the questionnaire gave different answers according to their opinions and other factors mentioned before. When I asked if the separate commercials were appealing to them, some said yes and some said no, and I can point out that who didn’t like the second commercial, liked the first one and vice versa. The reasons that I got for these answers were that the adverts were either too simple or else there was too much information, some said that they were interesting and entertaining, and most of all, because they had a clear message. The audience responded that they also liked the fact that the real features of the promoted products were shown and explained well.
A media product can sometimes bring up a debate as an audience response to the product in question, which can cause a widespread concern, especially is too violent that not everyone can be exposed to it. Audiences are easily influenced by the content presented by the media, that sometimes there will be a need for censorship. In the case of my two chosen adverts, this was not the case as they are both of a G rating.
My audience seems to have understood the two adverts that I presented to them in the questionnaire and I can deduct this from their responses. They have understood all the signs in the commercials and interpreted them differently according to their personal opinions to come up with their own understanding of the commercials. They have also pointed out certain similarities and differences between the two advertisements. Overall, I can figure out that the second advert was the most favourite advert from the two, with comments of it being more professionally made, interesting and entertaining, especially for people of a younger age. The responses of people from different genders, age groups, and life situations were different. It is true that different media audiences respond differently to media products.
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