To what extent does attitude targets multiple audiences?

To what extent does attitude targets multiple audiences?

Audience targeting refers to how a producer addresses a particular audience. Every media product will have a target audience, and these should be as specific as possible.

There are two explicit reasons why producers must target a specific audience rather than anyone and everyone:

1. To allow the target audience to identify with, and to engage with the media product. This means that he will hopefully keep buying it, and
2. To sell advertising space to advertisers who will be able to target this audience

It is often said that media products are not in the business of selling a product, they are instead in the business of selling audiences. If a media producer can say to an advertiser "Attitude online's audience are gay men, working-class, aged 25 - 50, aspirational, interested in holidays, fashion and the theatre, and with a larger expendable income than average", then advertisers can use targeted adverts with confidence.

Task - open Attitude Online (you must be very familiar with it by now!)

find specific examples of how Attitude online targets the following audience:

• "Gay men, working-class, aged 25 - 50, aspirational, interested in holidays, fashion and the theatre, and with a larger expendable income than average"

Articles such as "Year of Chicago music: Your guide to the city's music scene" and "Make your valentine's day one to remember at Stoke park, country club and spa" have been used in order to cater for readers who want a luxury lifestyle. The connotations of these articles suggest that the people who read Attitude have a large expendable income because the holidays and retreats they mention all seem to be expensive and would require someone to have a lot of spare money and time in order to take such breaks. 

 As well as this, the producers of Attitude have been able to accommodate may interests of their target audience such as Holidays, fashion and the theatre by having subsections of their website dedicated to Teatre/ Entertainment, Style and Travel. Attitude also uses stereotypes in order to make their website relatable to a wider audience. Examples of this include articles entitled "This week's hottest clothes and accessories" which implies to readers that gay men are particular about their clothing and the way that they look.    

Some of the ways in which Attitude have be able to narrow down the age of their target audience are by including a section of attractive men of the same age bracket. This subsection entitled "Boys" features men such as actor, Danial Craig (52), and singer-songwriter, Shawn Mendes (21). The wide range of good-looking men that are shown on the site have been used because they will attract a wider audience. However, the type of men that are being shown in Attitude all have similar body types (tall, muscular, tattoos, dark hair). This reinforces the stereotype of masculinity and gives readers something that they can aspire to.

Audience theory activity

In order to test your knowledge of audience theory, match the following statements to the following theories.

15 - Media effects - Albert Bandura
16 - Cultivation theory - George Gerbner
17 - Reception theory - Stuart Hall
18 - Fandom - Henry Jenkins
19 - ‘End of audience’ theories - Clay Shirky

• Audiences are likely to be influenced by an ideology after being exposed to it over time
• Audiences can form an intense bond with a media product, and use it to define their life
• Audiences can increasingly 'speak back' to a media product, and are more of a producer than an audience member
• Media products can easily manipulate the ideology of an audience member
• Audiences can choose many different ways to how they respond to the ideology of the producer

The othering of gay audiences and queer readings

Audiences can negotiate with media products in many different ways. Last time, we considered the fact that we live in a heteronormative world, where it is assumed, by and large, that people are heterosexual. This cultivates and normalises heterosexuality as a dominant ideological discourse, while also othering gay people as being different and 'abnormal'.

Below is an LGBT DVD display from FOPP in Covent Garden

What assumptions, messages and ideological values are constructed by placing 'gay' films separate from other films?

Separating "gay films" from other movies could suggest that the gay community are still being seen as "other" and therefore need to be kept in their own section.  

This section includes historical dramas, documentaries, comedies, romance films and hard-hitting dramas. Why are all in the same section? What assumptions does this make about gay audiences?

From the wide range of film genres shown in this display, it can be assumed that stereotypes that say gay people are only interested in feminine film genres are wrong because there are also being sold film genres such as documentaries and comedies.   

If I were to ask you "what is your favourite heterosexual film", how would you answer?

How can we apply postcolonial theory to this display?

Postcolonial theory is a body of thought primarily concerned with accounting for the political, aesthetic, economic, historical, and social impact of European colonial rule around the world in the 18th through the 20th century. This theory can relate to the gradual acceptance of the LGBT community over many years. It is only recently that more people are starting to fully accept members of the LGBT community although there is still a great deal of violence towards these people today.  

Why do we arguably need LGBT sections? 

I do not believe that we need LGBT display sections because this will further segregate the community and make them feel as though they are outsiders. As well as this, some people may not watch the films that are being displayed in the LGBT section because of their prejudice towards gay people.  

Gregg Araki makes fun of heteronormativity in his absolutely incredible post-apocalyptic homoerotic road movie The Doom Generation (1995) by announcing the audience are about to watch "A HETEROSEXUAL MOVIE". It draws attention to the assumptions that we make about films, and how we unwittingly use sexuality as a genre convention. It also indicates the frustration that queer audiences feel by not being represented on screen. 

Many television networks, particularly in America, which tends to be more conservative in its representations, have previously avoided depicting gay characters for fear of upsetting and alienating straight audiences. The 1994 TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, while mainly depicting heterosexual relationships later on depicted a same-sex relationship, and became one of the first network TV shows in America to depict two women kissing. It hardly seems noteworthy now, but Buffy is still talked of fondly by LGBT audiences.

Task - Read the following article, and make notes on how Attitude is targeting its gay audience, and how Buffy is important for queer audiences.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is important to members of the LGBT community because it has featured some storylines linking to the LGBT people such as Buffy "coming out" to her mum as a vampire slayer and the representation of lesbians through the character Willow. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first TV show in America to depict two girls kissing. This is important to the LGBT community because they were finally being represented by a popular TV show. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was labelled "Queer TV" because of its importance to the community and its portrayal of its members.

Attitude has used Buffy the Vampire Slayer to attract audiences because the show played a big part in the lives of many gay people in the late 1990's and early 2000's. However, the article has also been used to show that the storylines shown in Buffy still resonate with viewers to this day. It can also be said that the article has been used to draw interest to the show, allowing younger viewers to experience the same feeling that the original audience for Buffy did in the 1990's.