Media Audiences | OCR A-Level Media Studies (H409)

Media Audiences

235 questions
16 subtopics
The media theoretical framework, examined on both papers
Component 01 and Component 02

Media Audiences is examined in both written papers — the four areas of the theoretical framework and the contexts run through every section of the course, and are applied to whichever set products a centre has chosen.

It covers demographics, social grade and audience profiling, psychographics, lifestyle and taste categories, targeting, mode of address and the constructed audience, marketing, distribution and circulation as routes to the audience, mass and specialised audiences, nationally and globally, niche and fan audiences and their value to media organisations, media technologies and changing patterns of consumption, uses and gratifications, identity and cultural capital, the effects tradition, the hypodermic model and moral panics, bandura, social learning and media modelling, gerbner, cultivation and mean world syndrome, hall, encoding, decoding and the three reader positions, jenkins, textual poaching and participatory culture, shirky, the end of audience and cognitive surplus, different readings and their social, cultural and historical circumstances and user-generated content, citizen journalism and the audience as producer.

Sample questions from Media Audiences

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

Demographics, social grade and audience profiling

Define the social grades C1 and C2.

Show the answer
C1 covers supervisory, clerical and junior managerial workers, and C2 covers skilled manual workers.
Targeting, mode of address and the constructed audience

What is audience positioning?

Show the answer
Audience positioning is the arrangement of a product's elements so that the audience is encouraged to see events from a particular viewpoint and share the attitude it carries.
Mass and specialised audiences, nationally and globally

Explain why online distribution favours specialised audiences.

Show the answer
Holding an extra title costs almost nothing when there is no stock to store, so minority interests can be served profitably even though each one attracts few people.
Media technologies and changing patterns of consumption

Define on-demand consumption.

Show the answer
On-demand consumption is the audience selecting what to watch and when from a library that is permanently available.
The effects tradition, the hypodermic model and moral panics

Who is an opinion leader?

Show the answer
An opinion leader is a person whose judgement is trusted within a social group, so that their reading of a media message shapes how the rest of the group receives it.
Gerbner, cultivation and mean world syndrome

Explain why heavy viewing is said to produce mean world syndrome.

Show the answer
Television shows violence and crime far more often than they occur in life, so a viewer who draws heavily on it estimates the risk around them from the screen rather than from their own experience.
Jenkins, textual poaching and participatory culture

What is collective intelligence?

Show the answer
Collective intelligence is the knowledge a community assembles by pooling what each member knows, so that the group knows far more than any individual within it.
Different readings and their social, cultural and historical circumstances

Why can a product that was mainstream when made read as offensive to a later audience?

Show the answer
Attitudes to gender, race and sexuality have changed, so assumptions the product treated as too obvious to state have become visible and are no longer shared.

The 16 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Demographics, social grade and audience profiling	Recall questions on demographics and target audiences, the National Readership Survey social grades from A to E and the ABC1 grouping, media packs and advertising rates, ratings data, and the audience sold as a commodity.	13
Psychographics, lifestyle and taste categories	Recall questions on psychographics and how they differ from demographics, the Mainstreamer, Aspirer, Succeeder, Explorer, Reformer, Resigned and Struggler of the 4Cs typology, taste cultures, and the weaknesses of lifestyle categories.	13
Targeting, mode of address and the constructed audience	Recall questions on mode of address and direct address, interpellation and audience positioning, inclusive language and brand identity, how a product constructs its audience, and the audience as described by ratings and analytics.	13
Marketing, distribution and circulation as routes to the audience	Recall questions on distribution and circulation, teaser campaigns and trailers, synergy and cross-media promotion, viral and influencer marketing, release windows and day-and-date release, targeted digital advertising and exclusive content.	14
Mass and specialised audiences, nationally and globally	Recall questions on mass and specialised audiences, narrowcasting and the long tail, public service obligations to minorities, diaspora audiences, geo-blocking and glocalisation, travelling formats, and subtitled drama on streaming services.	15
Niche and fan audiences and their value to media organisations	Recall questions on niche audiences and fandom, how fans generate revenue and market a product unpaid, brand loyalty, cult texts, hidden details for close viewers, fan feedback as research, and why retention matters to subscription services.	13
Media technologies and changing patterns of consumption	Recall questions on convergence and smartphones, time-shifting, on-demand viewing and binge-watching, second screening and live hashtags, algorithmic recommendation, filter bubbles and echo chambers, consumption data and podcasting.	14
Uses and gratifications, identity and cultural capital	Recall questions on the uses and gratifications approach, Blumler and Katz's diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance, criticisms of the approach, cultural and subcultural capital, and media consumption as identity work.	15
The effects tradition, the hypodermic model and moral panics	Recall questions on the hypodermic needle model, desensitisation and catharsis, two-step flow and opinion leaders, reinforcement, agenda setting, moral panics, folk devils and deviancy amplification, and Gauntlett's critique of the effects model.	15
Bandura, social learning and media modelling	Recall questions on Bandura's social learning theory, observational learning and its four processes, vicarious reinforcement, the Bobo doll study and its criticisms, direct and socially mediated pathways of influence, and copycat violence.	16
Gerbner, cultivation and mean world syndrome	Recall questions on Gerbner's cultivation theory, content analysis and heavy viewers, mean world syndrome, mainstreaming and resonance, first-order and second-order effects, how it differs from the hypodermic model, and its criticisms.	16
Hall, encoding, decoding and the three reader positions	Recall questions on Stuart Hall's encoding and decoding model, preferred meaning, the dominant-hegemonic, negotiated and oppositional positions applied to advertising and news, Morley's audience study, and the criticisms of the model.	17
Jenkins, textual poaching and participatory culture	Recall questions on Jenkins's textual poaching and its debt to de Certeau, participatory culture, collective intelligence and fan wikis, convergence as a cultural process, transmedia storytelling, spreadable media, fan fiction, and the criticisms of his account.	16
Shirky, the end of audience and cognitive surplus	Recall questions on Shirky's end of audience argument, filter then publish and publish then filter, mass amateurisation and its four motivations, cognitive surplus and Wikipedia, and the challenges of participation inequality, the digital divide and Curran and Seaton.	16
Different readings and their social, cultural and historical circumstances	Recall questions on interpretive communities, how class, culture, generation and nation shape readings, why older products can read as offensive, reading historically, aberrant readings and satire, audience testing, and the limits of media power.	14
User-generated content, citizen journalism and the audience as producer	Recall questions on user-generated content and prosumers, the strengths and weaknesses of citizen journalism, weakened gatekeeping and verification, crowdsourcing, live audience participation, hashtag activism, and independent creators' reliance on platforms.	15

Media Audiences is 235 of the 1,986 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £7

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.