Attitude - Audience

Question 1

How does Attitude attract and maintain audiences?

Answer 1

• Condensing text, chunking it into small blocks.
• Emboldening, sub headers and white space to layout text for easy consumption.
• Stories are written in an active narrative voice to create energy.
• Journalistic pieces also use lede intros to quickly engage readers, providing who, what, where summaries of story content to generate narrative energy.
• List articles and bullet points for readers who want to scan and select information rather than read it sequentially.
• Landing pages use elliptical headers, omitting words to faciliatate fast read speeds.
• High image to text ratios
• Lots of white space and short paragraphing to creat reader friendly spaces.
• Teaser headlines operate as clickbait links
• Story content is dominanted by salacious headlines, celebrity gossip and suggestions of exclusivity to drive readers into the guts of their sites.
• Stories are ordered by release date, ensuring audiences know content is constantly uploaded.

Question 2

Psychographics

Answer 2

• Lifecycle position: Bachelor/married, Even though the product is aimed at a mature audience, the lack of space given to family based topics is suggestive of the lifestyle of a gay audience who, stereotypically, are less likely to have children. Competitions feature luxury breaks for couples as prizes for instance.
• Activities and interests: Gay culture, fashion, film, travel, fitness, The product is zoned according to the reader activities and interests. The emphasis placed on entertainment as a core leisure activity for the audience is given prominence through the ordering of the website’s menu options. The editoral mix consists of soft news stories dominated by celebrity led content with some harder issues covered to engage the ‘reformer’ psychographic group.
• Psychometric grouping: Reformer/aspirer, Some narratives are political, generating commerntary on social issues- mostly LGBT orienated but also including material that deals with homelessness, voting rights and women’s rights etc. Come stories might be classified as old-fashion ‘campaign’ based journalism - Journalism that tries to effect social change. The magazine simultaneously constructs a very aspirational feel - the style section is satured with references to premium fashion brands, is firmly concerned with looking good, material acquisition and brand awareness, whilst the travel section highlights ‘boutique’ hotel options at the expense of budget travel.

Question 3

Gender

Answer 3

• Male
  How:
• Factual writing style (stereotypically, men don’t read as much as women.)
• High image to text ratio
• Short paragraphing
• Lots of statistics used in articles
• A lack of emotional content deployed in stories.

Question 4

Age range

Answer 4

• 26-55
  How:
• Heavy use of Facebook and Twitter as supporting/satellite social media which are primary sites used by this age group.
• Celebrity culture referenced to engage an audience who grew up with the mass media of the late 20th century.
• Use of celebrity ;ed stories featuring stars who the target audience grew up with.
• Lots of retro culture stories looking back at the 1990s
• Inclusion of political stories, perhaps also indicative of a mature audience.
• The ‘real bodies’ regular feature, use of mature men and the various real life health issues they face - a further reflection of the older readership of the product.
• Lack of audience feedback, a younger audience would expect to have feedback mechanisms featured more heavily.
• The connections to the print version are foregrounded- perhaps to give authority to the site through its connection to a traditional media parent.
• Format of the web product emulates that of its print parent to create audience recognition.
• Articles featuring some celebrities would be more familiar with. (aged 26+, e.g. Kit Connor, Ncuti Gatwa - Netflix stars, younger demographic.)

Question 5

Socio-economic group

Answer 5

• ABC1
  How:
• Partnerships and sponsorships have been built with companies who advertise premium products on the website e.g. Jaguar, Calvin Klein,
• Language is very formal and complex - extended language deployed, mostly written in standard English, to mirror middle class values and educational background of an ABC1 demographic.
• Relatable activities for this demographic are incorporated into narratives and competitions to create connections with the target audience, e.g. Theatre visits, arts and cultural events, premium restaurants and five star holidaying).
• Stories often aimed at a graduate/professional readership through direct reference to ABC1 professions e.g. Teachers, managers, designers, etc.

Question 6

Relevant Theory: Stuart Hall - Reception Theory

Answer 6

• States that media texts are encoded by producers then decoded by audiences.
• Different spectators will decode the text the text in separate ways.
  IN ATTITUDE:
• Preferred reading: Audiences accept the producers attempt to integrate gay culture into the media and are supportive of messages encoded in articles which raise issue such as: Homophobia, transphobia, etc. These audience are mostly likely part of the targetted demographic/psychographic of the online magazine.
• Negotiated reading: Audience may agree with the websites dissent against homophobia and hatecrimes but feel uncomfortable by the websites abudance of salacious content which promotes gay culture, e.g. Top and Bottoming, premium sex toys. This audience could also be female or non-male who relate to the issues highlighted by the articles on homophobia and coming out but not the salacious content promoted for gay men only.
• Oppositional reading: Traditional, non-liberal audience who dissagrees with the promotion of gay culture. Additionally, straight, female audiences who cannot relate to any of the website’s content are turned away.

Question 7

Relevant Theory: Clay Shirky - End of Audiences

Answer 7

• Audience members as passive consumers of mass media content is no longer possible in the age of the Internet. Media consumers have become prosumers who ‘speak back to’ the media in various ways, creating and sharing content with one another.
  In ATTITUDE:
  -

Question 8

Description of audience by Attitude

Answer 8

• Dynamic
• Affluent
• Proffesional
• Financially prosperous
• Spending power
• Trendsetter
• Highly loyal
• Premium fashion
• Grooming
• Luxury goods

Question 9

Relevant Theory: George Gerbner - Cultivation Theory

Answer 9

• Suggests heavy television exposure will have influence on our perception of the world.
• The media tends to repeat representations of people which influences overall perception of the group represented.
• The cultivation theory of Media grows dominant ideologies of mainstream media.
  In ATTITUDE:
• Website attempts to cultivate a new gay male identity which combats old stereotypes of gay men, merging the stereotype of gay men as sexual and promiscuous (e.g. Images anchoring headlines of articles featuring men scatily dressed and posing seductivally in alluring positions. Features of the male body, such as the abs, bisceps etc are prominent wihin the images) and humanising them (articles that feature storie s about coming out, homophobic attacks and personal experiences.
• Repeated exposure to these representations leads to the audiences percieving gay men in the manner the online magazine has portrayed them as media texts have the power to shift the way audiences view the reality around them.