Essay on media institutions

Discuss the issues raised by the institutions needs to target specific audiences within a media industry which you have studied


The first issue that is raised by the media institutions is audience its self. This is an issue as the media institution has to find the correct audience that the film is tailored to and then market the film to them appropriately. This can be difficult as if the film is marketed wrong then the film will flop as the wrong people will be informed of the film and the people who would watch the film will be insufficiently informed. An extreme example of this is to not market the next saw film on TV on a Saturday mornings, as all the children watch TV at that time, and all the people what would be interested in the trailer are probably hung over in bed. This would then result in fewer people knowing bout the film and thus less people watching the film as they do not know about it, and so the film will make less money. The first step in this is to correctly identify the target audience and then market the film appropriately.

The issue of target audience is also important in the creation of a film, if a film sticks to a certain type of audience then they are more likely to sell the film to that audience, so the wider the audience targeted then the better the film will sell better, for example in the UK Wallace and Gromit sells very well as it targets everyone, it entertains old to young, unlike Ali G, which has a 18-30 niche. Now because Wallace and Gromit has a larger target audience then the chances are that if it is a good film then it will sell better, as there are more people that will buy it. This also applies to age certificates; there is no point in having a film that is aimed at 14 year olds ending up with a 15 certificate. This also applies to the size of audiences; a film given a 18 will have a smaller audience

Another issue raised by the institutions is actually creating the media text for the specific audience, which is an overlap with the above paragraph. The institution must be careful to keep the film on the target audience as if it is marketed for teenagers, but ends up being aimed at 20+ then the film will not do as well as it has a slightly childish undertone to it.

A key issue is also the distribution of the film. The institution has to decide how the film will be distributed; will it be released in other languages? Will it be released in cinema multiplexes? Or will it go straight to DVD? And then when it comes to DVD release how will it be released? Through a distribution company like InDVD, or will the film producers use a more famous distributor? The distribution is an important issue that is raised by the British film industry. An example of this through a film called Yasmin the producer was Film 4 and I believe that they got the distribution completely wrong, they only released the film in small overseas cinemas and on the film 4 channel, the film was then released to DVD using InDVD as a distribution company the film never sold well because no one could get hold of the DVD or go to a cinema and see it. This resulted in the film being a flop. This can be avoided by using cinemas as a platform to get your film in the media spotlight and also to use more famous and well connected film distribution companies this will result in better DVD sales and hopefully the film will then not be a flop.

The media institution must also use the correct technologies to distribute their media texts an example of this is BLU-RAY films these are high definition films that run in 1080p (screen resolution) and so have a high visual and also it allows the film to be played in fully uncompressed 7.1 surround sound this technology is expensive and so the films brought out in BLU-RAY should be chosen carefully, for example a drama would benefit little from being in HD yet a Pixar film like WALL-E benefits massively as it is computer generated animation. An example of the British film industry using this technology is through freesat. This is free satellite TV which can support HD the BBC is using this and now many of its programs can also be viewed in HD this targets the more ‘tech savvy’. Another form of media is now also through 3G technology, for example on the iphone this is being utilized by game developers targeting wide audiences of commuters by creating games for the iphone. I believe that this technology could also be used to distribute phone magazines to the commuting audience. A way in which British film could improve the viewership is by putting their films on LOVEFILM.com which is an online film rental website. This would increase the viewership of the film and then the audience for the film comes to that film as it will be listed under the certain genre and also in specific lists i.e. action/adventure or family films. Another way for the British film makers to target the specific audiences is to use something like the BBC iplayer and for a fee the audience could gain online access to all the films made by that company.

Another view of the film producers using technology to facilitate a more accurate targeting of their audience is to use market research tools i.e internet viewer trackers to see what kind of people are watching the films i.e. on YouTube they can see how many people are watching the trailer, but they can also find out where that person lives, how old they are and what gender the person is. This information could then be used to market the film to the more specific audience. This tracking also occurs with Tesco club cards, LOVEFILM subscriptions and the 4OD catch-up service. The company could gather all this information and use it to refine what audience to market to.

An issue also raised by the media institutions is the audience strategies in facilitation or challenging institutions’ practices. Firstly audiences can facilitate the British film industry by watching the films, through the different distribution channels for example on TV, from blockbuster or on the internet (legally) this is the audience facilitating the media institutions products. Other strategies include having a love film subscription or buying the DVD this is also reflected in other media institution such as magazines which also often have a tie in website to allow the audience to access the magazine in a different way. The main industry that is challenged by the audience is the gaming industry. This is where the community is taken very seriously by the developers, and often the developers will changes aspects of the game if there is a massive community outcry. And example of this is before Battlefield Bad company was released the developers announced that extra weapons would be available as payed downloadable content, but after a massive community outcry through gaming websites calling for a boycott of the DLC (downloadable content) and all the fans of the series spamming the DICE forums Dice actually changed the game so you could unlock these weapons. The gaming industry is hugely influenced by the audience challenging the institutions that create the games and without that the institutions would not be as successful because the reviews of the games would be bad and so the sales of the game will be far lower than if it was getting ‘rave’ reviews but this is also because Games are far more expensive than films at £40 each the audience want to invest in an enjoyable game and with the audience input this is more easily achieved. The challenging is mainly done on the internet and on the official developer’s site, mainly on forums and this is why all the film companies cannot be challenged: the audience does not know what they are getting from a film before they watch it or they will give away the plot. This results in audience challenging being done through the press i.e. the daily mail and not a community as a whole. Film makers only really have the viewership numbers and critic reviews to gauge the audience’s reaction on.

In conclusion there are many issues brought up by the media institutions need to target specific audiences and there are some specific things that need to be done to achieve the right targeting of the right audiences. For example creating the text for a specific audience, then using technology to finds out a more refined idea of the audience and then marketing appropriately subsequently the institution needs to distribute the text appropriately. And then if the institution meets the criteria then the film should not flop.

Scrabble controversy

Recently there has been a large complain launched by parents buying their children scrabble on the DS on the grounds that it contains offensive language. The Daily mail jumped on this, like every other outrageous game related topic they can find. They use an example of the game having the word tit in it; this apparently is considered offensive to the children even though the word tit also means a small garden bird. The scrabble dictionary as many avid scrabble players know is rather extensive covering all words, why do parents not realise the children will be children, and if you give them a bunch of letters to play around wit the first thing they will do is see how rude they can make a sentence I remember playing scrabble for this reason entirely and; laughing my head off as I laid down some childish words, who hasn’t done something like this?. Countless angry parents have since written in to the daily mail about how the game developers can have the audacity to include words like balls tit and other mildly rude words. It’s not like the Ai is spelling c*%$ or f?@* continually. Another gripe brought up by the wonderful daily mail readership is 18 rated games a lady wrote in to say that she had bought her child an 18 rated game and was disgraced that the characters swore in it.
how protective do parents need to be, is this too far? why does the daily mail hate games?

Podcast

yesterday tom Arch and I recorded our first podcast, at the moment we are having a few problems with bouncing the audi file and also finding a site that will host the file, but hopefully it will be sorted by the end of the week.

filming update

Today my group filmed more of our coursework, we now have the beginning and the end of the opening to the film. The clips are in the process of being digitalized, and after what will hopefully be our final filming session tomorrow we can ged town to some editing.