Buy essay on TV audience

Television is a mirror of reality, looking at which the viewer makes certain knowledge about the world. It not only reflects but also creates a new reality: the processes taking place on television is inextricably linked with the processes happening in the society.
Television, as a social phenomenon, harmoniously combines technological advances, journalism and art. By its very nature it is emotional, ubiquitous and pervasive, it has peculiar features of improvisation and spontaneity.
The actuality of work is determined by the important role played by television in modern society, influencing the social environment and life of every human being on the first and most important level, the structure of an information system, which affects the formation of the world information space.
The work touches the topic of television audience, which is provided with an opportunity to make a wide range of media selections. The mass media, especially in an era of a rapid rate of media saturation, is not homogeneous in structure and quality of contents of programmes. So the audience makes decisions between a gossip program and an elite news program, between various television stations in a locality or among various contents in a medium.
The discussion firstly addresses approaches that propose the media is a powerful force which has ‘effects’ on people’s behaviour, and moves on to consider perspectives which suggest individuals use media to satisfy psychological and social needs, thereby attributing audiences a more active role. This approach to the study of the media behaviour of individuals (audience) is known as the Uses and Gratification Research, which posits that people bend the media to their needs more readily than the media overpower them. The ‘effects’ model and ‘uses and gratifications’ model in relation to audience are also discussed in the paper.

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The concept of TV audience
The notion of audience in all its simplicity and clarity, can be filled with different content and meaning, depending on the theoretical concept. At different periods of studying mass communication and audience researchers gave divergent meanings of the term.
The audience is a collection of people perceiving together a message or a spectacle, and the mass audience –is the phenomenon of recent time. Mass audience is characterized by heterogeneity, dispersal and significant size, as well as indirect and more individualized perception of messages. The audience became a mass in the full sense of the word in the late 19th – early 20th century, when scientific and technological progress has brought entirely new opportunities of reproduction of printed materials and information transmission over a distance to large groups of people. In the mid 20th century television became the central media, collecting the biggest audience. (Kent, 1994)
The commercialization of television in Europe, the emergence of a large number of channels in the U.S. and Europe, the spread of new technologies of TV signal (cable, satellite) and new technologies of television viewing (VCRs, remote controls) – that are the processes that have made the main contribution to the change in television and audience.
The analysis of patterns of program choice by viewers based on certain factors constitutes another area of profound research interest in the entire uses and gratifications studies. The mediating factors include demographic and psychographic variables, availability of viewers for programs they prefer, the viewer’s environment and the scheduling patterns of television stations.
There are 4 typical models of behavior of audience near the screen, depending on sex and age of the audience.
1. The “traditional” type consists of viewers who prefer to watch television attentively and do not constantly switching between channels (39% of all viewers; this type of practice is typical for viewers over 55 years).
2. “Male” type consists of spectators that combine concentrated viewing and frequent switching of channels (12%, men young and middle age).
3. The “female” type of audience is practicing continuous background watching (26% od audience, middle-aged women, especially housewives).
4. “Youth” type is formed by the audience, combining the background watching with the constant switching of channels (20%; viewers young and middle age). (McQuail, 1997)
Of all these, there have emerged two dominant perspectives on program choice. The one is premised on the uses and gratifications approach – the assumption that “program choice is a rational action motivated by expectancy of gratification. In other words, program selection is influenced by program contents which best satisfy specific needs. The other is model of choice in which individual choice is influenced by available program content.
Based on their analysis, researchers define 3 “dynamic” factors which either individually or co-jointly determined media use and non-use. These are:
a) Traditional structural factors – those which arose from the Individual’s location within the social structure and which were generally beyond his control (for example, income, age, and education).
b) Transitional factors – those which arose from the individual’s life cycle changes such as marital status, parental status, residence etc. Those whose pattern of media use were not influenced by structural changes (a) above might be affected by transitional variables.
c) Self-imposed factors – these were residing in the individual’s personality, relating in particular to his interest or apathy in the services offered by the mass media.
It is also necessary to analyze the typological groups of viewers and their content preferences ( under “the content preferences” is understood preference to certain television channels and certain genres). This typology consists of the following types:
1. “Consumers of news” (15%) are watching mostly news programs.
2. “Sports Lovers” (9%) showing increased interest in sports programs. In addition, they watch non-entertainment programs, socio-political, criminal chronicles, local soap operas, and comedy programs.
3. “The audience of male-dominated programs” (10%) prefer criminal news, programs on historical themes, documentaries, socio-political programs. They usually spend a lot of time watching television.
4. “Traditionalists” (16%) who watch mostly the central channels of the country and city.
5. “Fans of television series and entertainment programs” (9%) watch mostly domestic soap operas, comedy and music programs, game shows.
6. “Proponents of TV” (7%), who are watching almost any programs on all channels, and are quite satisfied with modern television.
7. Audience of Network channels. (5%)
8. “Uninterested” (24%) who do not have preferences and watch television less than an average TV audience.( McQuail, 1997)