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Audience
A media audience may be as small as one person reading a magazine or as large as billions of people around the world watching events, like 9/11, unfold live on television.
Audiences have a complex relationship with the products they consume.
Media producers intend audiences to read their product in a certain way, yet for many reasons, audience members read and enjoy a product differently.
Sometimes media audiences engage with different types of media at any one time such as listening to an iPod, watching TV, or chatting on the internet. Likewise, they might engage at different levels – for example, the television may be turned on as a family eats dinner.
Producers, broadcasters, and advertisers organise media consumers into groups based on such things as age, gender, income, and so on. These groups are made up of target consumers.
Because most media products are produced for profit, producers and advertisers are more likely to consider their target consumers' audience, especially those groups with spending power.
Related achievement standard
In an NCEA course students study targeting and identification techniques and the relationship between audiences and products.
Students also analyse the wider implications of those relationships.
Level 1
Standard 90996 1.8 – Write media texts for a specific target audience
Standard 91255 2.8 – Write developed media text for a specific target audience