- Psychology & Sociology of media
audience
 Audience-A
group of people within hearing;
specifically a group of people listening to a
performance, speech etc. ; the crowd seeing
a stage performance.
 audience analysis-An
audience analysis involves the study of the
pertinent elements defining the makeup and
characteristics of your audience

 Knowing
 age,
your audience—
gender education level, language and
 culture —is the single most important aspect
of developing your speech.
 Analyzing your audience will help
discover information to create a link to
establish common ground between you and
the audience.
 You
want to analyze your audience prior to
your speech so you can create a link between
you, the speaker and the audience during the
speech.
 You want to be able to step inside the minds
of the audience to understand the world
from their perspective. Through this process
you can find common ground with the
audience, which allows you to align your
message with what the audience already
knows or believes.
.
There are very simple methods for
conducting an audience analysis such as
interviewing a small group about
its knowledge or attitudes, or using more
involved methods of
analyzing demographic studies of relevant
segments of the population
 .sociological studies of different age groups
or cultural groups for knowledge.
 use a questionnaire or rating scale to collect
data about basic demographic information
and opinions of your target audience
 Gerbner
(2002) sees a cause-effect
relationship between screen violence and
real-life.
 Orbach (1991) and Wolf (1990) argue that
there is a causal link between representation
of (US) size zero models in magazines and
eating disorders.
.
Culture identifies the ways in which people
live and represent themselves which includes
fashion, sports, architecture, education,
religion and science. It also includes a
society’s mode of communication: the
process of creating symbol systems that
convey information and meaning such as
symbols become culture manufacturing
machines. When we listen to music, read a
book, watch a TV or scan internet, we try to
connect to something or someone. We
interpret it in our way and absorb certain
things in our lifestyle.
 Mass
media are the cultural industries that
produce and distribute cultural products to
large number of people.
 In US in the 1950s, the emergence of TV and
rock and roll generation invited public
debates.
 Ads
tend to glamorize every product and
hence a brand consciousness is part of
today’s culture.
 In 20th century, critics and audiences
established a hierarchy of culture i.e. high
culture and low culture. High culture
includes ballet symphony, art, museums and
classical literature and alike. Low culture
includes soap operas, rock and rap music,
radio, comic books, commercial masala
movies.

Popular mass media like movies, TV, rock music
distracts students from serious literature and
philosophy. It also exploits classic works of
literature and art.

The best example can be Parineeta transformed
into a commercial movie. Today, it is best
remembered as a Vindhu Vinod Chopra’s flim
and not best seller novel by Sarat Chandra
Chattopadhya. Thus mass media creates a movie
buff culture taking audience away from
legendary art and classics.
 Some
talk shows and soap operas have
routinely encourage fighting among family
friends and family members. Some programs
exploit personal problems for commercial
gain and public spectacle. Reality TV shows
like Big Brother (Big Boss) is highly edited
versions of reality as they are too explicit for
TV viewing. This endangers peace
 . Shilpa Shetty – A victim of racist attack
became insult of international cultural group
and it was even discussed in the House of
Commons.
. Multitudes tend to imitate their favorite stars
in every way. They like to copy their dressing
quotient, style and general demeanor. An
example can be of Lage Raho Munna Bhai, that
started a wave of Gandhigiri all over the country.
People started walking on the forgotten path of
Gandhism. It was a revival of a legend who
otherwise had been restricted to just a national
holiday.
 The involving of people to “Vote for Taj”
campaign fostered feelings of patriotism and
nationalism. Every Indian experienced a sense of
pride when Taj was announced as one of the
wonders of the world

 The
expressions such as Development
reporting or Development news were coined
during the early seventies when UNESCO,
UNICEF and UNDP were willing to fund and
encourage a new kind of reporting. The Press
of the west was critical of these agencies. .
 Consequently, the UNESCO formed the
McBride Commission. This commission
organized hearings in developing countries..
The developing nations were slow in learning
that the western media were out to destroy
their social, economic and political canvasses
in stealthy fashion.
 The
progress of development reporting
in India was slow due to the following
reasons:
 The mass media were catering to the needs
of the urban literate readers. The
newspapers & magazines publishers were
developing content for the urban people and
not for the mass markets. Hence, their
content was urban oriented.
 The
journalism training institutes did not pay
attention to the concept of training in
development reporting.
 The corporate publishing sector was driven
by monetary gain. It did not depute
development reporters to cover the news of
development. It also did not start the inhouse training programs to upgrade the
reporting skills and research techniques of its
existing set of reporters.
 Hindustan
Times can be given the credit of
starting the concept of development
reporting in India. Its editor, B G Veghese,
took the initiative in this context.
 The times of India started a feature on
agriculture and appointed an agriculture
correspondent in its Delhioffice. Later, Indian
Express covered news and events related to
environment, economic development and
social conflicts..
 An
organization can withstand both issues
and crises better if they have established
good, long-term relationships with publics
who will be affected from decisions and
behaviors of the organization.
 Organizations
should accept responsibility/be
accountable for a crisis/issue even if it was
not their fault.

At the time of a crisis/issue, an organization
must disclose all that it knows about the crisis or
problem involved. If it does not know what
happened, then it must provide full disclosure
once it has additional information. Provide facts.
 At the time of a crisis, an organization must
consider the public interest to be at least as
important as its own. Public safety, for example,
is at least as important as profits. Therefore the
organization has no choice other than to engage
in true dialogue with publics and to practice
socially responsible behavior when a crisis occurs
[as well as before and after

POSITIVE EFFECTS
 Media provide news and information required by
the people.
 Media can educate the public.
 Media helps a democracy function effectively.
 They inform the public about government
policies and programmes and how these
programmes can be useful to them. This helps
the people voice their feelings and helps the
government to make necessary changes in their
policies or programmes.

 NEGATIVE
EFFECTS
 The traditional culture of a country is
adversely affected by mass media.
 Entertainment has become the main
component of mass media. This affects the
primary objectives of media to inform and
educate the people.
 Media promote violence. Studies have
proved