Segmentation, Targeting and Address
Explain how industries categorise, construct, attract, reach and address mass, niche and specialised audiences.
How to study A-level Media Studies
Start from precise product evidence, apply the relevant framework and theory, connect context and industry to meaning and reception, then reach a qualified judgement.
Core concepts
Concept 1
Audience categories may use demographics, social class, lifestyle, taste, identity, behaviour and cultural capital.
Exam cue: Identify the segmentation evidence rather than guessing from personal taste.
Concept 2
Targeting connects product design, representation, marketing, distribution and platform choice to an imagined audience.
Exam cue: Trace how a product feature and circulation strategy work together to target an audience.
Concept 3
The addressed audience is a construction within the product and may differ from measured or actual users.
Exam cue: Distinguish intended, addressed, reached and actual audiences.
Targeted study blocks
Transferable common core
Learn the framework across every route
Connect segmentation to product design, marketing and distribution while treating audience categories as industrial constructions open to critique.
Apply to assigned products
Keep the current set-product route whole
Use current audience and marketing evidence for assigned products where available, and separate industry claims from independent audience measurement.
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Describing audiences as passive demographic blocks.
Guardrail: Do not import a set product, episode, edition, platform feature or NEA brief from another board or assessment series.
Claiming a target audience from one colour, image or stereotype.
Guardrail: Do not import a set product, episode, edition, platform feature or NEA brief from another board or assessment series.
Confusing a large audience with an undifferentiated mass audience.
Guardrail: Do not import a set product, episode, edition, platform feature or NEA brief from another board or assessment series.
Memory anchors
Demographic
A demographic category groups audiences through measurable social characteristics.
Psychographic
A psychographic category groups audiences through lifestyle, values, attitudes or taste.
Target audience
A target audience is the group a producer or industry deliberately seeks to reach.
Address
Audience address is the way a product speaks to and constructs an implied audience.
Cultural capital
Cultural capital is socially valued knowledge, taste and competence that can shape media use.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
A-level media audiences: In media strategy, what is a target audience?
A-level media audiences: What is a demographic category?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
Continue learning
Move forward only after this module is stable.
What is Pass Harbor?
Completely free exam prep for 247 UK exams.
- Practice questions
- Flashcards
- Study guides
- Mock exams
- No registration
- No paywall
- Start instantly
“No more expensive exam prep. Quality study tools should be accessible to everyone.”