GROUP POST - Audience research

These are some statistics for different parts of the digital music sales in 2013. Audience theorist Julian McDougall (2009) said; "In the online age it is getting harder to conceive a media audience as a stable, identifiable group. Many argue that an audience is just a hypothetical group of people imagined for the sole purpose of having a target audience." I agree with this statement, when people buy albums online you don't know their age, gender, class, lifestyle etc. People on the internet are completely anonymous which makes online audience research very difficult indeed. Although this bar chart does show that 13 - 24 year olds download the most music, which does fit because they have the most knowledge of technology and the ability to download whichever music appeals to them. Another audience theorist, Katz (1965), said that the audience get out what they want by purchasing what they choose and it fulfils their needs and no-ones else; this suggests that the media is used to fulfil specific gratifications.