The book can be found at https://online.vitalsource.com/signin?return=/books
An access will be given after assigning.
The book is Media today: Mass Communication in a converging world 5th edition.
One of the topics covered in Chapter 3 is the idea that media companies work to generate adequate revenue from the
materials they create. In order to do this, they seek to define a specific target audience for their products and then
shape the products so that they’ll be appealing to that audience. However, because their ultimate goal is usually
generating adequate revenue to cover their costs plus an acceptable amount of profit, they think about audiences
differently than audiences think about themselves. This fundamental principle is going to be important all semester long.
This paper allows you to draw on what you’ve learned so far to consider how media companies and marketers think about an
audience you already know well: you. To complete this assignment, you must first research how several different types of
companies define an audience segment that you belong to. There are several ways to do this. Please choose two options
from the list provided below. Don’t skip over this part; the more you learn about how you are seen as an audience the
more you will have to say when it comes to writing your paper.
Then, write an approximately 4-page paper about what you found out about how media and marketing companies characterize
you and compare it to how you see yourself. You should apply the principles and tools of media literacy in your analysis.
Specifically, your paper should do the following:
Include a brief introduction that previews your main points.
Describe which perspectives on you as an audience member that you investigated (that is, which of the options you
selected) and what you found out about how you’re seen and categorized.
Since you know yourself better than these media and marketing companies, evaluate the accuracy and
comprehensiveness of how they portray you. What did they get right? What did they get wrong? What did they miss? That
is, what do you think is important about yourself that these companies don’t know or don’t focus on?
Describe the reasons that these companies focused on particular characteristics of you as a target audience over
others. Do you think knowing this information helps them to meet their goals? If so, how? Also think about the
characteristics of you that they haven’t paid attention to. Why aren’t the companies considering these aspects of who you
are? If they knew this information, would it help the companies to meet their goals or is this information irrelevant to
their purposes?
Provide an evaluation of how successful you think these companies will be in using this information to reach you
as a target audience. If they based their decisions on this information, would they create something that you would
choose to buy or use? In addition, think about how useful this information would be in helping media and marketing
companies to fulfill your wishes for certain types of media content (for example, certain types of television
programming, movies, news, or comic books). If they use this information to decide what content to create, would they be
creating the types of the materials that you want and need, or is there a type of content that you hope for that they
would overlook?
Apply the concepts and theories covered in class to your analysis, and back up your points with details.
Remember, there should be a point to what you are saying.
Make reference to specific class concepts, referring to the book and using proper APA citation style to do so.
This includes attributing direct quotes to the book in the text of your paper, attributing main ideas – even if they are
not direct quotes – to the book in the text of your paper, and including the textbook in a reference or ‘works cited’
list. Instructions on how to do this are found in the “Standards for Acceptable Submission” document on the course
website.
Keep an academic tone throughout the paper.
The paper should have a beginning (the introduction), a middle (the analysis), and an end (the evaluation or
conclusion). It should not be a collection of random thoughts or observations.
Your grade will be based on two basic things. About half of your paper grade is based on how you present your ideas.
Since you are a college student, we expect you to be able to communicate what you mean clearly and to use proper spelling
and grammar. We also expect you to format your paper and cite your sources in a specific way. While you may make an error
or two doing so, if you don’t even try, or use a format other than the one we ask for, you are letting us know you do not
care about our expectations or your grade. Finally, we expect you to organize your ideas in a coherent way. You shouldn’t
repeat yourself unnecessarily or skip around from topic to topic. Each paragraph should be designed to communicate a
specific point. Furthermore, the paragraphs should be should be presented in a logical order and transition sentences
should be used to indicate how they relate to each other.
The rest of the grade is based on the ideas that you present. Specifically, it will be based on the depth of the
understanding you show of class concepts pertaining to audience targeting and segmentation and to other trends in media.
A strong paper will demonstrate to the reader that you have reviewed and understand the concepts about the media that are
presented in the readings and lectures. It will also demonstrate that you can do more than accurately repeat back what
you’ve read or heard. It will show that you can think for yourself and use the concepts to analyze the information media
companies gather and consider the implications of how they put it to use.
This paper should be approximately four pages long, not including the cover page and the works cited list. If you need it
to be a little longer to make your points, that is fine. It should not be significantly shorter. Skipping lines between
paragraphs, having giant margins, or putting your title on every page are obvious and tacky ways of demonstrating you
don’t have anything to say, and should be avoided. Your work should meet the communication department’s “Standards for
Acceptable Submission” document, which is available on the class webpage. Among other things, these standards require all
papers to have a cover page, to be typed in 10 or 12-point font, and to have one-inch margins. Other examples and
specifications can be found in the syllabus. All papers should be carefully spell-checked and proofread.
This assignment should be your own work. Ideas or language from sources (including the textbook) should be cited
properly. This means that direct quotes should be indicated through the use of quotation marks or block quotes. All
sources should be acknowledged within the text of the paper as well as within a works-cited page at the end of the paper.
Papers that contain ideas or prose that are borrowed from other material without proper acknowledgment do not meet the
standards for acceptable submission and will receive a zero. Violation of these standards can also constitute an act of
academic dishonesty. In these cases, a written report of the incident will be forwarded to the Office of Academic
Affairs, which can pursue further action.
How Marketers and Media Companies See You:
The first thing you should do for this assignment is make sure you have done all of the reading assigned up to this point
and have a clear understanding of major concepts found in these chapters, like convergence, audience and channel
fragmentation, audience segmentation, market segmentation, targeting, demographics, psychographics, and how the
advertising industry functions.
Then, please complete at least two of the following activities in order to write your paper.
• Find and read the media kit of a magazine you subscribe to or read regularly. A media kit is the information that
magazines provide to prospective advertisers to try and convince them to place ads in their publication. You can usually
find a publication’s media kit by going to an internet search engine and typing in the name of the magazine (put
quotation marks around it) and “media kit” (also in quotation marks). The kits typically include the number and
demographic characteristics of their readers, as well as any other relevant characteristics that they think are important
to advertisers.
• See how a market research company characterizes your psychographics. There are many market research companies
that provide “categories” of consumers to help companies identify or define a target audience so that they can do a
better job designing messages or products that will appeal to them. One of these is Strategic Business Insights (SBI).
They have developed a category system that sorts people into segments defined by their buying motivations and available
resources. Go to their website, http://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/, read their explanation of the system, and
take the survey to see which category you fall into.
• See how a market research company characterizes the people in your neighborhood. Another market research company
that provides companies with categories of consumers is Nielsen (yes, the same people who do the TV ratings), which has a
system that sorts people into different segments with spiffy names (such as “up-and-comers” or “new empty nesters”). They
analyze how common each segment is within specific geographic areas. Go to their website,
http://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=0&menuOption=home&pageName=Home&filterstate=&sortby=segment_code&pr
evSegID=1027#, and read their explanation of their system. Then click on the link at the top called “ZIP code look-up”
and enter your zip code. Find out which segments are most common within that area and investigate how they are described.
• Find out how online ad networks see you. Online advertising companies often track users’ behavior online in order
to identify their interests and serve them targeted advertisements. In some cases, you can find out what these companies
have inferred about you based on your online behavior. Using the computer that you use to go online most often, go to
Google’s “Ad Preferences Manager,” https://www.google.com/settings/ads. Unless you have previously set up your browser to
delete or refuse cookies or have submitted a “do not track” request, this page should list what they have inferred about
you based on where the browser has been. (If you have refused cookies and there is no information here, then don’t choose
this option!) Read thorough the conclusions they’ve come to. Also read through the information Google presents about how
they gather this information and what they do with it.
• Learn about how targeted advertising works and where they’re gathering information about you. Visit the
AdChoices website, http://www.youradchoices.com/ and browse the various tabs (Learn, Control, Participants, etc.) and
watch the three videos to learn about AdChoices. Consider whether you agree with the benefits of personalized
advertising, and if any concerns about privacy you have are eased by the control this system offers. Think about how
often and where have you noticed this icon in the past. Surf the web as you normally would for a while and see how long
it takes you and where you find the icon. When you do see it, think about what other websites you’ve visited that might
have led them to place this ad on your browsers. Click on the icon and see who placed it and what their reasons are.
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