This document provides guidance on essay structure for responding to exam questions about targeting specific audiences within a media industry. It includes: 1) Example opening and closing paragraphs that introduce challenges facing the magazine industry from changes in media consumption and technology. 2) Guidance on discussing issues like prosumers, user-generated content, mass versus niche audiences, convergence, synergy, advertising revenue, printing, and production in relation to targeting audiences. 3) An example exam question to analyze how a media institution targets audiences and a framework for structuring an essay on this topic.

1. Essay Structure
L.O.1-To create an opening and closing
paragraph for section B of the exam
L.O.2-To develop understanding of how
to respond to past exam questions

2. Opening Paragraph
• Begin with a clear argument about the new challenges facing the
magazine industry incorporating how much audience consumption has
changed due to digital technology/new media technologies/the
development of the internet (Web 2.0)
• You must state what area of the media industry you have studied – this
can be embedded within your paragraph or state it obviously.
• “Technology is shifting power away from editor’s, the publishers, the
establishment, the media elite, now its the people who are taking control”
(Murdoch, 2006)

3. Example Paragraphs
• “In recent times the media industry has witnessed meteoric rise in new
technologies. The advancement of the internet, for example, as it entered its
second phase (web 2.0) enables consumers to access media in new and
unparalleled ways. For the magazine industry, this has presented both
challenges and opportunities.” (taken from exemplar essay)
• The magazine institution Future PLC describes prosumers as “enthusiasts
who’s passion for their hobby makes them more like professional consumers”
(Future PLC, 2010)
• The media landscape has changed dramatically over the last decade due to
advancements of digital technology, and this has directly impacted on media
institutions, both the way in which they construct and produce their media
texts as well as the form in which to present them. Consumers are now more
powerful than ever before and magazines such as NME (IPC Media) and Metal
Hammer (Future PLC) have had to respond to the new emerging needs and
demands of their audiences in order to survive; “Technology is shifting power
away from editor’s, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite, now its
the people who are taking control” (Murdoch, 2006).

4. Closing Paragraph
• Draw all of essay together in one sentence,
refer back to opening paragraph
• What is the Future of the magazine industry?
• Personal insight/opinion

5. Example Paragraphs
• Overall techno convergence is important as consumers needs alter and change
but for the magazine industry to survive they must make any technological
advancements not a replacement for the hard copy of the magazine as Future
have so far successfully done. As online advertising reached 18% for future it
is important. (taken from exemplar essay)
• We are now living in exponential times (M. Wesch, 2008) and the use and
potential of Web 2.0 is unknown. The way in which media texts are produced
by everyday ‘average’ humans and the ways in which this travels around the
globe must impact on the magazine industry and media industries alike. Will
magazines survive? In my opinion they will; they have proven they can adapt
successfully within this changing climate but the extra content offered to
consumers via convergences in technology, could replace the magazine itself.
They may well survive and continue to evolve but their use, construction and
media form in which they exist will inevitably change.

6. Exam Question
• QU - Discuss the issues raised by an
institution’s need to target specific
audiences within a media industry which
you have studied
• Using your own words, Reword this question
• What is this question actually asking you to
discuss?
• In pairs make a list of the issues you could discuss

7. Essay Structure
• Introduction
• Prosumers, UGC, Uses and Gratifications theory*
• Mass Vs Niche – loyalty, audience behaviour and
audience targeting
• Convergence
• Synergy
• Advertising revenue and targeting
• Printing
• Production and printing
• Future

8. *Example of Application of Uses and
Gratifications Theory
• This online community adds to the experience
as users can interact with like-minded
people, voting in polls such as “who has the
best slipknot mask?”
(MetalHammer.co.uk), giving users the sense
that they are contributing to a community
(Uses and Gratifications theory, 1974). They
are also educated and entertained (Use and
Gratifications, 1974) with video
exclusives, Metallica Live