Who would be the audience for my media product?

I believe that the primary target audience for my media product would be people between the ages of 15 and 25.

My reasons for believing this are that people in this age bracket are more likely to relate to the themes and issues which my film represents such as drug abuse. Also, the protagonist of my film is 17 years old therefore people between 15 and 25 will be able to relate to his character and situation.

WHO?

WHY?

• According to the British Drug Survey in 2014, most people who start taking drugs are between the ages of 16 and 18. By starting the target audience at age 15, the film may be able to highlight the negatives of drug taking and help to make a positive influence on young people.

• Only 19% of illegal drug users were over 21 when they first took an illegal drug therefore having a target audience above 25 wouldn’t be as effective in relation to how my film targets young people who have either taken drugs themselves or know people who do/have.

RESEARCH AND EVIDENCE

From the British Drug Survey in 2014:

Although the survey shows that the mean age which people stop taking drugs is 26, it is actually at 25 years old that most women who had previously taken drugs will stop taking them. As a result of this, the range of ages for my target audience is between 15 year olds, because that is the age that young people start to become aware of drugs and 25 year olds because that is the age that the majority of people stop taking drugs.

• Another reason why young adults are being targeted as the audience for my film is that it was produced and directed by someone in their age bracket therefore the genre of social realism has been narrowed to match the audiences idea of what ‘realism’ means to them.

• As a result of this and the evidence found in the research from The British Drug Survey, the target audience for my media product is people between the age of 15 and 25.

PRIMARY RESEARCHTo support the evidence from the secondary research I conducted a questionnaire to find out which kind of people would be interested in my own film.http://benharrisasmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/loading.html

I used the information from the research to gain a better understanding of who the audience would be for my social realism film. The results can be seen on the following slides…

What did this tell me?

• From the primary research it was clear that people wanted to see a representation of young people from ‘the noughties' era because most social realism films with a theme of drug abuse are set before the 21st century such as Trainspotting which is set in the 1980s.

Viewing Social Realism

• The primary research also shows that some people do not find social realism easily accessible or do not know who exhibits social realism.

• I found through more secondary research that websites such as; MUBI and theatrical venues such as; Arnolfini are known for exhibiting social realism

• I used this information to include regular users of websites such as MUBI in to my target audience as online streaming is becoming an increasingly popular way to view film.