Ethnographic Audience Theory

            According to the Ethnographic audience theory, the audience our video applies to are, people who use their laptop/computers, Smart phones, game consoles, etc to digest a lot of media online especially via websites which such as YouTube.

            The problem with this is that for the majority of people, the consumption of media using this method is that the quality of picture and sound is lower as they are using much smaller screens on the laptop/desktop computer and smart phone than their main TV as the average phone screen is about 3-4inches and pc monitor is about 17-19” in comparison to a TV average of 32”-40” which is also capable of High Definition and surround sound. This means that it’s easier to have a conversation about it with your friends as you can easily share it via social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, or even comment on the video’s page, this allows the media to hit a much wider audience than previously possible as TV, although as popular as it is has its limitations, because only certain channels are available to certain people, e.g. MTV only being available to sky, which immediately prevents the majority of UK viewers, whereas anybody who has an internet connection be that to their phone or home via an Ethernet cable or a wireless router to their laptops and computers, will be immediately able to access the video by doing a quick search for what they want on a search engine such as Google, as many different websites will host the videos. By forcing the viewers to consume their viewing of media in this way, has limitations as not everybody has access to the internet.

            Technology is playing a much larger part in the viewing and knowledge of a text as we now have a much, much wider access to sources which allow us to consume more knowledge and view more and different types of video as there are sources which can suggest different texts to us depending on our interests, but people who are technology poor are currently finding it more difficult to interact in such away as they won’t be able to access as much as others might be able to as they will miss out on the sources which require technologies such as the internet

            As cultural competence will play a part of the viewing experience, depending on what type of video you produce it may be better for your audience to be more informed as, the more informed an audience are the more critical they are, therefore pushing you to produce better videos or negatively it could create an oppositional reading (McQuail and Katz).

            So as a conclusion our media product has accidently prevented certain audiences from viewing it, as only the technology rich will have access to it. To push this even further, people with good internet connection and speed will benefit more than people with slow internet as, they will be able to view it without having to wait for it to buffer, although this also depends on the quality of the computer or phone, so even more analyse of this means that people with faster/better internet and computer/phones will be able to view it in high definition, without having to wait for it to buffer, meaning that the video is instant on, as it’s reachable without any delay any time to the person wanting to watch it. The dangers of creating a culturally competent audience is that our video then automatically creates an smaller market to aim at as we have a constraint on us, as we aren’t able to put our video on the television as we have a very small and limited budget.