Self: what sort of ambitions or interests might your audience have?
Gender: is your audience mainly male or female, or both?
Age Group: what sort of age group would your main audience be in? Remember that different things appeal to different age groups.
Family: what role they play in the family, parent? Child?
Class: different social classes are seen to have different priorities. You need to target a specific group in order to offer appropriate motives, e.g. save money, look sophisticated etc. the majority of the country are middle or working class. Are you targeting a specific social class group?
Nation: the style and action the country takes
Ethnicity: the ethnic grouping of your audience may play a role in your choice of images/actors and messages. Are your audience members of a particular ethnic group?
Fiske developed Hartley's theory and added another 4 categories:
Religion: Involvement of different beliefs or ideologies
Education: How certain people receive a text based on their level of education
Political Stance - Different groups have different beliefs
Region (urban v rural) - Stereotypical ways of living depending where you come from - Iconography
The American show Homeland targets adults from 20 to 40 as the political thriller is scheduled at 9pm on a Sunday which is a typical time for working class and middle class to sit down and unwind before work Monday morning. The show has become popular in the UK due to the 9/11 terrorist attack, many post 9/11 shows have become popular because the attack really affected many American and some English citizens due to its serious nature. This especially targets the alpha males as they feel its their natural instinct to protect so they can relate to the characters in Homeland. Due to the genre of Homeland it targets people who follow politics and have an understanding of the American government and the different agencies in place to protect the country.
Good research, well done. Try to make stronger connections between the theory and your case studies. Religion could have been an interesting point to consider when thinking about the audience for Homeland.
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