Social Stratification

Social Stratification

The A B C1 C2 D E is very much an economic form of dividing society up (this is referred to by social scientists as Social Stratification)

There many other ways to stratify the audience

Gender, Age, Ethnicity, Lifestyle, Sexuality, to name but a few.

Using the information above we can see there is a balance of power between Producers and Audiences. Producers cannot survive without audiences but in truth they raise more revenue from advertising than they do from selling their magazines to the public. Therefore they will always be more concerned with producing what the Advertiser wants than they will with what the audience.

 Institution                                        Content                               Audience
Who produces the text.              What it looks like                  Who buys it and why
                                          Forms and conventions
                                          Representation

For example if Maria Claire starting producing articles about laboratories testing cosmetics on animals, their advertisers would soon let them know they didn’t like the content regardless of what the audience thought. Editors simple would run an article like that for fear of losing advertisers. This happens in all platforms; TV, Newspapers etc.