How do media proffesionals know their audiences?

The media organizations do not "know" their audiences. In the Political Economy Approach, many times when they are vying for viewers, they will use general tactics such as dumbing down content. Culture has shifted know that celebrities many times are important headlines, even when compared to government scandals or other more "intellectual" topics. Media professionals have played into this trend by giving the people what they want. Instead of giving real news, they will provide a story on Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan, and dish out all the celebrity gossip.

The Critical Theory Approach involves providing media to the majority of the local or national population. Professionals find stories which they believe to be interesting to the dominant group, hoping that many of those people will tune into their program. Also, media will many times play to the socially or economically powerful.

The Feminist Approach is based on providing headlines for women. Women have begun to appear more in the newsroom over the past quarter of a century and with that, media professionals try to make the headlines more human interest, or appealing to women to get their viewership.

There are also four codes which media professionals may use to gauge audience interest. The first of these is called the dominant/hegemonic code. If the audience responds positively to a certain story, then the news organizations will begin to put more of those types of stories up. In the professional code, the way the story is portrayed or production techniques used are taken into account. The negotiated code deals with the audience accepting only what they want to accept, usually what is prevalent or of interest to them. Oppositional code looks at how and why the audience responds negatively to a story, and how they can then fix it for future audiences.