Research of Institution 2: Bauer Media

Research of Institutions 2: Bauer Media

About Bauer Media

“Bauer Media UK is an entertainment network of iconic, multi-platform brands.

The business became part of the Bauer Media Group, Europe’s largest privately-owned media group, in 2008. Founded in Hamburg in 1875 and now in its fifth generation of family ownership, the Bauer Media Group operates in 19 countries including the UK, Germany, Poland, Australia, New Zealand and the USA and has 11,000 employees worldwide.”

https://www.bauermedia.co.uk/about/our-company

 Analysis of the homepage

In the centre of the homepage we can see an example of cross media convergence, as there is a montage of constantly changing images with the different media forms Bauer produces at the bottom. It is eye-catching and makes the viewer more intrigued as it is quite unique. This would also attract a younger audience. Although the images are constantly changing, the sell line remains there throughout which is very clever because people will always be reminded of the mass audience Bauer Media has, “25 million people” and the multiple brands they own “107 brands”. Therefore, they will believe in its success.

In the bottom right of the constantly moving image, there is a banner that also changes when the image does. This adds information about the image making it easy for the viewer to understand. This makes it very helpful and a positive feature of the website.

The homepage also includes the “latest news” a bit further down. This is all about Bauer and their brands, so it helps the readers to stay updated with what they have been doing and achieving. It is updated constantly so the audience never falls behind. This would make it appeal to a more middle aged audience because they might like to check what is happening with Bauer and their brands.

Conventions

 

At the top of the homepage there are a range of hyperlinks that each take you to a different page providing different information. This is a convention as you would expect this from all websites. It is very useful and helpful because it means that the information is clearly organised and that it is easy for the audience to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Another convention of a website is pictures and Bauer’s website contains lots of these. It has the montage of images on the homepage along with many more on each of the different links. They make it more interesting and exciting which engages the reader as it isn’t just plain and boring. This would interest a younger audience because they tent to need pictures to become interested whereas older adults would manage with just the writing.

The masthead is in the top corner of the website. This is normally the case for all websites, making it a convention. It is useful because you can see what their logo is so you know if you ever see it somewhere that it is Bauer Media.

Genre

The overall genre is entertainment but within this there are sub genres, such as radio, music and fashion etc.

Audience

I think that the audience for this website will be young adults – middle aged adults. I think that the pictures make it more enticing for younger adults, but the amount of good information will attract middle aged adults.

I think that it will also attract people who have started small institutions and are seeking help or advise on what they should do to become as successful as Bauer.

This can be found at the bottom of the homepage and it clearly depicts how they are trying to help people with their brands. It portrays them as being very helpful and friendly.

Also, it would attract job seekers as there are jobs available with Bauer. This is also found at the bottom of the homepage so is easy to access and it is very easy to then apply for a job.

Stuart Halls theory of representation can be applied here as well because Bauer Media are represented on this website as being exciting and quite original. Exciting is represented through the use of bright colours as well as the constant moving image and originality is represented through the use of the unique sections, for example the part where viewers are able to match Bauer’s audience to their brand.