Contemporary Chinese Television Audience Demand Study

The thesis is an empirical research on TV audience needs. The research is conducted in two ways. First, it describes the change of TV audience need in the past 30 years through the refined authoritative data which samples TV audience every four years. Second, I conducts primary research on 2000 samples, and learns the diversified demand model in current TV audience. The first part is based on the secondary research, focused on the CHANGE of TV audience need in the past decades. The second part, the focus of the thesis, demonstrates the diversified TV audience demand, including the diversification in demand pursuit, demand hierarchy, demand category and needs guidance.The thesis is constructed on the classical theory in communication theory, "uses and gratification" theory, and the demand hierarchy theory of socialist Abraham Maslow. In detail, the thesis is structured in the following way.The thesis is divided into three parts. Part 1 is explanation. The content includes:Chapter 1 is the beginning of the research, focused on the understanding on audience, TV audience and TV audience demand. It explains why the thesis analyzed the audience from demand perspective and explains the background and the approach of the research.Chapter 2 analyzes the change in TV audience needs from 1980s, and addresses the possible reasons leading to the change, based on the four national TV audience research conducted by CCTV in 1987, 1992, 1997 and 2002 respectively.Part 2 is primary research, which includes:Chapter 1 is the theoretical basis, design, approach and steps of the primary research, including questionnaire design, sampling design, research structure and hypothesis.Chapter 2 is the empirical research on TV audience needs intensity and pursuit, including TV dependence intensity and TV demand pursuit difference across different social class.Chapter 3 is the empirical research on needs hierarchy of TV audience. It constructs a model on the hierarchy needs, and addresses behavior feature of different hierarchy demand. Chapter 4 is the empirical research on TV needs categories. It includes the preference feature on news and entertainment program, and describes the ideal feature of news and entertainment programs from audience point of view.Chapter 5 is empirical research on TV audience demand guidance. It includes the demand guidance of TV service providers, guidance of medium discourse right, guidance of information intermediate and the assessment of audience on guidance. The research generalizes the audience's assessment on social responsibility of TV, and reflects the true demand guidance welcome by audience.Part 3 is a discussion, which includes:Chapter 1 is the thinking on the significant problems found in the primary research, and describes the some misunderstanding on TV audience demand.Chapter 2 is the summary of contribution and limits of the research, and brings forward some suggestion on the future research.