The most obvious form of audience segmentation is with political news channels. CNN, Fox News, etc. all claim they're neutral, but after watching a few minutes of programming, you can tell which side the specific channel is leaning toward. Most forms of media seem to at least lean one direction or another, it appears that no media form is 100% down the middle.
The main problem is that this splits the audience into different categories, and when watching these news programs that issues are "altered" somewhat to create an idea of one side being good and one side being bad. This divides the population. Unfortunately, this has formed, at least in the majority, two sides that seem almost like clones of each other. People watch whichever station is more geared towards their belief system and the information they see conveyed from that station they take as truth. Arguments happen between the two sides, seemingly not because of individual opinion, but because one side believes one thing and the opposite side believes the opposite.
The only time it appears that audience segmentation doesn't truly take place is in times of great tragedy. The U.S. came together during the horrific terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Major news sources just covered the news, they reported on what was going on, there was no political spin put on it. Although the unbiased media wasn't the only reason, in that time the entire nation was unified, hand in hand, as we all attempted to pick each other up.
Audience segmentation isn't all bad. Segmentation allows a program or a source to make its audience happy. It will discuss things that their target audience has an interest in. However, I personally believe the bad far outweighs the good.
Well-considered.
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