Being a fan has changed over the years, again from more of a old fashion of viewing to an interactive experience. This has happened because there are outlets for audiences to express their fandom, there are things fans are able to do, such as create fan made scenes, and outlets were fans are able to be participatory, like using "#" on twitter to talk about the latest episode of the walking dead etc.
so, a term used to describe this is "Dominic"which is a spimatic fan
Spin- changing paradigms thinking of fan engagement
fan viewership as a form of participatory culture.
The idea is ( learned from lecture) that if you have a picture, say of yourself at the school hockey game, and you post it on your Facebook, the Spim continues after the image, it gets a life of its own, because other people can send it, look at it, hashtag it "#" etc.
The new idea with interactive audiences is where the power lays, with the consumer or with the producer.
Which is an interesting and complex idea, and there are arguments for both sides
for the (consumer)
- we choose what we watch
- how we watch it
- what we "spim" of content, our fan culture, ( websites we make, blogs we right)
- what we hashtag and in turn what is a popular hashtag ( the idea from the article)
- we can fight the producers on whether or not we are happy with an ending or love interest
for example, when the ending of " How i meet your mother "aired fans were not happy and the producers changed the ending.
Signs of a revolution? video games altering endings ( world of warcraft ) Youtube without infrastructure - the idea that anyone can post a video of themselves say singing and get noticed ( like Justin Bieber did) unlike American idol where judges decide who has the talent.
book uses ( amazon, smash words)
The 2 key aspects - User generated content, create store and distribute content.
however the argument made that the power lays in the hands of the (producer)
- they choose how the story is written, and then produced
- they can help suggest hashtags for discussion
-they make the ultimate decisions, like the end of the video games, they choose that.
- and youtube can take something down if they don't like it
in seminar we discussed that the idea that the consumer has the power is how it was previously viewed however it is more common now to understand that the producer actually holds the power. which correlates with he idea from the article that the corporations holds the power not the audiences.
The article also discusses a type of agenda setting, how over twitter how certain events like paris can have a more content more of a presence over other tragedies, the corporations chooses that not audiences.
Firstly, lets define terms surrounding media fandom and audience subcultures Builds upon the idea of audience interpretation and decoding theories, and explores the ways in which media audiences use their interpretive power to actively subvert, distort, and even reimagine mainstream media content to suit their own needs and desires. Media Fandom is a broad, poorly-defined term for a segment of fandom which is generally interested in TV shows and movies as its primary focus, and which encourages creative fan works. exploring how fan communities extend their interactions with media texts logging on to discussion on the internet, collecting artifacts associated with their media interests, and even by participating in fan conventions and other related social activities. A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the larger culture to which it belongs. Are you a fan ? you might consider yourself a fan of a tv show, a sports team, a particular book or a popular music group. Fans have been studied over the years, and have been portrayed in movies many times, mostly however fans are visualized in a negative way, and feminized. This is because fans were associated were gross distortions of their attitudes and behaviours, for example, media fans are often portrayed as brainless consumers, willing to buy anything with a logo or image of their favourite media program or star.Jenkins (from the textbook) also discovered that media fans were often tragged as social misfits, intellecutally immature and femiinized. Think about it you see this,
and everything you read above is true, her behaviours over reacted, she's crazy, and who would do this over "one direction"
however you see this and you think his actions are justified.
Interestingly enough theorists have looked into this idea of fandom in the social aspect, which is the idea that people may watch shows, so they can fit into social groups, or conversations.
In seminar and in lecture we talked about this in a sense of gaming, how you can online game with a group of people and how this is an example of modern fanning. This is a modern form because its due to technology that its possible for fans to engage with each other and the text in such a way. The text explains that previous to this,fanzines were present. Fanzines were produced by fans and were typically magazines or newsletters which would be mailed out to "fans".
And then there is Fan fiction which is popular, when fans comment on shows, movies etc. and do alternate endings, or romance relationships, so that they are happy. In Seminar it was presented that tumblr is huge for this, and many fans of the show "super natural" have re created whole episodes to change the ending, to suit the needs of themselves the fans.
My own example, is because i was once such a twilight fan , how fan fiction took off to create a twilight world were the two main male leads, Edward and Jacob actually have a love interest. Of course it was interesting to see how through the movies, the producers allowed for scenes to be taking as such to allow fans todo this fandom.
Ultimately audience interpretations of media focuses on fan cultures, unlike casual audiences of popular media fans, invest extraordinary amounts of time and interpretive energy in their media consumption. in doing so they blur the traditional boundary between media producers and audiences.
The idea of how your reception and attention, changes your way of viewing media ?
IN the textbook theres an activity that asks you to draw a sketch of you room, and where you view your media.
which allows for there to be discussion, if you have a television in your room, is it mounted on the wall? is it in the centre of the room, and allow engagement with others, or do you use your laptop on your bed, which is independent and disallow for visitors.
these questions, lead to the main question, if your in your dorm room watching lost alone, apposed to in a common room for example watching alone, with friends, how does your viewing change ?
and in seminar we came up with many different ways in which our viewing habits change,
we mentioned how if we are alone and something is funny, we wont laugh, but if we are in s group we will laugh.
we also discussed how you could be distracted in your dorm, such as on your phone, not really paying attention to what your watching.
which in the textbook is explained as the " reception spaces are partially defined and the relationships that are found are there"
Which is the idea of space and time, Space and time:
contextual aspects of media, the specific environments in which media consumption occurs
Time
how and when we engage with media at specific moments during the day our daily routines. Whether it be listening to the radio in your car, watching a rerun of television show. We fit media into our busy schedule whether it be by filling in gaps with media usage when we are tired, bored or having nothing to do.
The history of the television is interesting when talking about family and communication. In the early 1950s the television was marketed as an object to bring families together, families would come together and watch the night programs before bed. Television became a generated space within the home, and televisions were found in every living room.
We see the introduction in the television We see the introduction in the television sparked profound shifts in the organization of living spaces in American homes and distributed existing family communication patterns by introducing a new vocal point for family attention and activity in a domestic environment
Main space for understanding media reception – our out look on life and sense of self, particularly as a child and adolescent is profoundly shaped by the people who inhibit this personal space.
Our media choices and interpretations can be shaped by our intimate social and physical environment.
this idea of the transformation of the living space, from the beginning when tvs were introduced in the home, to being a space were families could gather, to a modern living space were the tv is the centre of the living space.
the article Ledbetter, A. (2010). Family communication patterns
and communication competence as of online
communication attitude: Evaluating a dual pathway
model.
Grounded in both Koerner and Fitzpatrick’s (2002a) generalized family communication theory and Bandura’s (1977) social cognitive theory, structural equation modeling tests a model whereby family communication patterns act as both direct and indirect (i.e., via communication competence) predictors.
do you have a younger sibling- their relationship with technology and your family ?
my mom use to monitor my man time, would tell me an hour a day was enough and it was time to go outside, or come hangout with the family. o remember my mom reading over my shoulder. and talking with my friends parents are msn chats.
i use to have to call my parents from the friends house phone when i got there.
now my younger siblings are complexity reversed, my brother has to go outside for at least an hour a day but can the rest of his time, playing video games, on his phone watching YouTube clips,
and my sister has to text my mom when she arrives someplace
we talked in lecture about the dynamics of technology in the home and how it was negotiated, or if it was an on going battle.
we all we asked to talk with a neighbor about how are family dynamics are, my partner and I discussed how after school the “kids” would get the television to watch after school programs, my mom would make dinner and my dad would be getting home from work, after dinner the ‘family” would watch tv together, and the program was usually game shows, because it was suitable for the whole family, we watched a lot of wheel of fortune. and then After 8 it was “adult” TV time so it was my siblings bed time, and my parents watched their recordings or shows they've been waiting all week to watch like the new survivor.
in the textbook this is explained by audience scholar Sonia Livingstone, by interviewing and surveying children from 6-17 she found in her results that. Tv has become less of a social experience in which others can participate at the same time, that there has been a gradual shift from children's leisure time spent outside, to that spent primarily at home, on reflecting and shaping cultural conceptions of childhood over the past half century.
In lecture we discussed “social” capital which is the ability for social interaction regarding media platforms. So if you didn't go see the new James bond film on opening weekend this past weekend, you would have low social capital in this conversation, because you don't know what’s happening.
online self disclosure as tendency to prefer self disclosure in online contexts
Previous research indicates that some prefer self disclosing online versus face-to-face (Ho & McLeod, 2008) and that poor social skill may motivate this tendency (McKenna et al., 2002). Caplan’s (2007) program of research further demonstrates that attraction to the perceived interactional safety of online communication provokes avoidance of offline communication and thus generates “a growing neglect of offline professional, social, and personal responsibilities that result in negative consequences” http://www.buzzfeed.com/laraparker/insane-catfish-stories-that-will-make-you-want-to-delete#.arlNJPbgm (#5)
Today its more normal to meet online, and get to know a person online before meeting them face-to-face like traditional means, heres an example, of a negative to a high online self disclosure.
online social connection (OSC), facilitates healthier relational outcomes. Scholars have long recognized that online communication serves to maintain both local and long distance relationships (Baym, Zhang, & Lin, 2004; Quan-Haase, Wellman, Witte, & Hampton, 2002)Ledbetter’s (2009b) instrument measures tendency to use online communication to maintain social network ties, with OSC positively predicting relational close- ness indirectly via Facebook communication (Ledbetter, Mazer, DeGroot, Mao, Meyer, & Swafford, 2009). Thus, OSC may foster the creation and maintenance of online social networks which, in turn, builds social capital (Ellison, Steinfeld, & Lampe, 2007).
in this interview, they state that meeting online is more common, and that it leads to better relationships and longer marriages.
First, conversation orientation addresses “the degree to which families create a climate in which all family members are encouraged to participate in unrestrained interaction about a wide array of topics”
can you talk to your whole family about everything, or just your mom about school, your dads about sports, and your sister about gossip
low conversation orientation families discourage talk and open expression of emotion, whereas high conversation orientation promotes mutual family discussion and decision- making. Second, conformity orientation addresses “the degree to which family communication stresses a climate of homogeneity of attitudes, values, and beliefs”
social cognitive theory
Social cognitive theory (SCT), used in psychology, education, and communication, holds that portions of an individual's knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences.
Schrodt and his colleagues posit that children learn communication skill, in part, by observing and actively modeling parental communication behavior. To the extent that high conversation orientation families engage in both everyday and serious conversation, children in such families might learn to communicate competently; relatedly, to the extent that high conformity orientation suppresses discussion of high-risk topics, it might inhibit competence development. Schrodt et al.’s results confirm both of these expectations in the zero-order correlation matrix
The main Question posed in the previous article on Uses and Gratifications,
"Could the overlap ( which we discussed as being, a need/gratification for both old and new media) be a result of using gratification's measure designed for older media?"
The answer: Older ways/ scales weren't reflecting, new gratifications users has to broad, not sensitive enough to hit categories with new technologies.
Why, acceptance, coolness, instant access, interactivity are a few new gratifications and needs which come along with new technologies that didn't exist before.
Goes Back to MAIN, how with new technologies there became a need for MODALITY, being able to take our technologies with us, AGENCY our abilities to write/say anything with our technologies, on a post or blog etc. INTERACTIVITY how what we do, use, post on media generates a response, with others. and NAVIGATIBILITY
In class we discussed how we can decode mass media messages, and how people collectively come together to do so. for example we were all small and younger then but we were all alive during 9/11, and we shared the stories of how we interpreting the messages we got then.
in the article Missing the Joke: A Reception Analysis
of Satirical Texts
Ann Johnson1, Esteban del Rio2, & Ali it discussed the idea that audience interpretations and evaluations of
satirical videos. Thirty-one participants were shown 1 of 4 short video segments from 3
satirical films. Participants were then asked to describe
and evaluate what they saw. We found that audience members frequently missed the satire
in the texts. However, these nonsatirical readings typically worked in the same ideological or
rhetorical direction as satirical readings. When participants thought the author’s intentions
were serious, they also found the argument less than compelling. We conclude that viewers
who ‘‘miss the joke’’ may still ‘‘get the message.’’
My interpretation of this, to my life is when you send a message over a phone, or computer the problem is the person on the other end, cant see you ( your emotions, facialexpressions) and sometimes you cant tell if they understand your joking, or if they find something funny, or if there upset. A personal example is when my mom first got her new phone, it would automatically send a period after every word, so when she would send me a message like "ok." i would think she was upset, and she would just be responding. So this is an example of interpreting and decoding a message.
Another example, is my girlfriend use to send me pictures of her dog, and i know how much she loves her dog, so when she would send me a message attached to the photo like "isnt she the greatest" and to anyone else, the message would be happy, and cute. i would decode it and now if shes sending me a picture of her dog, that means shes upset thinking about her passing,and i would know she needs more than a quick comment back like " yes she was" and more a hug and a hangout.
The question is hard to answer, when its originally asked, because i never really thought about why i use the media i do. After some thought however it was easy,
I use Facebook to keep connected with old friends such as buds from high-school i wouldn't normally keep in touch with, and of course the few family members who have created an account.
I use Instagram to also stay connected with friends, but to stay in touch with people i don't know, such as aqantices from work/classes/friends of friends/ and of course celebrities.
I use Twitter as a way to pass the time, i use to post on it, but now its mostly for something to scroll through when i'm bored, waiting for class to start, or i cant fall asleep.
& I use Snapchat to really be nosy and to show off, i never really thought of this one until today, but the main reason i even check snapchat is to see what my closest friends are doing at that moment, or something funny they did last night, what are they eating, etc. and those reasons are the same reasons i post things over snapchat, i want my friends to see how my nights going, when i put up my christmas tree, how my favourite cat is sleeping.
So, the question of "Why someone uses media?" is a main question of the theory Uses and Gratifications.
Explaining Uses and Gratifications
Uses and Gratifications is the theory that poses a conscious choice and a unconscious effect.
which means that it attempts to explain the uses and functions of the media for individuals, groups, and society in general.
It presents the use of Media in terms of the gratification of social or psychological needs of the individual. (Blumler & Katz)
There are 3 objectives in developing uses and gratifications theory: 1) to explain how individuals use mass communication to gratify their needs. “What do people do with the media”. 2) to discover underlying motives for individuals’ media use. 3) to identify the positive and the negative consequences of individual media use.
At the core of uses and gratifications theory lies the assumption that audience members actively seek out the mass media to satisfy individual needs. In the article, Uses and Gratifications is defined as: The social and psychological origins of needs, which generate expectations. The mass media or other sources, which lead to differential patterns of media exposure, (or engagement in other activities) resulting in need gratification's. Other consequences, perhaps mostly unintended ones.
Uses and Gratification's sees the audiences as: -Active (they use media) -selective (with which media) -ritualized (have routines with media) -self aware (conscious of actions) The article creates MAIN as based gratifications Modality Agency Interactivity Navigability Technology is a fairly new thing in relation to the history of uses and gratifications, the theory was first introduced in 1940s and has been worked and tweaked on every since, due to the increase in technology and therefore the increase in needs of media.
in Lecture we talked about what the gratification's and needs are in "sop operas" as an example of older media. As we assumed that older audiences would have began their media experience with sop operas or even use this as a form of media still. And we answered the Question, "what needs and gratifications are meet with this media form and why?" We came up with, the gratification of avoidance, to escape their own reality, A Diversion, to be entertaining to fill the day, and finally Social, something to talk with others. & the main point we gathered from this, is the potential for overlap, between old media needs and gratifications, and new medias needs and gratification's. Sundar and Limperos ASK Or do we seek and obtain new gratifications from new technologies, perhaps do new media create new needs, which they then proceed to gratify.
And my thoughts, is both i think that we use new media for the same reasons old media was used for, mainly for something to fill a void (pass the time) to entertain, and for something to talk about with others. However as new media is created i believe new needs are also made in relation to old ones. for example, Facebook before there wasent a Need t post your family photos online for all your friends to see, or a need to look at your neighbours selfies, but now there is and along with that Facebook serves the need if passing time, of entertainment and something to talk about, "hey did you see amanadas relationship status?"
Audiences in the news: Teenage media sensation speaks out, how her need for followers, likes and approval, has made her depressed. and how her new need is to be taken off, to show the world the real stories behind her "glamours life" and how she will be off social media till the time comes.
This video is an excellent example of how your needs and gratifications can change towards media, and to ask the question, which i believe will be a new look in to the theory uses and gratifications, is your need for you, or is your "need and gratification's" on social media meet and decided by other people.
media ratings and target marketing all have to do with the audience member/ consumer. the consumer holds the power in what a company sells, and what a network shows.
therefore the consumers attention is very valuable to companies.
The idea of when you are a audience member is a frequent question in media studies, however since the age of the passive audience member its safe to say we are always being subjected to content, ads, campaigns etc.
this has changed the consumers behaviours, for example commercials we dont have time for, so whats the solution? fast forward and skip them. Now the advertisers need to work harder to find a way to market to us, without it seeming like they are.
how do they do this....
easy they find out your browser history and advertise to you that way, or make you sit through a 30 second clip before your youtube clip, even better make you watch an ad before you play your game so its free. this is a silent contract we as the consumer are signing to markerters we understand that they want our information to make money, and we want to use their resources ( facebook, candy crush etc.)
Again audiences are hard to describe, but to marketers its essential, companies break down consumers into categories so they know what to market and sell to you specifically. they do this by target marketing through age, gender, race, geography and so much more.
in seminar we discussed specifically how wal mart is able to track your every sale and knows what you want, as their target marketing.
we also talked about the idea of veiwablity, again how and when are you a audience member, if i have a show on but am in the kitchen doing the dishes, am i a audience member for the show? this is challenge companies face when trying to count their show ratings. although a couple of options are available such as a survey, a box connected to your tv, and a pager size adapter to tell marketers what they want to know.
while the reading discusses how the united states is estimated to spend 60 billion in digital ad spending, the age of advertising on television is disappearing, due to PVR, netflix etc.
the new way is to display at least 50% of pixels for one second to th consumer, as an effective way to get the consumers attention.
I believe this can be achieved because we are so use to skimming things, driving by things fast and not stopping to smell the roses, we are living in a time in need of fast pace marketing.
overall target marketing is the most essential to marketers when trying to figure out their marketing strategies and product development, our views and attention will always be worth something.
of what a public opinion is, public opinion refers to ' group consensus about what matters of public concern which has developed in the wake of informed discussion.
and lets distinguish the difference between an opinion being that its your thoughts/feelings
while knowledge is based on something that can be proven.
in our society public opinion serves as a primary means of communication from the citizens to their government, ( as seen in elections ).
like everything else with media, there is never a distinguish answer of whom were discussing. the question of "who" is a member of the public is always changing depending upon historical context ( historical movements gave audiences the ability to gain legitimacy) and the agendas of those measuring public opinion.
As we talked in class a major theory which explains this is Agenda Setting, Agenda setting theory describes the powerful influence of the media - the ability to tell us what issues are important.
in lecture we were able to watch clips of older news clips which have the ability to shift an audiences view. This lead to the discussion of news priorities, which asked whats most important in the news story. Today the most important news would be the Blue jays score update and the Canadian elections.
when discussing public opinion politics comes up often, when elections are getting close, its common for political parties to release videos displaying other party leaders in a negative light, in hopes that their video will alter your opinion on this party/ party leader and therefore not vote for them in the upcoming election.
This video clip example of a political party talking negatively about other parties and highly of themselves leads into the article: If theres a news agenda. This article discusses the differences between news that is presented to you in the style of hard news ( regular news broadcast) and the alternative "funny news" such as comedians like John Oliver on late night shows discussing the same issues as were discussed in the news that day. the theory is that because the news is presented to the audience in a comedic way and not so heavy not only will more people watch it, for its considered entertaining rather than educational, but the comedians perspective however right or wrong is simply a slip of the issue, or not the whole story. If it was the whole story it would translate into hard news, therefore funny news is a way for the public to gain an opinion on political issues as an example, but its not always the most accurate or informative.
in seminar we focused on how the media's agenda setting easily alters celebrity appearances because they are talked about so often by such an array of perspectives, while not being able to actually ever meet the people that are being discussed the publics opinion is suggested to change often.
we also discussed the idea of audiences becoming more active, there being mediated communication and the fourth wall, as well as asked if audiences should be interactive. in my opinion yes i believe audiences should be able to participate in the discussion whether it be electing a new political representative, voting for your favorite television star, or simply voting on what the schools cafeteria menu should posses. everyone should be able to voice what they think.
finally as always the question comes up about HOW we measure such things. however when it comes to public opinion it isnt so vague and questionable, measuring public opinion is done in a variety of ways such as surveys, face to face, straw polls, random sampling, census etc. although some such as straw polls arent a very accurate representation of an entire population, it is a way to capture the publics views in the best ways we know so far.
The topic, "effects of media messages" is essential to the study of audiences because audiences are exposed to such a variety of different media formats everyday such as: print media, television, movies, video games, music, cellphones, various kinds of software and of course the internet.
because such a variety of media formats are readily available for audiences to consume its important to remember to use a broad perspective on media effects in order to understand the incredibly wide range of influence the media messages carry.
Personally when I hear the phrase media affects my mind goes towards the negative impacts media has on us, such as watching violent TV causes aggression in youths, or how hearing a radio broadcast can cause direct effects on its listeners, or how medias unrealistic image of the female body creates young females to become self conscious and anorexic trying to meet media standards.
However true these statements can be showing negative affects of media messages
Lecture example of "Social Learning Theory" created by Albert Bandar exploring how children are socialized by their environment. An experiment took place where some children were made to watch as an adult as he betted a plastic Bobo doll, while others weren't exposed to this. Then all of the children were individually put into the same room were they found themselves to with the Bobo doll. The results showed that the children whom had watched the adult be aggressive towards the doll, displayed similar characteristics, while the ones who did not witness the violent acts were not violent themselves. Thus the plastic Bobo experiment displays an example of negative effects of the media.
Textbook example of the "War of The Worlds Broadcast" of 1938 a time when listeners ate, slept and dreamt about what the radio told them to. During this particular broadcast, actors were given the famous script of the novel, "War of The Worlds" while enhancing the broadcast with realistic background sounds which would have been described in the book. The broadcast intention was to be a source of entertainment for its listeners however the broadcast ended up leaving listeners leaving their homes with their families believing the world itself was being taken over by aliens. This shows the direct effects media messages can have.
There are also examples of positive media affects as shown in audiences were "The Ice Bucket Challenge" a challenge encouraging audiences to pour cold water on themselves to display for a brief second what it feels like to have mls, each video was promoted to donate to mls funds to find a cure. This is a positive example of effects of media messages because it promotes good behaviour, for a good cause.
In seminar this week we discussed how hard it is to study audiences effects of media due to a variety of reasons: inadequate technology, miss representation, active vs passive audience etc. which lead us to discuss the many hardships in actually trying to study audiences and how studying audiences have changed over the years. this topic was backed up by the article we were suppose to read for class, "Taking audience research into the age of new media: old problems and new challenges" this article discusses how in the past audiences were mainly reported by ethnographic studies. the main example was the example of the study of romance novels, and how it was previously assumed that middle aged women simply read the medium to pass time, however due to a change in how we study audiences from a passive stereotype to a active member allowed for research to conclude that women read romance novels for many reasons, for submission of the male characters, to enhance their love life's, etc. not to simply pass the time.
an end thought, audiences are always changing, we as the audience are finding new ways to consume media and participate in the media we choose, therefore as we change the technology and research to study us will have to change organically as well.
Hi, my name is Kyrstin and I'm starting this blog "Audience Studies" as a way of showing my understanding and interest in the evaluation and importance of audiences today. A little about myself is that I love to be apart of audiences, in all its forms. Im an active user on social media accounts, I am a highly invested consumer of television shows and often go on for days about the latest episode of Teen Mom, Big Brother, etc. Along with my favourite activities outside of school and work is to go to a sporting event, or a concert. Hope you enjoy, my take on audiences today!
A little history of Early Audiences
As far back as 400 BC is our histories earliest records of audiences forming. It was during this time that the Greeks performed plays for all of Athens free for all to attend.
As time moves forward we see the Roman theatre in 100-300 BC continue the lively traditions of the Greek theatre.
As well as audiences forming in churches during the middle ages ( 500- 1400 ACE) to listen and perform bible scenes.
Elizabethan audiences gathered in the mid 1500s for audience members to simply enjoy life.
Greek/Roman theatre (BC)
church in the middle ages
until nearly the 18th century audiences were considered over active, rowdy members of society. Often the audience would engage with actors, talk during plays as a sign of enjoyment.
It wasn't until 1865, after the American civil war a true definition of theatre came to be, and audience rights, to be active during a play etc. became poor manners.
which translated audiences during the 20th century to become passive.
I believe this definition best describes what an audience is:
" An Audience is a group of people who participate in a show or
encounter a work of art, literature ( in which they are called "readers" )
theatre music ( in which they are called "listeners" )
and video games ( in which they are called "players" )
This definition best describes all the ways in which we can be an audience, times have changed since the beginning of audiences with the Greek and Roman theatre, today audiences arent limited to a single show as their only way of being an active audience member. Today being an audience member is unlimited to its options, do you play video games, and chat online with members, do you have any social media accounts, do you have a favourite television show you follow, or band you like to see when their in town? There are so many opportunities for you to be an audience member, you might not even know you are one.
Heres an example of how multi audiences are being formed from one "show".
In this example, you are an audience member if you are sitting in the audience of the Ellen Degenerous show, you are an audience member if you are watching the show from home, You are also a audience member if you are a Twitter member, following or participating in any of the tweets, or hashtags. Overal in todays an audience member has had an evolution from being a single audience member to now being a audience member on various levels of both passive and active members.
SO the Big Question, why do we care about audiences?
Audiences are so powerful in todays society, the power of the internet has allowed videos, tweets, and photos to go viral almost instantaneously across the globe. Meaning that a single person can send a message around the world, to promote, discuss, enjoy and stop acts of violence, discrimination etc. at all times. This relates to the textbook, the idea that media messages can lead to changes in individual audience members is the thrust behind the "effective perspective", which emerged in the 20th century as the dominant paradigm in the field of media studies.
An example, is how a young women simply doing yoga in her living room, came across the knowledge that cats can do it to. This woman's discovery has lead to the world being able to view her idea, support if they wish and spread the message of helping orphaned kittens.
Although, this message and video doesn't save the world by any means, the audience this video acquires will help save and give homes to orphaned kittens which might not have been possible. The power again is the multi audience, this is through the internet, which allowed for a single video about cats/ and yoga to go viral, anyone who is an audience of youtube can view or come across it, yoga ethusiates may follow or look up yoga titles, of audiences who follow the news this story was published by CBC, and by audience members who are animal lovers. This video can lead to individual audience members, as the effective perspective, making a change.
Reflecting to today's audiences, and how they are being discussed, lets hit it close to home with the Toronto Blue Jays. A baseball team which didn't always make it to the playoffs, and didn't always get the support of Toronto as it is today.
overall the Toronto Blue jays audiences are being talked about today in every news outlet possible, its the fans that make a team, and its the team that connects the fans.
