Post 3: Defining audience; history of audience research; death of the mass audience

Post 3: Defining audience; history of audience research; death of the mass audience

 First, it is interesting to see how the term "audience" has evolved throughout history. I have been so focused on audiences as consumers and as audiences online that it was refreshing to read about audiences in Greco-Roman times and onwards of books, magazines, newspapers, radio, cinema and television. As McQuail explains in Ch. 1, the meaning of audience has evolved over time due to technological advancements. Whereas audiences were considered to be passive listeners, now:

"The typical audience role can cease to be that of passive listeners, consumers, receiver, or target. Instead it will encompass any of the following: seeker; consultant; browser, respondent; interlocutor; or conversationalist."

This is certainly revolutionary considering how the term first originated to describe attendees at a live performance. McQuail also mentions that due to overload, a higher level of media exposure which leads to a lower quality of attention, and fragmentation, a process where audience's attention is spread out amongst multiple media sources, audiences are no longer collective. All choices are seen as individualizing with a decreased chance of shared experiences or a sense of common belonging. However, I argue that due to the advancement in technology, audiences are sharing more experiences and expressing more common interest than ever before.  According to Google Now Indexes, there are 620 Million Facebook Groups among the 1.19 Billion active Facebook users. Platforms like Instagram and Twitter serve to collect people who share the same ideas or hashtags, and helps people who "follow" the same page to gather to share common ideas. Social media has the unique position of helping audiences become more individualized as an audiences through personalization and complete control of one's account. However, it also has the underlying purpose of having each account interact with one another for both social and commercial purposes. People gather to form groups according to their interests, such as a facebook group for class or an interest group for food-lovers, which is a sharing of ideas and a sense of common belonging. 

Furthermore, contrary to what McQuail stated, audiences are not "more dependent on, and more vulnerable to, powerful media suppliers than before," nor do they "have no more power than consumers in any other market." Audiences are now more powerful than ever and have advertisers at their fingertip especially due to information overload and audience fragmentation. Audiences have grown smart with banner blindness, devices that filter advertisements, spam boxes, caller ID, etc. so they have becoming increasingly difficult to reach. For advertisers who have to influence attitudes and purchasing decisions, audiences can never be without power. Advertisers have adapted accordingly to changes in technology and have shifted their ad dollars to social media and viral campaigns. Therefore, the end of a mass audience does not seem likely.

Finally, in Ch. 8, McQuail offers an interesting model for four stages of audience fragmentation:

I believe we have just recently reached the Core-Periphery Model and believe the Breakup Model will never happen. Although the emergence of new television channels and networks have started to occur, theses networks still serve a mainstream purpose in one way or another. We will never escape the "core" as mainstreaming will exist as long as cultures, of any kind, are shared. Therefore, unless the world comes to a point where audiences have absolutely nothing to share with one another, audiences will hover somewhere between the Pluralism and Core-Perifry Model.  

As was the purpose of these three chapters, I liked the reviewing of the term audience and seeing the new variables that have been added to the tradition term. It is evident that the term will continue to evolve with time and hope to gain a full understanding of what audiences today mean.