Making sense of Audience Theories

AUDIENCE DEFINITION:

• an audience is a person/group of people who actively or passively consume the media, audiences are categorised by their demographics such as as age or gender, they have a variety of expectations and foreknowledge and they engage with the chosen media text in different ways

During AS/A2 levels the term 'Audience Theory' pretty much bombards us, an audience is involved in every media text or visual representation and we often try to generalise this term however we are all part of it, its weird to think that companies are trying to persuade us or effect us emotionally right this second.

 

Why are Audiences important ?

well what is the point of a media text if their isn't an audience, without someone to consume the information the text's message isn't being put across therefore completely pointless. The relationship between the text and audience is important, so is the message of the text itself, as all media texts are formed with an audience in mind they are personalised for us to understand and possibly relate to. Sometimes media texts try to construct an audience through persuasion (propaganda for example)

What is an audience ?

• different groups e.g. gender/age/race/class
• a target market for a company
• members of society who use the media
• a group of people who consume a particular film/album/band/TV show (fan/fandom)
• individuals who use the media to satisfy their needs
• constant consumers (i.e. lazy people)
• a set of individual readers of a extract who actively make their own meanings
• a group others make generalisations about/stereotype
• for a person with a specific job

or there is no such thing as 'an audience'????