The Mass Media Audience - Essay Example

The Mass Media Audience By Lecturer’s and In this paper, I tackle the second question on mediaaudience looking into different researches conducted, and literatures to come up with a viable argument. At the core of the media, it involves different ideas of the media communication methods and its audience. As a result, there has been room for debate in relation to media and its audience for ages. Such debates are usually theoretical and methodological debates (ALASUUTARI, 1999). In this debate, there have been people on one end who are active audience while on the other end we have passive audience. The active audience are termed to be individualistic, rational and selective while the passive ones are termed to be conformist, gullible, anomic and vulnerable casualties. In both active and passive audience, theorists have come up to try and bring up their ideas related to these ends in relation to the social reality. Therefore, the key issues are how individual audiences cognitive of self and reality, and more so the cognitive process by which an individual receives and interprets media content and form. What is Audience Activity? To achieve the answer to this question, the active audience are very vital members used in different theories, beliefs and conceits. According to different scholars, audience activity is a very important component in the study of the impact of mass media to the universe, and essential to the utilization and gratification approach. This gives a wide range of meanings termed as both merits and demerits of the construct (ALASUUTARI, 1999). In this regard, these different definitions are such that it can be said to be both cognitive and socio-structural, normative and objective, socially variable and innate. An activity has been further defined by different scholars to exist preceding to media utilization, through media use and following media use. These different studies have given birth to complex and multi-dimensional constructs. The term audience activity is defined differently in relation to different terms (BERMEJO, 2007). First is in relation to selectivity. In this, audience activity is depicted as the directing process of the media, program and content selection. In literature gratification, this term is used to represent selective disclosure. The next one is in relation to utilitarianism (ALASUUTARI, 1999). This concept suggests that a given position of rational alternative in fulfilment of a well defined person’s needs and motives (MILLER, 1998). Third is in relation to intentionality. This concept focuses more on the cognitive measurement of activity. It furthermore focuses on the representation procedure and structuring of information, and therefore, it can be said that media information is plan directed (NEUMAN, 1991). In this regard, the sequence of intake of any media information and the strength focused on it tend to be the leader in members motivation, personality and more so the cognitive processing structure (ALEXANDER, BALL-ROKEACH & CANTOR, 1986). The next one is in relation to involvement. In this concept, there has been a lot of focus on the cognitive effort. This brings out the emotional stimulation and point of cognitive organization and information structuring (BERMEJO, 2007). It also brings out the Para-social interaction such as talking back to the television. Next is in terms of imperviousness to influence. This involves the degree to which the audience limits, influences, and controls the media effects (MILLER, 1998). Often, an activity is viewed as insubordinate of the communicator goals and intensions. Bauer, a psychologist, is the person who came up with the phrase imperviousness to influence which was thereafter termed as active audience (ALEXANDER, BALL-ROKEACH & CANTOR, 1986). His work is viewed to be a very vital agent of change from administrative approaches to a more recipient-oriented investigation perspective (MILLER, 1998). This is even evident in his mission statement whereby he says that the major aim of a psychologist is to believe in the origin of dignity of human beings and thereby comparing it to the extent to which a robot can be accorded some dignity (ALASUUTARI, 1999). His idea was very much appreciated by other scholars who joined him in his work to assist mass communication theorists in this complex field (LUMBY, 2003). In his work, Bauer was in an attempt to get not only the personal, but also the image of an individual. He viewed nature of individuals as rational, self determining and without restraint - restraints going on through life, liberty and property. This was criticised by viewing individuals in a democratic life where mass production and mass consensus is the free will of the people to be illegitimate (BERMEJO, 2007). Passive Audience From the earlier debate on the active audience, according to different scholars it was evident that there could be a possibility of existence of a passive audience model. Such individuals were depicted as extreme stereotypes of mass media society and were termed as grey, uniform, anomic, faceless, gullible, and defenceless against the authority and the power of the propagandist (ALASUUTARI, 1999). Such information is often shown in the media. Mass conveyed information on the media is gotten when people were screaming as groups in the early 1930s (HIGGINS, 2008). During the Orson Welle’s War, people are seen running away from their farms while different individuals were admiring the mass produced good life (ALEXANDER, BALL-ROKEACH & CANTOR, 1986). Such individuals are referred to as media stereotypes of mass entertainment and public attitude investigations. In the consideration of such an individual, Bauer introduced himself in the passive audience image due to the fact that mass production of the information brought out some kind of illusion, in that, in all over the nation the TV images and newspapers, the first page all depicted the same information both in towns and suburbs and homes. Such information produced in the media is the same information and images in the minds of individuals. From different studies, it is evident that passive audience was not only a historic event of mass communication hypothesis, but lies in between different hypothesis and frights about mass communication effects (BERMEJO, 2007). From different scholars, individuals are born in the figurative environment in which we have television as a normal entity, and in this regard, television is the major shaper and stable part of a given way of life and appearance (LUMBY, 2003).This connects people to a wider world and artificially into a world of television development. In this regard, this shapes and promotes some behavioural development and more so, controls their sources of information, and the progress disposer to this different information will lead to reiteration, confirmation and nourishment and can nature the values and perspectives (ALASUUTARI, 1999). During the development of mass communication theory, different ideas and reactions were in place from the spectre of the mass society. The most challenging incident during this development is the reliability and validity of different ideas concerning the mass society. According to different theorists, such incidences involved denial of development of the mass in the mass media. This is viewed as the process which has in a long time been against all the mass audience terminology as a method of naming the people, put together those who are fanatics of watching TV programs, attend movies and reading magazines and newspapers (HIGGINS, 2008).The pitfall in mass communication is the fact that there has not been enough time and process to find out and evaluate convincing confirmation of mass hypodermic effects which in turn made it possible for the use of alternative audience (ALEXANDER, BALL-ROKEACH & CANTOR, 1986). In this regard, the major argument was the confirmation of who this active individual or audience is. To enable the study, democratic audience were taken into consideration by studying their characteristics (LUMBY, 2003). In different researches, such as that which was conducted by Bauer, choice was one of the features in his work. And it is through this alternative that was held firmly by the independent, constant determined individuals. Such independence of alternative was a clear show up of audience activity, and in another perspective the health of the body politics (ALASUUTARI, 1999). From the explanation above, it is evident that active audience was a modern individual just revolving or going along the edges of his self with watchful consumerism. The freedom and consumerism were integrated in the field of psychology. Freedom and choice are two elements that are very good in this field in that it allowed individuals to practice alternative in the selection of mass media, this being a very huge mark of individualism and activism. From this, therefore, it is concluded that freedom was achieved through the denial of effectiveness of the media and mass norms and values, and on the other hand, increasing the amount of choices. It is through this that passive individuals were turned down and later liberated. To some extent, the differentiation between active and passive audience is usually depicted in the procedures undertaken in the minds of individuals (NAPOLI, 2011). From the view of cognitive investigation, the argument between active and the reactive or passive beginning of the observer can be imagined in terms of conscious versus pre-conscious handing out. In other words, this can be dealt with in terms of relative dominance of tactical, processing choice in relation to pre-attentive and automatic handling (NEUMAN, 1991). Often there is tendency of identifying cognition with some terms of information dispensation that is realized and free to any kind of inspection (HIGGINS, 2008). In the consideration of the communication literature, active audience are individuals who are watchful, self directed, rational in terms of motivation and needs, not going as per the media instruction in a struggle to meet his or her motivational needs and keeping the independence nature in place (ALEXANDER, BALL-ROKEACH & CANTOR, 1986). An individual is probably not able to rule over a large territory if by any means an individual’s cognitive efforts, (MILLER, 1998), careful and in-depth handling in the consideration that one is solely cognizant or non-automatic psychological amplification and that any important issues takes place outside the conscious mind, or the conscious mind is highly affected by media forms and structure, and when the preconscious and unconscious minds dominates the conscious mind. In this regard, the medium, its syntactic forms, and other ecological factor intermingle with early pre-attentive, preconscious and regular processes (ALASUUTARI, 1999). According to different scholars, one of the unconscious processes that have been researched is that which involves television watching and its ability to orient reflex (BUTSCH, 2008). In this study, subjects under study were instructed to watch television shows and commercials in a natural setting as much as possible. Alpha has shown to have negative relationship with mental effort and attention (BERMEJO, 2007). From the study, it was found that these individuals were purely influenced by the features of the medium to cognitively react to anchors convenient and recognized features. Further findings depicted that data control reduced in alpha waves when the correlation was positive with the knowledge as evaluated by immediate and delayed recollect evaluation (NAPOLI, 2011). From this, it is evident that response is motivationally determined, active, involuntary and alterable by the communicator. In this regard, reactive processing theory is clearly depicted on the use of television whereby the outcome results of particular media experience is all about the interaction between the recognized features and the content of the medium of the audience members. In that consideration, it is true to say that stimulus controlled and non-intentional process has the ability to influence memory (ALASUUTARI, 1999). However, memory trace is not actually determined in relation to content, but in accordance to the guidance given by the formal feature of channel considerably summarizing the mass of audience interpretation. The two experiences, the perceptual and cognitive understanding of the individual television viewer, is a result of magnificently multifaceted and delicate pre-conscious procedure than converts light and noise of the television into a phrase of meaning in the continuous contract of social communication (ALEXANDER, BALL-ROKEACH & CANTOR, 1986).This sequencing development and determination of importance is so much passive as responsive and reactive to change the stimuli of the ecology that involve the media itself. The process in which an individual is to control the older echoes is very complicated in that it requires standard that is acceptable (NEUMAN, 1991). Therefore, to keep in touch with such echoes, there is need to have a defence of sanctity of conscious territory and force an individual to force oneself to be very defensive and put up control of such territories of the true meaning of the television communication, and more so, the memory storage for the message. However, in consideration of human cognition, this is usually very hard to maintain (ALEXANDER, BALL-ROKEACH & CANTOR, 1986). It is worth noting that conscious idea may be very active in that it is in the position to control concentration and organize the individual for a given activity, one of the purposes of consciousness and concentration can be to restrain the less focused activities relation of pre-conscious handling (ALASUUTARI, 1999). In accordance to different researches conducted, pre-conscious handling out of thoughts of a given meaning may be taken automatically to an upper level in case the procedures are followed or not by the conscious assortment and recognition (HIGGINS, 2008). In the study of film and television structure, scholars performing the research found out that there was evidence of pre-conscious major effect. In consideration of this research findings and psychological evidence, the conclusion can be reached by assuming that the meaning of television message, while developed in the personal view, and the observer and also this could be developed outside the consciousness. In the hierarchy of the cognitive process, conscious knowledge and thinking comes out as the very later step (NAPOLI, 2011). On the other hand, pre-conscious process tend to control the flow of information, put it together and link it to the extraordinary information put together information accumulated in the connected network of meaning in long term storage memory (MILLER, 1998). The pre-conscious process determines the conception of the information received from the television stimulus before conscious and concentration processes take any action. In this regard, the message from the television could be the final outcome of a multifaceted interaction of the information conveyed and content, contextual and situational factors, and more so, the semantic relationship (ALEXANDER, BALL-ROKEACH & CANTOR, 1986).The dispensation of the mass media such as television and videos by members of the audience can be considered a set of ascending process taking information from the surrounding, classifying it and structuring it to the required standard of high quality and capacity, perceptual and cognitive routine (BERMEJO, 2007). These long ago information which are not accessible by conscious for much interpretation, are usually very important since they create a meaning to influence characters of the people involved while depositing the long time experiences as memories. In addition, there are also other active processes that have a lot of influences on the arrangement of preconscious cognitive habits having a lot of influence to such activities, and more so, on how it influenced the selection of the television motivation. The processing plans are usually considered time to time alteration, variant goals and character development in the long term (BUTSCH, 2008). Actually these can lead to conflicts between different factors inhibiting them as a source of television information (MILLER, 1998). Information processing and interpretation is an important process that is involved with consciousness (NEUMAN, 1991). Often this can be unengaged and can lead to shocking diligence. In the consideration of information process can be actively misused by the communicators such as advertisers who consider themselves independent based on schematic processing only seems over estimated (BERMEJO, 2007). Despite the well put in place theory on information, there is a lot of contradiction in understanding schema control and these schemata gives projector framework for receiving and interpreting information or messages. Actually all the process of information conveyance to acquisition is very important due to the fact that learning could not be possible were it not for it (NAPOLI, 2011). Therefore, scholars have come up with different ways to deal and re-engineer various aspects related to the active and passive audience. First is to do away with meta-construct of the active audience. From the above discussion, it is evident that the meta-construct of audience actions, in an attempt to cover very huge phenomena with unclear terms referred to as activity (ALASUUTARI, 1999). This field is therefore very complex and multi-dimensional, and therefore, there has never been a definite definition of the term, and more so, it can provide their viability and reliability. Therefore, a conclusion that this meta-construct should be done away with is the fact that this is still practised in a tradition itself and gratification (NAPOLI, 2011). The next is incorporating a theory of text into the analysis of activity. Utility and selectivity have a tendency to blame on media and information by overstressing their instrumentality. Individuals usually watch media and information as objects used to satisfy a given group of individuals in the society in the exterior consideration of the context of medium-watcher interaction (ALASUUTARI, 1999). However, when the observer makes use of the form in a medium in terms of gratification, the watching is termed as ritualistic and therefore passive. It becomes very hard to perceive out interest groups in this form to view the process of development, and coming up to understanding those results when the target group make use of or think within a medium and a set of rules and regulation (BERMEJO, 2007). Next is to include the psychological position of the medium, and specifically its formal arrangement in moment-to-moment information processing (BUTSCH, 2008). The degree to which the team member’s activity or passivity i.e. behavioural or cognitive depends highly on media influences in terms of interaction and habit forming process in relation to formal features of the medium (ALEXANDER, BALL-ROKEACH & CANTOR, 1986). The next one is to define the position of the media socialization and habituation. The major aim of medium is to appreciate and incorporate in the media process of media socialization. In this regard, we could better understand the propaganda into the audience, into the structural and figurative forms of media and creation of development of sequence of media consumption. Media can be studied in different levels such as child development and their perception to media. Second is media socialization of a given distinct audience, for example, cohort groups among other social hierarchy measures. The next is media socialization at a cultural level and the subcultures available. However, on finding out the answer to the very many questions posed by the active-passive debate then one can be on a better position (NEUMAN, 1991). The last but not least re-engineering technique is theoretically described and evaluates the communicator’s objectives and perceptions of audience. The argument grows and often shifts on terms of active and passive and determination of who best achieves the objectives of mass communication. This deals locus of control over the flow of information and its utilization during the communication. If by any means the audience decision is as a result of motivation, and how does the communicator make use of the audience motivation and goals to make sure that that his or her message is successful, and that his or her audience research is clearly developed on his plan. In conclusion, in accordance to different scholars, audience activity is a very important component in the study of the impact of mass media to the universe, and essential to the utilization and gratification approach. This gives a wide range of meanings termed as both merits and demerits of the construct (NAPOLI, 2011). In this regard, these different definition is that it can be said to be both cognitive and socio-structural, normative and objective, socially variable and innate An activity has been further defined by different scholars to exist proceeding to media utilization, through media use and following media use by different scholars. It is evident that there could be the possibility of existence of a passive audience model. Such individuals are depicted extreme stereotypes of the mass media society (BUTSCH, 2008). References list ALASUUTARI, P. (1999). Rethinking the media audience the new agenda. London, Sage Publications. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=456754. ALEXANDER, J. C., BALL-ROKEACH, S., & CANTOR, M. G. (1986). Media, audience, and social structure. Newbury Park, Calif, Sage Publications. BERMEJO, F. (2007). The Internet audience: constitution & measurement. New York, Peter Lang. BUTSCH, R. (2008). The citizen audience: crowds, publics, and individuals. New York, Routledge. LUMBY, C. (2003). Remote control new media, new ethics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=256633. HIGGINS, M. (2008). Media and their publics. Maidenhead, England, Open University Press. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10274034. LYNES, R. (1985). The lively audience: a social history of the visual and performing arts in America, 1890-1950. New York, Harper & Row. MILLER, D. (1998). The circuit of mass communication media strategies, representation and audience reception in the AIDS crisis. London, Sage. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10392713. NEUMAN, W. R. (1991). The future of the mass audience. Cambridge [England], Cambridge University Press. NAPOLI, P. M. (2011). Audience evolution new technologies and the transformation of media audiences. New York, Columbia University Press. http://lib.myilibrary.com?id=313599&entityid=https://idp.gla.ac.uk/shibbolethPARKER, E. C., BARRY, D. W., & SMYTHE, D. W. (1955). The television-radio audience and religion. New York, Harper. Read More