The Concept of Audience in the Internet Age - Essay Example

THЕ СОNСЕРT ОF 'THЕ АUDIЕNСЕ' AND THЕ АGЕ ОF THЕ INTЕRNЕT Student Name Course No Instructor Date Introduction The media industry is among the important industries in the contemporary society and dates back to the ancient global communities (Davis and Emeljanow, p. 12). This is primarily because the industry help in the provision of vital information to the public in a wide range of areas such as politics, business as well as weather related information. The media industry, like any other business, has the sole objective of maximizing profits while ensuring the provision of quality services to the people. Media companies, therefore, have to develop competitive strategies in ensuring that the industry remains relevant in this era of rapid globalization. At the core of the media and communication diligence entails the the audience. Although the media companies aim to increase their profits through dissemination of information, this objective cannot be achieved without the audiences. Nightingale (2011, p. 7) Describes an audience as an individual or a group of people that read or consume media materials. Examples of audiences include the television viewers, radio listeners, web traffic on websites and the magazine and newspaper readers. Several types of audience exist depending on the information being conveyed. However, mass media recognize two major types of audience, namely; the mass audience and the niche audience. Also called the broadcast audience, the mass audience refers to the group of people that consume popular media texts such as soaps or sitcoms. It involves the media and communication targeting large groups of people such as women, men and children. The niche audience refers to the small groups of people with unique interests (Gorton, 2009, p. 36). A significant wave of change worth noting in the field of media and mass communication is the evolution of the internet and its effect on the audience (Nicholas and Price, 1999, p. 59). The internet has impacted greatly on globalization and the media industry, raising the question of the current importance of the audience in mass communication. The main aim of this paper is to determine the relevance of the concept of the audience in the current internet age. Discussion The Connection between Media and Audience The liaison concerning the media and the audience is important in understanding the different changes that the media impacts on the audience. Apart from the grouping of the media audience depending on their interests, the audience can also be active, meaning they can select, interpret and conceptualize the different media messages and cannot be manipulated by it. Passive audience refers to the group of people that are exposed to media messages. The transformation of the audience research from being easy to manipulate to interpreting the media audiences is important in providing a better understanding of the media audience (Chapman and Allison, 2009, p. 134). Today, the media, politics and public debates will describe the active media audiences as individuals who use the media for their personal needs, that is, the consumers that select the media offers that they prefer and avoid those which they dislike. As a result, the audience research that measures the figures of the media outlets act as indicators of the preferences of the consumers. Thus audience research is important because it provides the media industry with the voice of the audience (Fourie, 2002, p. 55). The audience forms an important part in media industries because they determine the quality of the media products. The opponents of this argument suggest that the media audience should not be concerned about the quality because they do not seem to be looking for quality. However, detailed audience research is important in revealing the interests of the media users, which are seriously taken into account by the media companies to improve their quality and hence, maximize profits (Livingstone, 1998, 237-255). From a theoretical point of view, the understanding of the media audience involves the use of the gratification approach. This approach involves the perception of media use as the maximization of individual satisfaction (Wilson, 2009, p. 46). The primary aim of this approach is to identify the levels of satisfaction of different media bargains. This implies that media offers are of high quality, only if they satisfy the individual needs of the consumers. Although this theory attempts to explain the relationship between the media and audience, it does not provide a clear picture of the audience. According to Hasebrink (2012, p. 4-8), there are three main concepts of audience, namely; users as commodities, users as victims and users as consumers. The users as consumers are considered to have an interest in the media offers that serve their individual needs and preferences. The concept of the users as victims considers the audience as people with rights that should be protected. Importance of audiences Audiences play a critical role in the media industry. They are regarded as the central point of the industry as the industry cannot exist without the audience. This is because the audiences buy the media products (Croteau and Hoynes, 2002, p. 81). The significance of the audience in the media and communication industry is undeniable. Television producers, for instance, require an audience for their programs, hence they spend a lot of time researching and developing programs that attract the viewers. The challenge with the media audience is the difficulty in finding them as they are geographically dispersed and sometimes hidden in homes, hence the need to carry out media research. In the case of television programs for instance, companies are contracted to carry out research on the lifestyles of the potential audience. The research companies use the questionnaires, focus groups as well as interviews for data collection. In other cases, the short extracts of movies and television programs are shown to focus groups to see their reactions (Beairsto, 2008, p. 73). In the United States for instance, the Hollywood films are shown to the audiences in cinema halls and the parts that the audiences do not like are changed. Media researches of the audience take different forms. One way of conducting media research is by focusing on the demographics. This kind of research divides the audience into different categories depending on their ages and gender. As a result, the media companies are able to develop programs that focus on a specific group of people with known consumption habits. Another method used by the media industries in audience research is psychographics which categorizes the audience depending on their behavior and personality traits. Audience research can also be based on the hierarchy of needs (Balnaves, O'regan and Goldsmith, 2011, p. 65). One way in which the audiences are important in the media industry is through their determination of the company profits. The readership of magazines, for instance, is important because it determines how a given media company can charge the advertisers wishing to reach the market through the magazine. The higher the magazine readership, the higher the prices charged on the advertisers and the higher the profits of the media company. The case is also similar for the television viewers and the radio listeners. Aside from determining the profits made by the media industry through the purchase of media products, the audience also helps in determining the quality of media products and offers. In the media and communication industry, the audience research is commonly used in determining the interests of the media users. People will only watch a television show or listen to a radio program if it satisfies their individual needs. This way, the media industry can know the areas that need improvement following the feedback from the audience (Sullivan, 2013, p. 51) Audience Evolution There have been several changes in the media industry since its emergence, resulting in changes in the audience. The concept of audience evolution refers to the idea that the dominant framework employed by the media industry stakeholders to understand the audience evolves in response to the environmental changes. The environmental changes refer to the changes in technology, aimed at transforming the consumption of the media as well as the data collected about the audience behavior (Olson and Cole, 2013, p. 181). Of great significance in the evolution of the audience is the realization that the technological changes also interact with each other. Although the technological changes affect the ways through which different audiences consume the media, they also provide new ways of gathering information on the previously unmeasurable audience behavior. The technological changes and their economic impacts are filtered through the process of stakeholder resistance and negotiation, leading to the emergence of institutionalized understanding of the media audience (Straubhaar, Larose and Davenport, 2010, p. 76). Media communication existed in the ancient times within the social setup of the cultures and communities that existed during those times. Traditional media denote to the time-honored orthodox means of mass communication such as street theatre and puppetry as was practiced by several global communities in the ancient times. An example of the traditional communication medium is the folk media, which was used as a way of communicating to individuals of the same society. The folk media represent the customary way of life of a community such as the social norms, values and traditions of a community. Most of the global traditional communities, the audiences of such traditional media messages would converge in a given place to listen to the messages. There have, however, been a lot of changes in the media industry that has changed the concept of the audience. Today, the media communication will not only involve the provision of information to the audience, but rather interacts with the audience. The emergence of the internet for instance, has resulted in the increased interactivity of the media industry and the audience. In the television sector for instance, the broadcasting systems have undergone several changes that have helped in shaping its structure and function (Livingstone, 1999, p. 59-66). The Internet and Media Audience The internet refers to an interactive form of mass media that connects large numbers of people throughout the world. It involves the global connection of computer networks that helps in data transmission through the use of the standard internet protocol. The internet has had significant influence on the media industry and hence the audiences. Today, most of the media texts are viewed by the consumers through the websites and the social media sites such as the Facebook pages and on twitter. This allows the transformation of the audiences from the traditional mass audiences to more digital audiences. The internet also helps in eliminating the time and space issue since the audiences can access the media content of interest and any time and in any given place (Carpentier, Schreder and Hallet, 2013, p. 230) The internet has also helped in the transformation of audiences to producers rather than mere consumers of media text. Traditionally, mass media involved the mere communication of information to the audience. With the advent of the internet, there has been a shift from this tradition with the audience being capable of producing media text. The emergence of internet sites such as YouTube, allows consumers not only to watch the media content but also to upload their own innovations, hence making them producers (Cavanagh, 2007, p. 68). Impact of the Internet on the Media Audiences One of the primary impacts of the internet on the media audiences is the transformation of media consumption hence media transformation. The concept of media transformation refers to the technological processes that increase the variety of media content available to the consumers. Media fragmentation is further subdivided into inter and intra media fragmentation. Inter media division comprises the development of the transfer platforms. The presence of the delivery platforms is important because they promote the delivery of additional content and increase the channels through which one media content can be delivered. For instance, a television program can be viewed through several channels such as the broadcast network, cable network rerun, iPod download, and cable system on demand service (Webster and Ksiazek, 2011, p. 2-30). The intra media fragmentation on the other hand, involves the process that divides the choices within particular media. Examples of inter media fragmentation include the increases in the bandwidth as well as the channel capacities of both broadcast television and radio through digitization. Media fragmentation causes the fragmentation of the audience. This is because the consumers of a given media text or offer are likely to use different channels in consuming the media. As a result, there is the transformation of the media audiences from the traditional mass audience kind of media consumption to consumption via different channels. Through media fragmentation and consequently audience fragmentation, the internet has facilitated the profound change in the media audience (Bermejo, 2007, p. 49). The end of audience? The emergence of the internet and the concept of the audience are subject to a detailed discussion. Commonly, the term audience is used in reference to the activities of viewing as well as listening. The internet era, has, however brought with is a new term called the user, which allows greater means of engagement. The term user tends to be more individualistic and instrumental, thus losing the idea of collectivity which is core in audience definitions. Consequently, the question to be answered remains whether the users of the media technology are similar to the users of other machines and equipment (Livingstone, 2004, p. 2-13). With the emergence of the internet era, and information technology, it is clear that the media audiences are increasingly being moved from the screen as their activities are increasingly being contextualized in the real world. The media audiences are also considered as users because they are considered to handle new technology issues in their workplaces as well as in the schools. The new media technologies also increase the interaction of the audiences with the media through activities such as web browsing, playing computer games, writing and responding to emails, visiting chatrooms, online shopping and searching databases. The earlier media studies established a connection between the use and reception such that the reception was read from the audience participation in a given social setting of media interaction (Staiger, 2005, p. 120). Reception can also be brought about in the new media era. This is because of the need for increased physical and audible audience participation in the media, although their activities require increased keenness of the observers. Today, the media technology users are increasingly clicking on the hypertext links to create a sequential flow of images on the World Wide Web, typing to construct chat room messages, increasing their knowledge of the interface designs while producing their own websites, manipulating the game characters to continue playing. Through the favorite folders and downloads from the internet, the users are also able to accumulate auditable references. Although it is difficult to understand the feelings of the media uses when using the interactive media technologies, it is clear that the absence of interactive physical and audible participation of the audiences across the new media technologies can cause the lack of reception (Hagen and Wasko, 1999, p. 172). Challenges of new media technologies Although the new media technologies offer a range of advantages to the media audience by moving them away from the screens, they also pose challenges especially to the media research. One such challenge to the audience research that affects both use and reception is the encouragement of multiplication of personally owned media. Consequently, this encourages the privatization of the media use such as the media-rich bedroom culture among the youth (Winget and Aspray, 2011, p. 3-27). Another challenge of the new media technologies is the encouragement of individualization (Nightingale and Dwyer, 2007, p. 167). Following the increased diversification of the media and its contents, there has been the increase in individualization where the media goods and products are increasingly being used in the promotion of lifestyles that are not rooted in the social and demographic traditions. This has resulted in the distortion of the traditional social boundaries, thus likely to destabilize traditional forms of proficiency and authority. Transition from mass to interactive audiences The increased expansion of the interaction of the audiences and the media platforms and the transformation of the original mass audience to the engaged and participatory users of media and communication technology is one big achievement of the new media. The entry of interactive technologies into the market in the media industry increases the interaction between the audiences and the media. Since the new media results in increased interaction, the audiences of such interactive technologies are reffered to as users (Garcia-Avilles, 2012, p. 1-19). When the audiences are viewed as the users of the interactive media technologies, they are seen as the producers and consumers of the media texts and offers. Furthermore, the initially accessible and powerful media text is becoming more subtle. Taking the example of hypertext for instance, comprising of blocks of texts connected through electronic channels, offers a variety of pathways to the users. It is difficult to know the extent of hypertext due to the lack of clear boundaries as well as the involvement of many authors (Snyder, 1998, p. 125-143). The interface is one important player in the interaction between the users and the media technologies is the interface. The analysis of the interface is important for the internet, mobile technologies and digital televisions, both for the designers and the users. The need for this analysis consequently raises the need for literacy. The literacy of the audience in dealing with the interactive media is considered as very important in the new era of the internet and information technology (Livingstone, 2003, p. 16-17). This is because of the need for the audience to participate both physically and audibly in on the new media technologies. Literacy has formed an important part of dancing following the participation of the audiences in conventions way to the introduction of print literacy. The latest has been the audiovisual media literacy that is required in decoding the forms and conventions of cinema and television as well as the concerns of the interactive media technology, especially involving the use of the internet. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is evident that the emergence of the internet is slowly eroding the concept of the audience following its conversion of the originally mass media audience to interactive users of the new media technologies. Additionally, the increased use of the internet within the media industry is causing increased media fragmentation hence audience fragmentation thus making the concept of audience lose its meaning. With the increased growth in technology, the trend is expected to continue even in the future. References Balnaves, M., O'regan, T., & Goldsmith, B. (2011). Rating the audience: the business of media, p. 65. Beairsto, F. G. (2008). The tyranny of story: audience expectations and the short screenplay. Vancouver, Vancouver Desktop Publishing Centre, p. 73. Bermejo, F. (2007). The Internet audience: constitution and measurement. New York [u.a.], Lang, p. 49. Cavanagh, A. (2007). Sociology in the age of the Internet. Maidenhead [u.a.], Open Univ. Press, p. 68. Carpentier, N, Schreder, K.C and Hallet, L (2013). Audience Transformations: Shifting Audience Positions in Late Modernity, p. 230. Chapman, J., & Allison, K. (2009). Issues in contemporary documentary. Cambridge, UK, Polity Press, p. 134. Croteau, D., & Hoynes, W. (2002). Media/society. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Pine Forge, p. 81. Fourie, P. J. (2002). Media studies. Lansdowne, Juta, p. 55. Davis, J., & Emeljanow, V. (2001). Reflecting the audience: London theatregoing, 1840-1880. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, p. 12. Garcia-Avilles, J. A. (2012).Roles of Audience Participation in multi-platform Technology: From Fans and Consumers to collaborators and activists. Journal of Audience and Reception Studies. Volume 9, p. 1-19. Gorton, K. (2009). Media audiences: television, meaning and emotion. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, p. 36. Hagen, I., & Wasko, J. (1999). Consuming audiences: production and reception in media research. Cresskill, N.J., Hampton Press, p. 172. Hasebrink, U. (2012). The Role of the Audience within Media Governance: The Neglected Dimension of Media Literacy. Hans-Bredow Institute. The University of Hamburg. Livingstone, S. (1998). Relationship between media and audiences: prospects for audience reception studies. LSE Research Online, p. 237-255. Livingstone, S. (1999). New Media, new audiences? New Media and Society. London. LSE Research Online, p. 59-66. Livingstone, S. (2003). The Changing Nature of Audiences. From Mass Audiences to the Interactive Media User. London. LSE Research Online, p. 16-17. Livingstone, S. (2004). The Challenge of the Changing Audiences, or what is the researcher to do in the age of the internet? London. LSE Research Online, p. 2-13. MORGAN, P. (2013). The audience, p. 38. Napoli, P. M. (2011). Audience evolution: new technologies and the transformation of media audiences. New York, Columbia University Press 2 p. 25-54. Nicholas, J., & Price, J. (1999). Advanced studies in media. Walton-on-Thames, Nelson, p. 59. Nightingale, V. (2011). The Handbook of Media Audiences. New York, NY, John Wiley & Sons, p. 7. Nightingale, V., & Dwyer, T. (2007). New media worlds: challenges for convergence. South Melbourne, Vic, Oxford University Press, p. 167. Olson, D, R and Cole, M. (2013). Technology, Literacy and the Evolution of the Society, p. 181. Snyder, I (1998). Beyond the hype: reassessing hypertext In I.Snyder (Ed.), Page to screen: Taking literacy into the electronic era. London and New York: Routledge, p. 125-143. Staiger, J. (2005). Media reception studies. New York [u.a.], New York Univ. Press, p. 120. Straubhaar, J. D., Larose, R., & Davenport, L. (2010). Media now: understanding media, culture, and technology. Boston, MA, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, p. 76. Sullivan, J. L. (2013). Media audiences: effects, users, institutions, and power. Thousand Oaks, Calif, SAGE Publications, p. 51. Webster, J.G and Ksiazek, T. B. (2011). The Dynamics of Audience Fragmentation: Public Attention in an Age of Digital Media. Journal of Communication, p. 2-30. Wilson, T. (2009). Understanding media users from theory to practice. Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell, p. 46. Winget, M. A., & Aspray, W. (2011). Digital media: technological and social challenges of the interactive world. Lanham, Md, Scarecrow Press, p. 3-27. Read More

Today, the media, politics and public debates will describe the active media audiences as individuals who use the media for their personal needs, that is, the consumers that select the media offers that they prefer and avoid those which they dislike. As a result, the audience research that measures the figures of the media outlets act as indicators of the preferences of the consumers. Thus audience research is important because it provides the media industry with the voice of the audience (Fourie, 2002, p. 55). The audience forms an important part in media industries because they determine the quality of the media products.

The opponents of this argument suggest that the media audience should not be concerned about the quality because they do not seem to be looking for quality. However, detailed audience research is important in revealing the interests of the media users, which are seriously taken into account by the media companies to improve their quality and hence, maximize profits (Livingstone, 1998, 237-255). From a theoretical point of view, the understanding of the media audience involves the use of the gratification approach.

This approach involves the perception of media use as the maximization of individual satisfaction (Wilson, 2009, p. 46). The primary aim of this approach is to identify the levels of satisfaction of different media bargains. This implies that media offers are of high quality, only if they satisfy the individual needs of the consumers. Although this theory attempts to explain the relationship between the media and audience, it does not provide a clear picture of the audience. According to Hasebrink (2012, p. 4-8), there are three main concepts of audience, namely; users as commodities, users as victims and users as consumers.

The users as consumers are considered to have an interest in the media offers that serve their individual needs and preferences. The concept of the users as victims considers the audience as people with rights that should be protected. Importance of audiences Audiences play a critical role in the media industry. They are regarded as the central point of the industry as the industry cannot exist without the audience. This is because the audiences buy the media products (Croteau and Hoynes, 2002, p. 81). The significance of the audience in the media and communication industry is undeniable.

Television producers, for instance, require an audience for their programs, hence they spend a lot of time researching and developing programs that attract the viewers. The challenge with the media audience is the difficulty in finding them as they are geographically dispersed and sometimes hidden in homes, hence the need to carry out media research. In the case of television programs for instance, companies are contracted to carry out research on the lifestyles of the potential audience. The research companies use the questionnaires, focus groups as well as interviews for data collection.

In other cases, the short extracts of movies and television programs are shown to focus groups to see their reactions (Beairsto, 2008, p. 73). In the United States for instance, the Hollywood films are shown to the audiences in cinema halls and the parts that the audiences do not like are changed. Media researches of the audience take different forms. One way of conducting media research is by focusing on the demographics. This kind of research divides the audience into different categories depending on their ages and gender.

As a result, the media companies are able to develop programs that focus on a specific group of people with known consumption habits. Another method used by the media industries in audience research is psychographics which categorizes the audience depending on their behavior and personality traits. Audience research can also be based on the hierarchy of needs (Balnaves, O'regan and Goldsmith, 2011, p. 65). One way in which the audiences are important in the media industry is through their determination of the company profits.

Read More