The topic for this week was all about audiences. And so, the first reading for this week was an entry by David Morley from New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society (2005). Before we can discuss this topic, we need to think to ourselves, ‘what exactly is an audience’? Well, it’s time to refer back to the trusty Urban Dictionary. So, according to Audience #84,726, an audience is “an army of fantastic guys, gals, and others that enjoy commencing in daily activities such as talking to Toby, watching Toby suck at video games, and get ignored by Toby when he talks to Justine” (Audience #84,726, Urban Dictionary, 2011).

So by actual definition, the audience used to literally imply that people were in the same room, watching a performance, or a sermon, or something like that. But with the invention of the printing press in 1440, texts were able to be mass produced, and so the definition of ‘audience’ expanded to those who happened to own a copy of, let’s say, Fifty Shades of Grey, or whatever they read back in those times.

With the constantly growing media, the audience too, constantly grows. It’s getting to the point where the target audiences are terribly getting mixed up. For example, you see five-year-old kids playing with their own personal iPad, or twelve year olds playing Grand Theft Auto. I guess this is what people call ‘adaption’?