Who really cares about audiences? Well for starters advertises, obviously, as their entire job focuses around identifying them and then establishing how to market to them. Secondly, production houses and individual program makers as to create works they must first acknowledge who would be interested in such works. Further individuals who have a direct interest in audiences and their functions include: social scientists, cultural theorists and media scholars. The change from Broadcast to the post-broadcast era inevitably led to mass changes in regards to audiences, including: broadcasting to narrowcasting and citizens to consumers. This point in particularly interesting as there are inherent contradictions will post-broadcasting, that although television allows for a mass audience often programs will appeal to a niche set of viewers — limiting the range of impact.

In this lectorial we were also introduced to the idea of fandom. Using Madonna and Portlandia as an illustration of how fanatics are born. The screening of Portlandia accurately depicted how easily one can become fanatical, and how once an ideal audience member watches or views something it can catapult into a complete obsession.

In this weeks tutorial the group chosen to do audiences for project brief #4 illustrated how they wished to convey audiences within media. Their idea focused around a feminist perspective — how a feminist could/would piece certain pieces of media. A very interesting and thought provoking idea.