It’s week 9 already!?  I can’t believe how quickly this semester is flying and how I’ve been actually keeping up to date with the work (so far).  This weeks reading is on audience.  This is very fortunate seeing as my group assessment is focused on this topic and we will have this reading as a reference point for our studies.

The text describes the term ‘audience’ to have varied meanings, one being that of “hearing” rather than a physical, formal ‘thing’.  However, an audience does usually refer to a physically present group of people (or even an individual) who is ‘hearing’ or listening and observing something in particular.  There are many different forms of text an audience can engage with.  Early examples of audience included those attending theatre or sermons however, an audience can move through time via books, novels and newspapers.  This gives a duplicity to the idea of audience.

Previously it was thought that an audience was manipulated by the media in order to behave accordingly.  Advertisers would direct their ads at ‘target audiences’ and so forth.  Recently there has been an idea of an audience being a more active aspect of any text.  This moves through the ideas of an audience being empowered by devices such as remote controls, providing freedom to the audience.  I’m looking forward to researching this idea further.

David Morley (2005), Entry on ‘Audience’ in New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Ed. T.Bennett, L. Grossberg & M. Morris (Wiley-Blackwell), pp.8-10.