One of our readings for this week was an entry on ‘Audience’ by David Morley in New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society. It begins by describing the history of the term ‘audience’ to discussing the development of mediated audiences in society. The production of daily newspapers gave birth to mediated audiences and affected the way people consume messages. From here, began the rise of technology as a means of communicating the same messages to people. The text then goes on to research methods undertaken to gain a better understanding of the relationship that media has with audiences.

For instance, it describes the uses and gratification theory, a concept that is familiar to me as I learnt it in Yr 12 Media. This theory suggests that audiences are active participants in their consumption of media and use media for their own gratification. An example that I remember from learning about this theory back in high school was soap operas. They’re main audience are women, particularly house wives and stay at home moms who watch it as they provide entertainment and are relatable. Furthermore, they consider watching soap operas as a form of reward for the work they have completed at home.