In our lectorial this week we also talked about Audiences.
We talked about how the idea of an Audience has been conceptualised in recent history, rather than being a part of ‘the masses’. Everyone within the media industry has an investment in the audience. Everyone who is a part of media has to think about the audience, like who would view their material? Who are they trying to attract? etc.
Nowadays, the idea of the audience has moved from this ‘everyone’ mentality to more different groups or categories of different mediums and fans. The investments of these fans can differ from different groups and individuals themselves but the average between someone say, who just watches daytime TV compared to someone who watches weekly their favourite TV show and is a ‘fan’ of it. Today’s companies and institutions adhere to these demands and this change of mentality of the audience. The audience is getting more immersed into media and the idea of audience has changed in this way. They produce their content with the idea of a passive or a an active audience which changes from different institutions, mediums and genres etc.
We as media practitioners or learning practitioners have more a say on what to produce and how we affect it. Someone who is just strictly a fan or viewer does not have much to say in terms of what affects the product, so we as media practitioners have to keep in mind we do have more of a voice than the common audience.
The active audience are more invested in media consumption in that there is a lot of ways to consume media. This way of viewing via Netflix, YouTube, paid services (pay per view) etc. has changed from the normal way we used to view things.
So what has changed from ‘the people formerly known as the audience’ to what we have now. Today we are using the internet more than watching tv, since most of tv shows or movies are online. Everything is online and we have changed into this mode of being online.
