How has the nature of the audience changed? In response to 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.
Traditionally an ‘audience’ refers to the collective group of individuals consuming communications. They are receiving, rather than producing: the process of creating and distributing media having always been linear and one-dimensional.
Social media has existed for a greater portion of my life than it hasn’t, the internet having always been around ever since I was born. As millennial we probably underestimate how the media landscape has shifted away from this traditional relationship dynamic and essentially balanced out the power more evenly between consumer and creator. But in the modern era, these traditional boundaries are increasingly blurred, the emergence of new platforms granting the traditional consumer more leverage to create and produce the content that they wish.
As technological mediums were discovered and developed, the definition of an audience likewise changed. What was once a coherent, solidified audience (because of far more limiting broadcasting networks) has now splintered itself into limitless “sub-audiences”. Arguably this change poses challenges and opportunities for countries and their citizens. While the concept of a “national-voice” might have disintegrated, a plethora of networks enables far greater democratic conversations to even take place. The greater the sources of information, the more perspectives that can be foregrounded and the more voices that can be heard.
Social media, in particular, grants “consumers” a far greater level of freedom than what they possibly could have ever experienced before. Most significant of these, of course, is the general population’s increasing ability to respond as audiences and influence the form that the more traditional content takes. Something as simple as face book’s “like” button plays a huge role in influencing contemporary content, guiding broadcasters in what consumers are and aren’t interested in knowing about. The comments section after posts is another good example of the power that social media grants consumers in influencing the content that is published. It also enables a more free-flowing conversation in response to the initial argument being made (in the case of an article, for instance). Audiences now have the opportunity to respond and contribute themselves which, in turn, enables a far more democratic and balanced national conversation that what would have never have been permitted within the confines of traditional broadcasting.
