Jay Rosen (2006),’The People Formerly Known as the Audience’, PressThink blog, June 27. 

I found this article very useful in reflecting on how nowadays the relationship between media producers and consumers have become blurred. We are now in an information age where the mouthpiece for society is passed around like a communal joint and when someone makes a good point we all nod and move on.

As someone who grew up with the internet readily available I had never really thought of myself as an pure audience member whose role only consisted of consuming. I like to think of the modern relationship between maker and consumer as a sushi train restaurant. Each dish (media texts) move around the tasters (audience) on a mini train creating a constant stream of interesting visually delectable platters. The ever moving train (our news feeds) allows us to see a wide spread of food BUT we are the ones with the power to consume, and in turn recommend what we eat. In a way the eaters have the most power as we are the ones who decide what becomes popular. Naturally the most favoured dishes disappear quickly and this high demand is noticed by the chefs who then create more of that popular dish. This can explain maybe we there are so many damn superhero movies at the moment.

Also without audiences nothing goes viral which means The Ellen show has no viral videos to feature.

Vsauce one of my favourite youtubers investigated the history of clapping; why we do it, what it means and how its meaning has changed over time. I think that if we look at the history of clapping; an activity originally used to show curtesy and appreciation of a live act, we can track the shift in power in the media.

He says that clapping is a “a collective social gesture which we in groups to express admiration.” People used to have to see orchestras play music live in order to appreciate their favourite symphonies; but now with recorded music its so much easier to become an audience of one.  With more entertainment than ever and technology that allows us to “cacoon” our consumption of it in solitude it would seem like our ability to “clap” as a crowd would diminish. But to me that is far from the truth.

• A highly centralized media system had connected people “up” to big social agencies and centers of power but not “across” to each other. Now the horizontal flow, citizen-to-citizen, is as real and consequential as the vertical one.

Instead of applauding in real life in substitution we have accumulative liking, sharing and commenting on content online. As Michael says, we create a “digital applause” as an ersatz applause.