CYB113 Living in a Media World - Week 5: Media Audiences Study Notes

CYB113 Living in a Media World

Mid-Semester Exam Details

  • Date and Time:

    • Next Monday, 30 March,

    • Arrive by 8:50 AM at the latest for a 9:00 AM start

  • Location: KG-F509 (this lecture theatre)

  • No Classes:

    • No lecture or tutorials next week

    • Students with relevant AEP adjustments have been emailed alternative location details

  • Duration:

    • 30 minutes (up to 45 minutes allowed for all students)

  • Weight:

    • Exam is weighted at 20% of overall unit grade

Exam Content

  • Assessment Focus:

    • Exam will assess understanding of key concepts from block 1 of the unit (weeks 1-5)

    • Content drawn from readings, lectures, and tutorial activities

  • Format:

    • All questions will be multiple-choice

    • Each question has a specific point value, totaling 100 points

What to Bring to the Exam

  • Required Items:

    • A blue and/or black pen (not a pencil or any other colored pen)

    • Your student ID

    • A water bottle (optional)

  • Items to Store:

    • All other items including phones, wearable devices, and pencil cases must be stored in your bag under your desk

Revision Tips

  • Study Materials:

    • Draw on your exam revision materials

    • Focus on key terms and concepts emphasized in readings, lectures, and tutorials

  • Test Format Understanding:

    • Exam tests comprehension of unit materials rather than pure memorization

    • Remember names of scholars; questions may invoke these names relating to specific terms or readings

  • Practice:

    • Engage with multiple-choice questions in this week’s tutorial

Today's Lecture Topics

  • Main Themes:

    • The audience

    • Professional communication: making and maintaining audiences

    • Examination of how audiences are made and maintained in the mass media and digital eras

  • Key Concepts Discussed:

    • Dominant, negotiated, and oppositional audience readings

    • Summary of block 1 content

The Importance of Understanding Audiences

  • Career Relevance:

    • Understanding audiences is crucial for students graduating with a Bachelor of Communication entering professional communication roles

  • Role of Professional Communicators:

    • Fundamental task involves communicating between the organization and the audience

Concept of Audience as a "Useful Fiction"

  • Reference:

    • Newman (2022) defines the audience as a "useful fiction"

  • Example Explained:

    • In a marketing campaign for GoMA aiming to attract "young people":

    • The term "young people" is a constructed audience, not a naturally existing group

    • The specific audience comprises those more interested in art experiences than merely art objects

    • Campaign success relies on audience construction rather than discovery

Audience Construction in Media Contexts

  • Mass Media Era:

    • For TV broadcasters, the audience serves as a “commodity” to be sold to advertisers

  • Digital Era:

    • Contrasts and similarities in audience construction between mass media and digital contexts

Platform Era Insights

  • Content Individualization:

    • There's a prevalent belief that media is now more “individualized” due to algorithmic recommendations and “personalized” advertising

  • Advertiser Mechanism:

    • Platforms utilize unsupervised machine learning and machine vision algorithms to automate users into various “affinity groups”

    • Users are sorted into groups without being truly understood by the algorithms

Audience Interpretation of Media

  • Decoding of Messages:

    • Real people may not interpret media messages as intended, indicating complexity in media consumption

    • The Hypodermic Needle Theory: Developed in the 1920s and 1930s, suggests a passive audience receiving messages linearly

Encoding and Decoding Media Messages

  • Hall's Model:

    • Media messages are “encoded” with preferred meanings, which can be “decoded” in various ways:

    • Dominant Reading: Understanding as intended by the communicator

    • Negotiated Reading: Recognizing the intended meaning but resisting full acceptance

    • Oppositional Reading: Full understanding but outright rejection of the message

  • Hegemony: Dominant groups strive to synchronize encoding and decoding to maintain influence

Examples of Audience Decoding

  • Example Situations:

    • All-female space flight by Blue Origin interpreted as an inspiring milestone (dominant), a commercial PR event (negotiated), or a publicity stunt (oppositional)

  • Hall's Notion of Meaning: Highlights that meaning is not solely the property of the communicator, rather it is constructed through encoding and decoding

Conclusion and Summary of Block 1

  • Media Studies Introduction:

    • Media studies analyze the relationship between media, meaning, and power

  • The Evolution of Power Dynamics:

    • Significantly shifted from mass media to the digital era

  • Looking Forward:

    • Upcoming block 2 will explore deeper insights into the workings of power in today's media world

  • Final Note:

    • Reminder to see students in tutorials!