Module 21 “The Audience”

Understanding the Audience

  • Audiences play a vital role in the media, distinguished from other social institutions due to their necessary presence.

  • Can be identifiable and finite (e.g. audience at a jazz club) or larger and undefined (e.g. viewers of Black Panther).

  • Audiences may be primary (family watching a movie) or secondary (an audience in a large auditorium).

Levels of Audience Analysis

Micro Level

  • Focus on interactions among audience members and their responses to media.

  • Can influence performers during live events.

Macro Level

  • Broader societal consequences of media exposure (example: educational shows like Sesame Street).

  • Collective characteristics of an audience may differ greatly between genres, e.g., ballet vs alternative music.

  • Audiences can be segmented by various attributes: age, gender, income, political party, education, race, and ethnicity.

Targeting Specific Audiences

  • Media outlets actively market to a particular audience they identify through surveys.

  • Specialization driven by advertising—enabling targeted campaigns.

  • Political media specialists used targeted messaging in the 2016 elections; employed social media to micro-target audiences.

  • Facebook enhances targeting tailored by demographics (education, income, political affiliation).

Implications of Segmented Audiences

  • Scholars question if segmented media implies the end of large collective audiences.

  • Despite the rise of personal computers, large organizations still communicate messages to vast and diverse audiences.

  • Campaigns adapt messaging strategies using micro-targeting based on user data from social platforms.

Audience Behavior and Interaction

  • Audiences are not merely passive; they engage and interact among themselves.

  • Opinion Leaders:

    • Individuals who influence the opinions and decisions of their peers (example: movie critics).

    • Pioneered by Paul Lazarusfeld’s research on voting behavior in the 1940s.

    • Includes modern Influencers who operate on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

The Active Role of Audiences

  • Audiences can take on activist roles, exemplified by political protests.

  • Their reactions can influence collective actions, including booing, supporting, or protesting.

  • Growing concern over audience manipulation through misinformation and targeted fake news.

Summary and Key Terms

  • The audience is essential for distinguishing mass media from other social institutions—varying in size and definition.

  • The rise of media outlets has increased segmentation of audiences.

  • Study of opinion leaders reveals their significant influence on audience perceptions.

Key Terms

  • Influencer: A social media user who has significant credibility in a specific niche.

  • Opinion Leader: An individual who informs and influences the opinions of others.