Audience

Valmora Gogo, University College Bedër, Albania
valmoragogo@gmail.com

Audiences are defined in different ways: by place, by people, by the particular type of medium or channel involved, as well as by time. Several authors have carefully studied audiences, including Webster, Webster and Phalen, Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch, or Livingstone. Webster saw the audience as a mass, because of the media's effects on them, and as an agent, but he also talks about mixed models of how we define audiences. McQuail makes sure to advance in the division of the most specific typologies of audiences, to see the audience not only under the effect of media messages, so defining the audience as a group or as a public; audiences with their needs or preferences, the audience of the medium, audience defined by channel or content, but also the audience as a target, as a participant, as a spectator, etc.

Research in theories of use and gratifications emphasises how individuals use communications in their environment to satisfy their needs and achieve their goals. This model of studying audiences is centered on five elements, among which viewing audiences as active in the entire mass communication process, the need for gratification and the choice of media belongs to the audience member, and that many of the purposes of using mass media can be drawn from the data provided by individual audience members, where people are self-aware enough to be able to re-portray their interests and motives on particular occasions. The relationship between audiences and the public should be taken into consideration according to Livingstone as public refers to a common understanding or involvement in a common forum because public implies an orientation of collective and consensual. There is a contradiction in Livingstone's eyes regarding the fact that the importance of the media is increasing in many areas of life, but on the other hand, people's engagement with these media remains insignificant.

Keywords: audience, interactivity, heterogeneous audience, mediated messages

Related Entries: Audience Segmentation, Communication, Opinion, Public Opinion

References:
Katz, E., Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. (1973). Uses and gratifications research. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 37(4),509-523. https://doi.org/10.1086/268109
Livingstone, S. (2005). Audiences and publics: When cultural engagement matters for the public sphere (2nd ed.). Intellect Books.
Livingstone, S. (2019). Audiences in an age of datafication: Critical questions for media research. Television & New Media, 20(2), 170-183. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476418811118
McQuail, D. (1997). Audience analysis. SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781452233406
McQuail, D. (2010). McQuail’s mass communication theory (6th ed.). SAGE.
Webster, G. J. (2008). The audience. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 42(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/08838159809364443