Week 2 - History and Concept of the Audience
Comm King is back with another blog post for you! This week we are talking about history and concept of the audience, just in case you would not know how to read, if not then hopefully you are enjoying the gifs and images.
Starting with the concept of audience, On Thursday, September 12th, 2019, professor Good gave the definition of audience. She described it to be a group of individuals consuming and engaging with content. According to Sullivan (2013), in his textbook Media Audiences: Effects, users, institutions and power, ‘’the root of the word (aud) suggests the processing of verbal information (e.g., audio or auditory process)’’ (p.3). All these definitions of audience bring us to think that the meaning of audience is constantly changing, in part because it is a social construct. Sullivan (2013) continues to explain that audience is a social construct that is ‘’a situated role that people temporarily perform, and in their performance people produce representations of audience’’ (Butsch, 2008, p.3, as cited in Sullivan’s textbook).
He further explains how ‘’this concept (of audience) has been imagined and used by communities and societies in specific historical and cultural contexts’’ (p.6). An example of this could be how historically, religion such as Christianity has been using the concept of audience. As a Christian, my audience experiences in church proved that Christianity’s strength is based on its followers, that we could also call audience members. Constructionism which is ‘’a metatheorical approach that treats audience as signifier and subject position rather than referent and autonomous subject’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.5), can also be connected to the example of Christianity. Constructionism is tightly connected to Sullivan’s trilogy, which includes audiences-as-outcome, audience-as-mass, and audience-as-agent. The important model in this case is the audiences-as-outcome model, which ‘’sees people as being acted upon by media’’ (Sullivan, 2013, p.6). Religion is an institution that has historically been enforced to create a civilized society. A specific example of how Christianity acts upon its followers or audience members is this ideology that states that true Christians should not have sex before marriage.
As seen in lecture, the reasons why the audiences and their definition have changed throughout history could be because of the environment, which could include technological developments, demographics, etc. One of the main changes in audiences throughout was the size of audiences. Audiences went from thousands co-located in space to millions around the world co-located in time, to billion sharing the same content in matter of seconds. Another important historical change in audiences discussed in lecture was the danger of the crowds. The main focus of this danger was based on ‘’rowdyism’’. As professor Good explained, rowdyism was this 19th century concept that stated there was this sense of concern for the danger of the crowd. Audience members or the crowd, were thought of as a threat to the social order. Sullivan (2013) explains that the crowd ‘’referred to working-class commoners who came together at specific times and places to experience some form of routinized behavior’’ (p.13). Christian mass is a perfect example of audience members that still to this day come together at a specific time and place to experience a form of routinized behavior such as prayer. Also, as I previously stated, Christianity is an institution that has been trying to enforce ideologies in order to keep social order. The last important historical change in audiences discussed in lecture was audiences and power. Sullivan (2013) explains that ‘’power involves the ability of one actor to alter the decisions made and/or welfare experienced by another actor relative to the choices that would have been made and/or welfare that would have been experienced had the actor not existed or acted’” (Bartlett, 1989, p. 19, as cited in Sullivan’s textbook). Professor Good explained in lecture that historically, only certain people were able to tell stories to the audiences. These people were mostly males with formal education and often owned lands. Fortunately for audience members, a shift in the power structure occurred in conjunction with the invention of the printing press. Professor Good explained that the printing press took power from the ‘’establishment’’ and gave power to the people. As shown by Livingstone (2010) in her article ‘’Giving people a voice: On the critical role of the interview in the history of audience research’’, studies have proved ‘’the critical potential of giving the audience a voice’’ (p.569). The printing press did advantage the church but also created the opportunity for followers to critique the church without, or almost without any repercussions.
-Comm King