UNDERSTANDING THE AUDIENCE- ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
I located the source through searching about the topic on Google scholar. It is a research study that looks at how television research was done in the early years and the recent developments. The source’s main argument is that the early approaches to audience research were not effective in understanding the complexities of audiences. It specifically points out to normative paradigm as the major audience research approach used in the early years. This approach studies audiences as a group, depending on their norms and generalizes them as one. Although it is the most common approach that researchers used to study television audiences, the source posits that it does not examine the complexities of individuals as active audiences but generalizes their behaviour according to the norms of a group or society. The author recommends an active audience paradigm approach in studying television audiences. Researchers who use this approach treat audiences as individuals rather than a group who can create their own meanings from what they view. Thus, the source recommends using the ethnographic method of audience analysis. One major strength of the source is that it explains many other theories, such as the encoding and decoding model, hypodermic model, and uses and gratification theory, to show how television research has evolved. Its weakness is that it does not adequately explain the more recent research approaches. It connects to the essay topic because it will help explain the early theories while analyzing the audience’s research progress.
Morley, D. 2005. Theories of consumption in media studies. In Acknowledging Consumption pp. 301-332.
This is the second source I will use. I located this source through an online library. ‘Acknowledging Consumption’ is a book with a wide range of information on media consumption. Hence, to narrow down my reading, I selected a specific chapter about theories of consumption in media studies. The chapter centres its discussion on the models or theories of media consumption. It asserts that media consumption has been discussed between two poles. The first approach, which is the early approach, puts more emphasis on the power of the media. The theories treat media audiences as passive and who are manipulated by the power of the media. They see them as powerless and only consumers of what the media feeds them without filtering. However, the source acknowledges the development of recent approaches, where media audiences are treated as active participants who have the power to choose what they want to consume. They are active in selecting the materials they want to consume and how they decode the messages from the materials. Generally, the chapter looks at the development of media consumption models. One of its strengths is that it incorporates both the early and new approaches to media consumption and describes them in detail. However, the author dwells too much on the recent approaches, forgetting that the earlier methods too are crucial in tracking the development. It connects to the essay topic such that it explains the development that the audience’s theorists have made.
I located this source through entering keywords related to the re-invention of audience research in the new media era on the google scholar search engine. The article is also available in the International Journal on Media Management, accessed through tandfonline.com. It is a research article that talks about how changes in the media environment are changing research approaches to the audience’s behavior. The article posits that there have been changes in the media environment that has prompted the development of new analytical approaches to studying audiences, and at the same time, undermining the traditional approaches. It emphasizes the changes in audience behaviors and information systems where the new media audiences are different from the old media audiences. Therefore, it focuses on how audiences’ research has developed with respect to audience and media changes.
The major strength of the article is that it adequately discusses on the future of audience research. However, it does not fully address what factors have changed in the media environment to bring out the audience evolution aspect explicitly. Nevertheless, it is a useful source as it relates to the essay topic through discussing the reason behind the re-invention of audience theorization. Besides, it greatly contributes to the wider understanding of why media theorists are re-inventing new ways of understanding and studying audiences. It provides the idea of the changing media environment and audience behaviors as the basis of the re-invention of new approaches.
I located this source through Sage Journals online library. I found it by searching about two-step flow theory because I understand it is an early approach to theorizing audiences. It is a study article that talks analyze the use of two-step flow theory in two twitter-based discussions. The study’s main aim is to evaluate whether the theory, as an early approach, is still used to influence the public. From the discussion, the researchers discovered that opinion leaders were more powerful in manipulating the public, although they were not content creators. Since they are powerful and perhaps the elite in society, the study found them influential to the public.
The major strength of the source is that it applies the theory to a real-life example on Twitter to show how the public is influenced by opinion leaders or the powerful and elite in the society. It adequately indicates that despite the development of new approaches to theorizing audiences as active participants, early approaches criticized as elitist are still influential. It connects to the essay topic in that it sheds light on the two-step-flow theory, one of the earliest approaches to audience theorization. Additionally, it depicts the degree of success that audience theorists have stepped in developing new approaches. In this case, the field has not been fully re-invented because early approaches that viewed audiences as passive are still influential. The source also contributes to the wider debate of the influence of powerful leaders on audiences through the media.
Like many other sources, I located this source on the Journals of Communication Review accessed through tandfonline.com using keywords. The article explores some of the unanswered questions in the audience research topic. One of the major unanswered topics it explores is active audiences and media power. This entails the ability of audiences to discern what they are watching on the media and decode the messages actively. Also, it involves the influence the media has in manipulating the audiences. Concerning active audiences, the article explores the models that term audiences as active participants rather than passive. It explores transnational audiences and global power, audience research methodologies, essentialism problems in conceptualizing audience members, the encoding/decoding model and its limitations, intellectual progress modes, and new media and technologies of ‘newness.’
Essentially, the author does not provide answers to the questions but stresses that it is critical to dig deep into the unanswered questions to understand the whole topic of audience research. The questions are essential in understanding how media theorists have re-invented the field, and that is how it connects with the essay topic. All the unanswered topics that the source explores fit in the new approaches of understanding audiences. The strength of the source is that it explores some of the most important questions that any audience researcher is required to understand to understand their audiences adequately. However, the major weakness is that the source does not attempt to answer the pertinent questions.
Livingstone, S. 1998. Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of Audience Interpretation (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203754559
It is a chapter derived from the Psychology of Audience interpretation book by Sonia Livingstone. I located the book on Google scholar and derived the chapter ‘Making Sense of Television.’ The chapter explores and discusses audiences’ parasocial interaction with the media, particularly their interactions with television programs. Specifically, the source discusses the nature of active audiences and the role the text they view plays in social psychology. Also, it looks at the theoretical perspectives of social psychology and ethnographic work of audiences. It is a crucial source that connects with the essay topic in that it sheds light on the new approaches to audience interpretation of media messages. While the essay question asks how audience theorists have re-invented the field, this source is vital in giving an explanation of how audiences have become active through the interpretation of media messages. Unlike earlier approaches to audience research that termed audiences as passive, this source incorporates the topic of social psychology in contributing to active audiences. Its strength is that it has touched on a topic that many researchers have avoided, which is social psychology. While analyzing how audience theorists have developed new approaches to audience research, it is critical to incorporate what has contributed to the audience’s change in behavior and how their social psychology in interpretation has changed. Hence, the source has a strong thesis. However, it has only narrowed its analysis on television programs only, while there are many other media platforms that audiences are consuming, forming one of its weaknesses. Nevertheless, it contributes to the wider debate surrounding the idea behind audiences’ media messages interpretation.
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Nightingale, V. 2011. The handbook of media audiences (1st ed.). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
I located this source from Willey Online Library. It is a book that talks about media audiences as a whole. While I may not use the whole book, there are some crucial chapters that I will select. The book gives a comprehensive overview of audience studies in the digital media era. Firstly, it provides an overview of the study of audiences and how studying them is changing with increased new media. Secondly, it discusses traditional approaches to audience research and how they can be applied in the changing digital media era. Also, it gives an overview of how audience research has been theorized today through diverse perspectives. The strength of the source is that it has encompassed a variety of topics to enable readers to understand media audiences in detail. Besides, it also discusses them in detail. I have not discovered any weakness of the book. It connects with the essay topic in that it sheds light on the early and new approaches to audience research that the essay talks about. Understanding the methods will make it easier to analyze the fairness of the earlier approaches criticism and the state of the new methods. Also, since the source explains how audience research is approached today, it will be easier to explain how successful media theorists have changed the field.
Reference List
Ivala, E. 2007. Television audience research revisited: Early television audience research and the more recent developments in television audience research. Communication, 33(1). pp.26-41.
Morley, D. 2005. Theories of consumption in media studies. In Acknowledging Consumption pp. 301-332.
Napoli, P. 2012. Audience Evolution and the Future of Audience Research. International Journal on Media Management. 14(2), pp.79-97.
Choi, S. 2014. The Two-Step Flow of Communication in Twitter-Based Public Forums. Social Science Computer Review. 33(6), pp.696-711.
Morley, D. 2006. Unanswered Questions in Audience Research. The Communication Review. 9(2), pp.101-121.
Livingstone, S. 1998. Making Sense of Television: The Psychology of Audience Interpretation (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203754559
Nightingale, V. 2011. The handbook of media audiences (1st ed.). Blackwell Publishing Ltd.