2. Media Audience Behavior Introduction

3. Question: What do we know most about audiences from existing comm theories and resources? Who chooses what (Neilson) What they choose what they do (expectation) What they get out of it (uses and gratifications)

4. What do we need to know about audiences? How people make choices about what media they choose and what performances they see Psychology and sociology of the viewing experience

5. How do we distinguish between active and passive audiences? Which viewers work? What kind of work do they do?

6. How do we distinguish between texts of fantasy and reality? Reality texts require reader to postpone immediate gratification Fantasy viewers are entertained through escape Can today’s audiences be defined as either one or the other?

7. Audiences defined Collective term for ‘receivers’ in mass comm process: source channel, message, receiver, effect Readers or viewers of media,channel or performance Media audience not observable

8. Historical influences Previously defined by place (local, global) people (gender, demographics), medium, message content, time (prime, drive) Audience as Mass: aggregate of detached individuals with focused attention Audience as Market - links sender and receiver in calculative rather than social relationship - cash transaction

9. Audience-Sender relationship models Transmission model - audience as target; to influence or control Ritual or expressive model - audience as participant; sharing experience Attention model - audience as spectator; entertainment focus with no meaning transfer

10. Notion of performance Involves a relationship between performer and audience Is a live event (worship, political meeting, sports, concerts, funerals, carnivals etc) Involves ceremony and sense of sacred and extraordinary Social distance in public spaces

11. Forms of Audiences: Simple Immediacy, localized, ceremonial Distance between performer and audience Superstars and star texts Active decoding, passive behavior Performed in spaces / closed between shows Public

12. Forms of Audience: Mass No spatial location Indirect communication Post-modern, mass-mediated society; fragmented performances Global spaces Low ceremony, low attention Star-audience relationship; para-social, imitation Watch to reinforce own opinions Motivated by loneliness, curiosity

13. Types of mass audiences Illiterates - visuals only; 60% of general audience; sex fiction and adventure comics Pragmatists - 30% general audience; social beings, interested in status, thing oriented, advertising targets; Readers Digest, Time Intellectuals - less than 10%; concerned with issues and ideas; thinkers; Harpers, Atlantic Monthly

14. Forms of Audiences: Diffused Everyone is an audience all the time Media-drenched society, lots of time watching, listening Performative society Continuing roles World is a spectacle; we are both watchers and being watched Global and local, public and private Imagined and interpretive communities

15. Viewing Metaphor: Football in America

16. A game of signs Country is a football stadium during Superbowl Actual seat in stadium signifies wealth - box for riches, bleachers for poor Codes/signals are used in huddles to transmit play messages Much of game is based on deception - fooling the other team

17. A manipulator of time Instant replay Slow motion Avant-guard film with stream of consciousness back and forth through time

18. A socialized agent Teaches us how to get along in society - roles and rules Emphasizes specialization About containment and breaking free

19. Opposition to boring baseball FOOTBALL Urban Educated players Specialized Team effort Vicarious excitement Body a weapon Up-tite audience BASEBALL Pastoral Country boys General Individualistic Relaxation Bat a weapon Relaxed audience

20. Alternative to religion FOOTBALL Superstars Sunday games Ticket Complex plays Coaches Stadium Fans Beer/hotdogs RELIGION Saints Sunday services Offerings Theology Clergy Church Congregation Wine/eucharist

21. Capitalist enterprise Diverts people’s attention from social situations Huge business that exists to make $ Players are commodities Players have no loyalty, only huge salaries Advertisers exploit viewers Means of social mobility for minorities

22. Questions for discussion 1. How do those perceptions fit into these types of audiences: Active / passive Reality / fantasy Simple / mass 2. Can we accept the notion of a diffused audience as an a priori for this class?