“More than just Watching Television”

This week we explored the idea of media audiences, in particularly how they have changed
and evolved to be what they are in todays contempoary society. Audience’s of today are far more
“active” in the sense that, we can now give instant feedback to what is being broadcast. This
may be through voting systems on television shows(such as ‘Australian Idol’) or through current
media forms such as mobile and internet technologies that allow the ongoing flow of content and
a blurring of the lines between media consumer and producer.

In this weeks reading by Couldry, he mentioned three issues and challenges that have
changed the face of the contempoary media audience. These issues are technological change,
social and spatial change, and the experiential change of the audience. The issue of technology
is fairly evident in the change of audiences, and with media convergence, with the “more complex
locking of old and new media”. An example of this is the new formation of newpapers being accessed
online, such as The Sydney Morning Herald(www.smh.com.au). This keeps the old media form(the
newspaper) but introduces the new technology of the internet to it, which therefore broadens
its access and audience capacity.

In regards to the social and spatial change of the modern audience, this has been with
the change of location of the audience to many different mediums, from simple to contempoary.
Couldry discusses, in detail, Abercrombie and Longhurst’s three stages in history of the audience,
that being:

1.The Simple Audience: which included live performances of books and in the theatre.

2.The Mass Audience: This is newspapers, radio, films and television that was consumed
between late 19th Century and mid 20th Century.

3.The Contempoary “difused audience”: This is modern days audience, as it involves being
constantly connected to one electronic medium or another across almost every activity of daily life
(whether that be social or private life). This idea of “diffused audiences” has exploded in recent
years with the introduction of the iPhone and blackberry and websites like facebook, blog sites
and twitter. These are more than just audiences of a product, but that of many different medium.
The comical clip below is a cartoon about the emergence of twitter, in particular with its
celebrity users. It raises the questions as to, whether or not what is being broadcast and received
by these audiences, is relevant or a load of celebrity endorsement and self promotion. However,
the case still remains, that with the difusive audience, it will continue to expand and be
shown to many other “audience” members.

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Lastly, of the changes in audience(as mentioned by Couldry) is the changed experience. This
also stems greatly from the new media forms and the fact that many households now have television,
internet and mobile medium in every room of the house. This “interactivity” extends the audience
range far and beyond, which has and is still continuing.

As discussed, the backbone of the changing mediascape of audiences is a result of technological
advance. Audiences are now not only local, but global, and the roles of consumer and producer
are changing. As now, anyone can become a producer and post a clip on youtube. Particuarly with
the rise of reality television, such clips with “reality footage” can now be passed as legitimate
and consumed by many. Take for example, the “Flash Mobs” that are becoming increasingly well known around the world, via youtube, as they stand out from the crowd, whether they are filmed/created in New York or Bondi beach, they are still being received by many. The clip below is an example from a “Flash mob” clip shot in Bondi last year.

<object width=”640″ height=”385″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/MnaOkHfZ1vE&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/MnaOkHfZ1vE&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”640″ height=”385″></embed></object>

It just goes to show that with todays “media drenched society” audiences are going to continue to  expand, and leaves you questioning…. What next?

Tags: Sophie Dunn