Concepts of the audience
WEEK 3
Shimpach, S. (2011). Viewing. In V. Nightingale(Ed.),
The Handbook of Media Audiences (pp. 62-85).
Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. (WEEK 3)
Reading
What can we learn from earlier
theories of the audience?
Terminology
1. Audience (viewers, spectators)
2. Passive Audience / Active Audience
3. Masses
4. Consumers
5. Publics
6. Participants
7. Prosumers
8. Users
9. Produsers
Models of audience
reception
Effects
theory
Uses and
gratifications
Encoding/
decoding
Passive audiences Active audiences
Effects theory
1. Beginning of the 20th century (World War I, rise of fascism, World War II)
2. Powerful media / passive audiences
3. Frankfurt school (Adorno, Horkheimer)
4. Theories: Hypodermic needle, magic bullet
5. Bobo doll experiment
Uses &
Gratifications
1.Middle of 20th Century, 1940’s and 50’s.
2.Consumer focused – why do people choose the media
they do? What do they get out of it?
3.Active control over consumption choices
4.Herta Herzog: Soap operas and why people watch them
5.Blumler & Katz: Message is what the audiences makes of it
(findings inc entertainment, social interaction, escape, identification, education)
Encoding/
Decoding theory
1. Late 20th century: 70’s and 80’s (counterculture, social movements)
2. Stuart Hall: The sender (encoder) uses symbols to send a message. The audience
reconstructs the idea giving meaning to symbols.
3. Decoding:
1. Dominant/Hegemonic: Decodes message as it’s been coded.
2. Negotiated: Adaptative and oppositional elements are used decoding the message.
3. Oppositional: Uses a different reference code for interpreting messages.
Key lessons from audience
reception studies and the idea
of the ‘active audience’
1. Audiences readings/interpretations can’t be predicted – audiences are active in making
meanings
2. Audience interpretations are structured and shaped by social contexts of reception
(historical time periods, local/global factors)
3. Audiences have the agency to appropriate, reshape and remediate media texts and
contest meaning
These ideas about ‘active audiences’ provide a useful historical backdrop to our discussion
of participatory users and produsers in the new media terrain (week 5).
Historic shifts affecting
Audience practices
Affect
1. From Mass to
Networked Society
2. From Push to Pull Media
3. From One-Way to Multi-
Way Communication
1. How audiences
engage with media
2. How people engage
with each other
through media
Modes of
viewing
Shimpach describes different modes of viewing from early cinema (nickelodeons),
to classical Hollywood cinema, to television, and to computers.
He contextualises this by referencing the traditional transmission model of
communication:
Sender
• Artist
• Author
Message
• Media text
Receiver
• Audience (Mass)
• Viewing subject
(individual)
Modes of
viewing
• Public locations
“cinema of
attractions”
• “Sociable publics”
(Shimpach)
Nickelodeons
Classical
Hollywood
Broadcast
Television
New Media
• Commercialised
picture palaces
• “The gaze” (Mulvey)
• Domestic viewing;
distracted viewing
• “The glance” (Ellis)
• Personal devices /
multiple screens /
multiple locations /
interactive user
• “The grab”
(Senft,2008)
Key concepts from
Simpach
• Active viewing and participation
• Viewing as part of cultural citizenship (p.81)
• ‘The ‘labour’ of viewing – we’ll come back to this idea as we look at audience
practices.
Reading questions
1. Discuss your own viewing practices with one or more forms of
media. What types of 'active audience' behaviour do you practice?
2. How have the affordances of digital technologies enabled new forms
of audience participation and behaviour in one of the following:
journalism, film, television, games, music, radio. What concepts
from this week's readings are useful in this discussion?
For next week
1. Watch the lecture!
2. Complete the readings!
3. Prepare for your viva (if it’s this coming week)
4. Start thinking about the essay assignment?

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