Examine the various arguments to look at how active audiences make media choices freely, the way audiences use media messages to fulfill their own needs and obtain a sense of identity by actively constructing the media messages.

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Audience, once thought to be passive has shifted to actively interpret media messages in various forms over the years. Individuals come together as a group to construct their own interpretation with their thoughts and knowledge of pre-existing beliefs. Lets examine the various arguments to look at how active audiences make media choices freely, the way audiences use media messages to fulfill their own needs and obtain a sense of identity by actively constructing the media messages. I will also discuss how cultural literacy, past experience and social institution they attend affect the interpretation of media messages and in the event of accepting or rejecting selective messages.

Active audiences are not ‘sponges’ who absorbed all information that is transmitted by the media but use their minds and cultural context to interpret and categorise media text instead. Different audiences can comprehend a media message but have different responses to it. Some Audiences accept the message while others reject it using knowledge namely their past experience, culture context and social position.

‘Most people make their own media choices freely, they do not typically feel

manipulated by remote powers. The social interaction that develops around media use helps people to incorporate it into everyday life as a friendly rather than an alienating presence’ (McQuail 1997 8) Audiences make use of the media for various purposes to satisfy individual needs such as entertainment.  Each individual has the power to select the media texts that best suit his needs.  

For example the father of a family who seek for information will watch news channel, the mother who sought for social interaction will watch sitcom. Children in the family will most probably watch cartoons channel for the purpose of entertainment. Audiences have the power to select the best media texts that best fulfilled their needs and incorporate it into their everyday life for pleasure consumption.        

‘The uses and gratifications research represented a shift to a more optimistic and less harmful characterization of the relationship between media and audiences, emphasizing active engagement and the ways the media could employed by individuals to satisfy needs and accomplish personal goals’ (Seiter 1999 pg 12)

This is to say that media produces text that the audiences can use. Audiences interact with the media to obtain knowledge and pleasure. For example an 18 year old teenager will obtain pleasure and a sense of identity from a sitcom, friends which makes use of music to energise a sense of enthusiasm and fun that their audiences can associate with. Audiences are influenced at the same time view and use the media message to satisfy their own wants.

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‘They help to establish what may be described as the selective reproduction of cultural forms. In creating media products, the personnel of media institution draw upon everyday forms of culture and communication, incorporating these forms into media products thereby reproducing, in a selective and creative way, the cultural forms of everyday life.’ (Thomson 1997 pg30)  Texts are conveyed to audiences in a way that encourages us to identify with the text and allow us to identify as our ‘kind’ of text. This can be seen from the plots of sitcom. For instance a local sitcom in Singapore, Phua chu ...

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