1 - Audience introduction example

Explore the ways in which audience interpretation is shaped by socio-cultural circumstances. Make reference to Attitude to support your answer - 15 marks - 25 minutes

Knee jerk reaction

Stuart hall - reception theory

Definition, argument, context

Stuart Hall’s reception theory refers to the ways in which media products are encoded by producers, and decoded by audiences. In particular, producers will use media language to encode their own ideology. However, some audiences may accept the ideology of the producer, oppose the ideology of the producer, or, most often of all, negotiate the ideology of the producer. Hall argued that our reception of media products is based on our own socio-cultural circumstances. In this essay, I shall argue that audience interpretation is shaped by socio-cultural circumstances to a moderate

2 - Clay Shirky - the end of audience and ‘speaking back’

Roland Barthe’s famous essay ‘the death of the author’ argued that the original intention of the author is completely useless. The only thing that matters is the interpretation of the audience.

Clay Shirky essentially takes this idea and flips it. Shirky argues that due to recent digitally convergent media practices, the concept of audience no longer exists or is relevant.

Whereas previously audiences had little effect on industry beyond just buying cinema tickets, audiences can now increasingly ‘speak back’ and actively shape media products. Examples of how audiences can speak back include online comment sections, the use of blogs, vlogs, interacting with online forums such as Reddit, social media such as twitter, Insta DMs and so on. Through doing so, Shirky argues that audiences are able to actively shape and create media content in a way that completely eradicates the concept of audience.

However, there are a number of issues with this theory. Even if audiences are now making things, for example blog posts, audiences still exist, and in many ways it actually makes them more visible. Additionally, a statistical minority of audience members actively engage in media products. Additionally, this concept has many unavoidable similarities to Jenkin’s fan theory. Fans have been engaging with media products since the birth of mass media, and digital technology really doesn’t change much. Finally, creating blogs, fan edits and so on is simply engaging with a media product. If audiences truly could shape media products in an active manner, then many cult favourite TV shows just wouldn’t be cancelled, for example Inside Job, I’m Not OK With This, Firefly, Altered Carbon etc etc etc. In the ways in which audiences engage as described by Shirky, they often take a fairly passive role, and merely either advertise, or simply reinforce the hegemonic value of the product that they are ‘discussing’

However, due to digitally convergent technologies, it IS now more possible to create ‘content’ from scratch . Zoella is an excellent example of this. Yet it only serves to underline how standardised the industry is. If one doesn't tick certain boxes and aggressively target certain audiences, then one cannot be profitable.