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Audience theory offers explanations of how people encounter media, how they use it, and how it affects them. Although the concept of an audience predates modern media, [1] most audience theory is concerned with people’s relationship to various forms of media. There is no single theory of audience, but a range of explanatory frameworks.
Moreover, reception theory suggests that texts are not necessarily absorbed in their entirety, but rather selectively received and interpreted based on the audience's interests and preferences. This selective reception reinforces the idea that audiences actively engage with media texts and shape their meanings based on their own needs and desires.
The imaginary audience refers to a psychological state where an individual imagines and believes that multitudes of people are listening to or watching them. It is one of the mental constructs in David Elkind 's idea of adolescent egocentrism (along with the personal fable ).
For example, attribution theory predicts that a student who turns in a late assignment may explain to the professor that the tardiness is uncharacteristic and due to a situational factor like an unusual computer problem while the professor might believe the tardiness was due instead to a dispositional factor like the student's laziness.
Audience members participate in different ways in different kinds of art. Some events invite overt audience participation and others allow only modest clapping and criticism and reception. Media audience studies have become a recognized part of the curriculum. Audience theory offers scholarly insight into audiences in general. These insights ...
The traditional Disposition Theory is closely related to misattribution theory of humor. Disposition Theory takes the position that entertainment users are just an audience, they are not active. By employing this perspective, the audience does not experience real emotion towards the events in the narrative, but rather experience suspense ...
James G. Webster (born 1951) is a professor and audience researcher at Northwestern University. [1] Webster's publications have documented patterns of audience behavior, sometimes challenging widely held misconceptions. He has also made foundational contributions to audience theory and the methods of audience analysis.
Active audience theory is seen as a direct contrast to the Effects traditions, however, Jenny Kitzinger, professor of Communications at Cardiff University, argues against discounting the effect or influence media can have on an audience, acknowledging that an active audience does not mean that media effect or influence is not possible. [5]