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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.
Imaginary audience effects are not a neurological disorder, but more a personality or developmental stage of life. It is not aroused by a life event; rather it is a part of the developmental process throughout adolescence. It is a natural part of the process of developing a healthy understanding of one's relationship with the world.
The multiple audience dilemma is a communication theory that describes what happens when a person (or group) creates different images of themselves when communicating with different audiences. For instance, a study examined what happens when participants are asked to appear as a "nerd" to one audience and a "party animal" to another.
By categorizing the audience's motives for viewing a certain program, they aimed to understand any potential mass-media effects by classifying viewers according to their needs. [7] The audience motivations they were able to identify helped lay the groundwork for their research in 1972 and eventually uses and gratifications theory. [17]
Egocentrism is found across the life span: in infancy, [2] early childhood, [3] [4] adolescence, [5] and adulthood. [3] [6] Although egocentric behaviors are less prominent in adulthood, the existence of some forms of egocentrism in adulthood indicates that overcoming egocentrism may be a lifelong development that never achieves completion. [7]
The concept of mediatization still requires development, and there is no commonly agreed definition of the term. [4] For example, a sociologist, Ernst Manheim, used mediatization as a way to describe social shifts that are controlled by the mass media, while a media researcher, Kent Asp, viewed mediatization as the relationship between politics, mass media, and the ever-growing divide between ...
The imaginary audience, Elkind said, could be regarded as "a series of hypotheses" that an adolescent "tests against reality". Because the imaginary audience is usually constructed based on an adolescent's attention on his own perception, it will be gradually modified through communicating and reacting with real audiences.
For example, a film may be received as a comedy by some viewers, while others might perceive it as a tragedy, depending on their own experiences and cultural backgrounds. Reception theory further highlights the complex nature of media consumption, as audiences are not passive recipients but active participants in the construction of meaning.