The Mass Audience
The Mass Audience

Author: James Webster

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-05

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 1136685936

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In the early 20th century, a new and distinctive concept of the audience rose to prominence. The audience was seen as a mass -- a large collection of people mostly unknown to one another -- that was unified through exposure to media. This construct offered a pragmatic way to map audiences that was relevant to industry, government, and social theorists. In a relatively short period of time, it became the dominant model for studying the audience. Today, it is so pervasive that most people simply take it for granted. Recently, media scholars have reopened inquiry into the meaning of "audience." They question the utility of the mass audience concept, characterizing it as insensitive to differences among audience members inescapably bound up with discredited notions of mass society, or serving only a narrow set of industrial interests. The authors of this volume find that these assertions are often false and unwarranted either by the historical record or by contemporary industry practice. Instead, they argue for a rediscovery of the dominant model by summarizing and critiquing the very considerable body of literature on audience behavior, and by demonstrating different ways of analyzing mass audiences. Further, they provide a framework for understanding the future of the audience in the new media environment, and suggest how the concept of mass audience can illuminate research on media effects, cultural studies, and media policy.

The Future of the Mass Audience
The Future of the Mass Audience

Author: W. Russell Neuman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1992-01-31

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780521413473

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The Future of the Mass Audience focuses on how the changing technology and economics of the mass media in postindustrial society will influence public communication. It summarizes the results of a five-year study conducted in cooperation with the senior corporate planners at ABC, CBS, NBC, Time Warner, The New York Times, and the Washington Post. The central question is whether the new electronic media and the use of personal computers in the communication process will lead to a fragmentation or "demassification" of the mass audience. This study demonstrates, contrary to the opinion of some analysts, that the movement toward fragmentation and specialization will be modest and that the national media and common political culture will remain robust. W. Russell Neuman, directs the Communications Research Group of MIT's Media Laboratory. He has published widely and among his recent books are The Paradox of Mass Politics (1986) and the The Telecommunications Revolution (1991). Prior to teaching at MIT he held posts at Yale University and University of California, Berkeley.

Misinformation and Mass Audiences
Misinformation and Mass Audiences

Author: Brian G. Southwell

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2018-01-24

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 147731458X

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Lies and inaccurate information are as old as humanity, but never before have they been so easy to spread. Each moment of every day, the Internet and broadcast media purvey misinformation, either deliberately or accidentally, to a mass audience on subjects ranging from politics to consumer goods to science and medicine, among many others. Because misinformation now has the potential to affect behavior on a massive scale, it is urgently important to understand how it works and what can be done to mitigate its harmful effects. Misinformation and Mass Audiences brings together evidence and ideas from communication research, public health, psychology, political science, environmental studies, and information science to investigate what constitutes misinformation, how it spreads, and how best to counter it. The expert contributors cover such topics as whether and to what extent audiences consciously notice misinformation, the possibilities for audience deception, the ethics of satire in journalism and public affairs programming, the diffusion of rumors, the role of Internet search behavior, and the evolving efforts to counteract misinformation, such as fact-checking programs. The first comprehensive social science volume exploring the prevalence and consequences of, and remedies for, misinformation as a mass communication phenomenon, Misinformation and Mass Audiences will be a crucial resource for students and faculty researching misinformation, policymakers grappling with questions of regulation and prevention, and anyone concerned about this troubling, yet perhaps unavoidable, dimension of current media systems.

The Mass Audience
The Mass Audience

Author: James Webster

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-05

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1136685944

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In the early 20th century, a new and distinctive concept of the audience rose to prominence. The audience was seen as a mass -- a large collection of people mostly unknown to one another -- that was unified through exposure to media. This construct offered a pragmatic way to map audiences that was relevant to industry, government, and social theorists. In a relatively short period of time, it became the dominant model for studying the audience. Today, it is so pervasive that most people simply take it for granted. Recently, media scholars have reopened inquiry into the meaning of "audience." They question the utility of the mass audience concept, characterizing it as insensitive to differences among audience members inescapably bound up with discredited notions of mass society, or serving only a narrow set of industrial interests. The authors of this volume find that these assertions are often false and unwarranted either by the historical record or by contemporary industry practice. Instead, they argue for a rediscovery of the dominant model by summarizing and critiquing the very considerable body of literature on audience behavior, and by demonstrating different ways of analyzing mass audiences. Further, they provide a framework for understanding the future of the audience in the new media environment, and suggest how the concept of mass audience can illuminate research on media effects, cultural studies, and media policy.

Media Audiences
Media Audiences

Author: John L. Sullivan

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2019-07-24

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1506397387

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Whether we are watching TV, surfing the Internet, listening to our iPods, or reading a novel, we all engage with media as an audience. . Despite the widespread use of this term in our popular culture, the meaning of "audience" is complex, and it has undergone significant historical shifts as new forms of mediated communication have developed from print, telegraphy, and radio to film, television, and the Internet. Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power 2nd Edition explores the concept of media audiences from four broad perspectives: as "victims" of mass media, as market constructions and commodities, as users of media, and as producers and subcultures of mass media. The goal of the text is for students to be able to think critically about the role and status of media audiences in contemporary society, reflecting on their relative power in relation to institutional media producers.

Audience Analysis
Audience Analysis

Author: Denis McQuail

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 1997-07-28

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1506339239

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The word audience has long been familiar as the collective term for the "receivers" in the model of mass communication process (source, channel, message, receiver, effect). It is a term that is understood by media practitioners and theorists alike and has entered into everyday usage; however, there is much room for differences of meaning, misunderstandings, and theoretical conflicts. In Audience Analysis, author Denis McQuail provides a coherent and succinct account of the concept "media audience" in terms of its history and its place in present-day media theory and research. He describes and explains the main types of audience, alternative theories about the audience, and the main traditions and fields of audience research. This informative volume explains the contrast between social scientific and humanistic approaches and gives due weight to the view "from the audience," as well as the view "from the media." It summarizes key research findings and assesses the impact of new media developments, especially transnationalization and new interactive technology. Finally, the volume concludes with an evaluation of the continued relevance of the audience concept under conditions of rapid media change. Providing both an overview of past research and a guide to current thinking, Audience Analysis will be enlightening to academics and students in the fields of mass communication and media studies.

The Mass Audience
The Mass Audience

Author: James G. Webster

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780805823059

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First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication
The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication

Author: William L. Benoit

Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 9781433164262

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Mass communication theories were largely built when we had mass media audiences. The number of television, print, film or other forms of media audiences were largely finite, concentrating people on many of the same core content offerings, whether that be the nightly news or a popular television show. What happens when those audiences splinter? The Rise and Fall of Mass Communication surveys the aftermath of exactly that, noting that very few modern media products have audiences above 1-2% of the population at any one time. Advancing a new media balkanization theory, Benoit and Billings neither lament nor embrace the new media landscape, opting instead to pinpoint how we must consider mass communication theories and applications in an era of ubiquitous choice.

German Architecture for a Mass Audience
German Architecture for a Mass Audience

Author: Kathleen James-Chakraborty

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-06

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1134689608

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This book vividly illustrates the ways in which buildings designed by many of Germany's most celebrated twentieth century architects were embedded in widely held beliefs about the power of architecture to influence society. German Architecture for a Mass Audience also demonstrates the way in which these modernist ideas have been challenged and transformed, most recently in the rebuilding of central Berlin.