Mass Media Audience

Mass Media Audience

While, we can follow a particular set of definitions based on earlier studies, I would like to remind my students that Digital Media has drastically changed the face of Communication and certain definitions from older text books may not include elements that define the Audiences of New Media and Digitised content. So, here is a simple attempt to give you both the old and new.

The concept of Mass Communication entails the transmission of messages to a large number of assorted, heterogenous people who are anonymous. These recipients or receivers of the messages delivered through the process of Mass communication are also called the Audience.

The term Mass Media Audience is often identified by the choice of Media made by the Audience. For instance the Audience of a ‘Newspaper’ includes the readers of a Newspaper; the audience of a particular Author or a series of books like Harry Potter, are its readers from all across the world; the audience of an FM channel on Radio or a given Radio Station are its listeners who regularly tune into the channel; The audience of a given Television Channel or a News Channel are those who watch the particular channel or serial from all across the world; the same applies in todays context for OTT content (Over the Top Content) like Netflix and Amazon Prime, Hotstar, etc which are accessible on your mobiles or your laptops, etc. The audience downloads these apps for a price and starts watching programmes, movies or series of serials which are available for them on these applications.

McQuail defines a Mass Media Audience in a very elaborate manner. He says, “An audience can thus be defined in different and overlapping ways: by place (as in the case of local media); by people ( as when a medium is characterised by an appeal to a certain age group, gender, political belief or income strategy); by the particular type of medium or channel involved (technology and organisation combined); by the content of its messages (genres, subject matter, styles); by time ( as when one speaks of the ‘daytime’ or ‘primetime’ audience, or an audience that is fleeting and short term compared with one that endures).” McQuail’s Mass communication theory, 4th edition, Sage Publications

The Mass Media Audience is often characterised by the term Mass which enumerates how a Mass Audience is. The term Mass can be identified here as a large number of people who are heterogenous, assorted and anonymous in nature.

‘Large’ here would mean a relatively big audience or people who are many in number. However, it does not include everyone. People have their own choices in the consumption of Mass mediated messages. The Mass Media audience could be a small community with a thousand listeners or a large audience with billions glued to watching the Football World Cup finals.

‘Assorted’ here would mean a varied lot. Mass Media Channels have a huge audience but they are often assorted and spread out. They need not always be accumulated in the same place. The audience for a particular Media channel can differ not just from place to place but even in the precincts of a house. For instance, the children in the house may only prefer to watch cartoons on a particular channel, however, the parents may want to watch news, sports or any other tele-serial. The audience is scattered. Children in different homes from all across India may be watching a particular cartoon. Due to satellite Technology, this serial could even have an audience across countries. They may or may not be from a particular geographical context. They are assorted and from different places. However, for a Mass Media channel like a Community Radio, the audience is normally a particular community of people to whom the channel caters.

As Marco Dohle (2008) writes on the topic ‘Audience’ in the book, ‘The international Encyclopedia of Communication- Vol 1’ - Contrary to the traditional Audience, the mass media Audience is not assembled where the received contents take place or are produced. The audience of Mass media is dispersed: as a general rule, the individual audience members are spatially separated from each other or, at the most, assembled only in small groups (Co- viewing). The members of an audience do not know or see each other; they do not communicate with each other either. However, they are aware that they are not the only recipients of mass media content, but that co- audience exists.

‘Heterogeneous’ here would mean that the audience includes different types of people. A Mass Media channel may have viewers from rich or poor backgrounds, educated or uneducated based on the content, it could be youth or adults, bureaucrats or ordinary middle- class family members. 

‘Anonymous’ would mean that the audience is nameless and unspecified.  While analysis can predict the number of hits a channel gets or the popularity a particular serial or book garners, once cannot identify the specific characteristic of every individual audience member. You may identify the place in which your audience exists but you will not be able to identify the person by his or her name. The Audience is Anonymous.

However, in some cases, in todays digital arena where the Mobiles have people’s identity registered, it is easier to recognise the Audience from the details fed into the App.

Another factor that accompanies the Mass Media Audience member is the fact that a particular Mass Media Consumer can be part of the News Paper audience, an avid book reader, and a particular tele-serial follower at the same time. Which means such a person categorises as an audience for a newspaper as much as he or she categorises as a book reader or a Particular tele serial audience.

Mass Media Audience and the Social Context

The Social Context also plays an important role in defining some of the Audiences. Particular serials in particular languages or dialects or cultures are often aimed at a particular audience. McQuail says, “Actual audiences were shown to consist of many overlapping networks of social relations based on locality and common interests, and the mass media were incorporated into these networks in different ways. Many Media operate in local environments and are embedded in local cultures. Since most people make their own media choices freely, they do not feel manipulated by remote powers.”

The audience may be large and assorted, but may follow similar cultural contexts. For instance, some serials that are popular in the Hindi language in India are often dubbed in other languages for people’s consumption across India. And these have a varied Indian Audience who just the same identify with the Indian culture and its practices and context.

As McQuail says, “Audiences are both a product of social context, (which leads to shared cultural interests. Understandings and information needs) and a response to a particular pattern of media provision. Often, they are both at the same time, as when a medium sets out to appeal to the members of a social category or the residents of a certain place. Media use also reflects broader patterns of time use, availability, lifestyle and everyday routines”. McQuail’s Mass communication theory, 4th edition, Sage Publications

A Targeted ‘Mass Media Audience’

Another important factor, that one should remember is that Mass Media Content is often made keeping in mind a target audience. For instance, Harry Porter series was a huge craze among children and teens. Cartoons like Mickey Mouse or Duck tales are meant for Kids. In case of Mass Media like Television or Radio, we need to understand that Tele- serials are made keeping in mind the Audience of the place the serial is aired. Or the Music aired on particular Radio Channels are aimed at particular audiences. 

Audience as Market

The Audience and its receptivity of a particular Media product decides the fate of that product. Thus, before producing a product or making a product for general consumption of the people, a lot of hard work and Money is spent on Target Analysis and ‘Audience Research’. Secondly, if a particular Media product has a huge audience, the Advertisement revenue garnered for this serial is also big. Which would mean, the audience is actually compelled to see a particular Advertisement, due to the popularity of the serial. We are prospective consumers being doled out to an Advertisement company for the sale of their products.

Keval J. Kumar (2010) in his book ‘Mass Communication in India’ says, “The primary objective of market research is to provide advertisers and advertising agencies with quantitative data about the access and exposure of selected (segmented) audiences to the various mass media or to their various components. Armed with such ‘reliable’ data (believed to be ‘scientifically’ collected), advertisers can ‘slot’ their advertising spots in newspapers or magazines with the highest readership among audiences that have a good purchasing power (often termed ‘target audience’) or on the radio or TV programmes which have the highest rating or even on websites, search engines, blogs and social networks hat have the highest number of ‘page-views’, ‘hits’ or ‘click throughs’.”

McQuail puts it rightly in his book ‘Mass communication theory,’ “In an innovative and sophisticated move, the Canadian Dallas Smythe gave birth to the theory that audiences actually work for advertisers (thus for their ultimate oppressors). They do so by giving their free time to watch media, which labour is then sold by the media to advertisers as a new kind of; commodity.’ The whole system of commercial television and the press rests on this extraction of surplus value from an economically exploited Audience. The same audience has to pay yet again for its media, by way of the extra cost added to the advertised goods.”

Growth in the definition of the concept Mass media ‘Audience’

Thus, Mass Media Audience which was once relegated to town halls, theaters, stages and forums of rhetoric in different parts of the world has today become a diversified concept. In India too, this concept has existed over a period of centuries, where there has been preaching and talk, dance and folk dance performances, folk lore and folk art have drawn mass audiences in a time when Mass communication using mass media did not exist.

The concept of Audience was initially considered to be those who entered a hall to hear a talk or watch a Live performance, etc. It was with the arrival of the Mass Media, especially the Printing press, the radio and the television in the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century, that the concept of a Mass Media Audience began getting defined. 

In the words of McQuail (1997), one can’t speak of a “Mass media audience” before the circulation of printed- books and their use by a reading public at the end of the sixteenth century.

In the twenty-first century, the concept of Audiences has gone through a drastic change. Digitised content, the internet and the world wide web, has led to the Audience no more remaining passive in their behavior. The mediatisation of daily life where, people are buying, reading, shopping, banking, and interacting online has transformed the concept of Audience and its feedback. Audiences are responding, giving feedbacks, and are reciprocating to Mass Media content. The ‘Online’ world is virtual, large and perhaps unidentifiable but none the less, it is for real.

The social networking forums where Media content gets displayed has active audience interactions. Audiences comment, are free to like or dislike and state their grievances on different forums. While there may be blocks, today’s audience finds its own way of sending its message loud and clear. The advertisers too are making drastic move towards online audiences with the huge increase in the number of people who are active online. 

I suggest students to read McQuail’s book, ‘Mass Communication theory’, for detailed explanation and a very good foundation for communication studies. For Indian Students, Keval J Kumar’s book ‘Mass communication in India’ makes for excellent reading material.