New Media Audiences
New Media technologies and practices have affected established audience theories ability to research and understand audiences. “New media captures both the development of unique forms of digital media and technology and the remaking of more traditional media forms” (Flew, 2004, p. 11). New media technologies such as the internet and digital TV along with “new media practices [which] make the user into an active producer” (Kitley, May 2008), have created a networked culture which mixes various media forms and connects consumers and producers in new ways (Jenkins in Dorman, 2006). This shift sees the audience as producer or author (Dewdney & Ride, 2006) going beyond the conventional audience. This change in audience “behaviour, practice and relation with users of media” (Kitley, May 2008) has implications on the four traditional theories of studying audiences: the effects model, , Uses and Gratification, cultural Studies and the cultivation model.
The effects tradition of understanding audiences was developed in the 1930’s (Turow & Kavanaugh, 2003). This model was developed from the Frankfurt school, in which they proposed the hypodermic needle theory, which believes that the media are able to inject their messages into the viewer’s head (O’Shaughnessy & Stadler, 2005, p.99). In this theory the audience is seen as passive and an emphasis is placed upon the medias power to change behaviour and directly shape audience attitudes.
New media shifts the flow of communication to a two way flow in which the viewer can go beyond the act of viewing and develop a level of involvement (Beilby et al, 1999). The capacity of new media to allow interactivity means that users have “control over pacing, structure and content of media” (Perse, 2001). This provides implications for the effects model as the audience is not passive. The model does not allow for audience interaction with new media technologies and genres. New genres on television, such as Big Brother in which...
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