Audience
Authors: Attallah Paul , Hampson Keith 
Published: October 2020

The audience gets a lot of attention and little understanding. It is the
object of solicitous attention on the part of moralists and of
exploitation on the part of industry. Social scientists and commentators
greet it with equal parts of anxiety, derision, and theoretical reduction.
Producers and performers subject it to constant interrogation. The
audience is variously the result of bad manipulation, of societal forces,
of an innate herd instinct, of industrial pandering, etc.
The particular concerns and interests raised by these various parties ebb
and flow with the cultural and political climate. What remains consistent
throughout is the difficulty of defining audiences and their practices.
Its greatest failing is that it never fully lives up to any description.
As a result, we tend to find not the description but the audience itself
lacking.
Understanding the audience has grown increasingly troublesome during the
past two decades. New communication technologies -- in both production and
reception -- have put greater control over media experience in the hands
of consumers. Narrowcasting has superseded broadcast in many contexts --
generating fragmented, disparate communities of consumers. No less
significant is the increasing awareness and sophistication of audiences.
Knee-deep in a media-saturated environment, consumers have become adept at
locating and interpreting content.
While critics and academics struggle to grasp audience activity, the most
significant conception of the audience may be those made by individual
consumers. Individual perceptions of who constitutes the audience for a
given film, television programme or Website goes a long way towards
determining the value and status of the content. Consumers use these
perceptions to define themselves in association with, and in relation to
other audiences. While such perceptions may often be wholly inaccurate,
they flavour the way in which audiences interpret and relate to the text.
Additionally, the audience for one medium usually consists of the
audience -- or parts of audiences -- for other media. Media trade
audiences amongst themselves and audiences trade media. The audience is
therefore a set of increasingly sophisticated skills and habits.
In this issue of M/C, we present a number of articles with different
takes on the audience. Some see it as spontaneously and uncontrollably
creative, some define it as stubborn and defiant, others still approach it
as a problem to be solved. We offer this issue, then, as an opportunity to
revisit the audience, to reconsider their formation and activities from
new perspectives.
Paul Attallah
Keith Hampson
'Audience' Issue Editors

Citation reference for this article
MLA style:

Paul Attallah, Keith Hampson. "Editorial: 'Audience'." M/C: A Journal of
Media and Culture 3.1 (2000). [your date of access]
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/edit.php>.
Chicago style:

Paul Attallah, Keith Hampson, "Editorial: 'Audience'," M/C: A Journal of
Media and Culture 3, no. 1 (2000),
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/edit.php> ([your date of access]).
APA style:

Paul Attallah, Keith Hampson. (2000) Editorial: 'Audience'. M/C: A
Journal of Media and Culture 3(1). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/edit.php> ([your date of access]).