The rise of Social Media and end of 'the audience'

Media studies have always been closely associated with audience studies. It is due to the fact the media is reproduced or challenged through the audience. It would be difficult to understand media and its impact without understanding the meaning of media representations amongst the people who engage with them and participate in various media forms. Considering the important role that audiences play within media studies, audience research has been a significant subject of discussion in media. There have been several theoretical attempts to define what audience and its relation to media, however, there is no unified agreement amongst scholars on how to perceive the audience in varying contexts.

Considering the changing forms of media, from printing press to mass media, leading to new media that entails digitization and datafication of everything, scholars have had varied perspectives about audience and their implications in the field. Jermyn and Holmes (2006) alluded that in the age of new media such as the internet and social media platforms, audiences are dead because now we have users only. Unlike historical times when audiences were passive consumers of media, and the flow of information was a one-way process, new media provides interactive forums to people where they can actively participate and have an agency to challenge information provided through media. As a result, the theory suggests, the rise of new forms of media was followed by the end of the audience as a useful category of analysis. However, the perception has been contested and debated in various contexts, stating that audience research has become more useful than ever due to its increased significance with the rise of new media.

Given the varying theoretical accounts on the audience and its associations with media studies, this essay explores the rise of new media, such as social media, and how it indicated the end of the audience as a useful category of analysis. The essay argues that although the rise of social media signaled the end of the audience as it was perceived historically in the period of printing press and mass media, it, however, gave rise to a new form of the audience as users. The audience as users are people who do not just passively consume the media knowledge, but rather actively participate and engage through various media forms. In this way, the audience is not dead but instead, took a new form as users that appear to be a significant category of analysis in the contemporary age.

Traditionally, changes in the forms of media have been followed by changes in the audiences as well. For instance, there has been a shift from the printing press to mass media which simultaneously led the audience to change from readers to viewers. The audience changed from the reading public to the mass media audience, which remained a significant category in media regulation. The focus on mass media, as the work from the Frankfurt School alluded, was to transform society into passive and controlled public who are not thinking but absorbing what media tells them to buy or believe (Peters, 2003). Mass media audience was, therefore, emblematic of a homogenous and gullible audience, that embraced a culture of one-way consumption only. In this way, mass media also regulated and mediated the public; media was essentially used for political propaganda and the spread of certain ideologies. For example, in Nazi Germany, several media forms like radio were used to control Germans to believe in the idea of Nazis (Peters, 2003, 71). By using this one way of communication adopted by the mass media, information and knowledge were reached to the audience without letting them become part of the production process and shaped their beliefs from a top-down approach, as stated in the example above.

The move towards mass media led to the formation of the audience into the homogenous, passive, and gullible consumers of media knowledge. Correspondingly, the historic shift from mass media to new media preceded a shift from passive to active, gullible to critical audiences. As Livingstone and Das (2013) correctly pointed out, with the rise of new media such as the internet and social media platforms, there has been a shift from one-way communication to multi-way communication. People are now able to openly criticize and produce interpretations of media representations. Moreover, the new platforms allow people to engage with media in disparate ways, such as online shopping, voting, chatting, or researching, etc. This in sequence, allows people to not just consume the knowledge but also contribute to the process of knowledge production in media. For example, the algorithmic working of social media platforms like Facebook uses users’ interactions with posts as meaningful data to produce the newsfeed of those users accordingly. Similarly, Facebook allows audiences to produce their media content on other peoples’ newsfeeds. Thus, media production and communication are no longer a one-way process. Rather, they are interconnected and rely on ‘user-generated content’ (Livingstone, 2004) to sustain their mediation and regulation.

As the discussion illustrates, the highly networked, fragmented, and interconnected forms of new media allow multi-way communications. The multiway communications, in turn, transform audiences into users with critical capacities and agencies to choose what they interact with and how they interact. The new media hence provides space for ‘audiences’ from everywhere and anywhere, to actively engage in the process of meaning-making and knowledge production. However, can these users still be regarded as audiences? This question remains crucial and was echoed by Jermyn and Holmes (2006) who argued that the audiences are now dead because we have users only who actively participate within the media, unlike the mass media audience. However, as Livingstone (2004) pointed out, “does this mean that t the audience is obsolete? Or does the growing talk of ‘users’, instead of audiences, fall into the hyperbolic discourse of ‘the new’, neglecting historical continuities and reinventing the wheel of media and communications research?” (Livingstone, 2004, 1). Restating Livingstone’s (2004) point, it can be said that users are in fact, the new form of audiences. The historical idea of audiences as passive consumers could be dead but that does not imply the end of the audience. In its place, the audience is now available in its new form as ‘users’ who remain alive and more relevant than before. Accordingly, audiences as users remain a useful category of analysis in media studies, despite the rise of new media such as social media platforms. The following discussion further looks into how the audience continues to be a useful category of analysis in media studies today.

Livingstone and Das (2013) further illustrated how new forms of media have revealed audiences as the public, consumers, or users that are actively engaging in the media forms, uncovering new forms of mediation of knowledge and power. Building along the same lines, Rosen (2006) suggested that audiences are now more active than ever as users because of their increased engagement with new media forms. As a result of this increased engagement of the audience as users, as an outcome of new media forms, audience studies have become more important than ever. This is primarily because the new media requires more data and research on audiences, their actions and preferences, and wider social values, to generate and mediate the content they produce (Rosen, 2006). This can once again be understood in the context of the algorithm behind social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter that shapes users’ newsfeeds according to the data on their likes, dislikes, or engagement with others using the same platforms. Another example could be the streaming services such as Netflix that provide recommendations based on users’ interactions. Broadcasting companies like BBC also rely on big data on the audience through various platforms including the internet to generate their media content. As stated, “the BBC hopes to be ‘connecting communities’, ‘a facilitator of communities of interest online’, seeking to address and – significantly – to invite or ‘mediate user-generated content’ from a diversity of audiences, local and global, according to their specific interests and across a range of platforms including broadcasting and the internet” (Livingstone, 2004, 76). It is in this manner that the audience as users come out as a substantial category of analysis as the new forms of media emerge. The study of users is not just significant to produce content that is more relevant to the audience, but also helps in understanding and mediating the process of knowledge production through media in diverse contexts.

As observed above, audience studies are useful to understand how users engage with media representations. Additionally, audience studies in the age of new media are useful to contemplate how users engage with media symbols to produce diverse meanings and interpretations. The concept can be grasped in the framework of Stuart Hall’s ‘Encoding/decoding model. The model suggests that the encoded message of any media representation is open to be decoded by its audience in multiple and varying ways. Since audiences make sense of media content in differing ways, the process of decoding can give rise to heterogeneous interpretations. Besides, the process of decoding has become more prominent amongst the new media forms due to the increased visibility of media representations and the interconnected nature of media platforms. For example, platforms like Facebook allow users from all over the world, to engage and provide interpretations of representations in great volume and velocity. When people with distinct mindsets participate in the process of decoding in such ways, several new discourses, meanings, and ideologies emerge. For example, an encoded meaning of Facebook’s campaign in favor of a certain ideology like ‘feminism’ might be decoded as an opposition to those who oppose feminism. The interpretation of media symbols such as a social media campaign on feminism can vary based on diverse factors such as peoples’ socioeconomic position, gender, ethnicity, and so forth, and at times, can give rise to critical or oppositional readings (Livingstone, 2004, 79). In such ways, social media allow users to interpret or ‘decode’ the message in heterogeneous ways that may be at times resistant, oppositional or different from the actual encoded message. As a consequence, the process of decoding may lead to unintended consequences such as oppositional movements over social media or identity conflicts. Taking this observation into account, the study of the audience is vital to prevent unpredictable outcomes. It allows relevant stakeholders to be informed of reactions and concerns arising due to certain media representations. It is therefore essential for new media forms to comprehend the audiences’ reception and reaction to media symbols, to anticipate and be cognizant of the consequences and implications of those symbols on a broader scale.

The above discussion also points at how new media such as social media can be instrumental in mobilizing users to serve broader sociopolitical propagandas such as generating a discourse, awareness, or hatred in favor or against a particular ideology. By analyzing how the users would perceive any given media symbol, hence, new media can achieve greater agendas of knowledge production and power accumulation. In other words, similar to mass media, researching audiences can also allow new media to easily manipulate, govern, or mobilize the users of social media for broader sociopolitical agendas.

On one hand, Hall’s model of encoding/decoding unleashes how differing interpretations of media representations emerge. Likewise, it suggests how understanding those interpretations can help in producing knowledge that may or may not serve broader agendas. On the other hand, it feeds into another concept introduced by Hall known as the ‘circuit of culture’. The circuit of culture is a cyclical and transactional model, originally presented by Hall in the Cultural Studies. The model recognizes the audience as vital in completing the circuit of knowledge production. As stated, “As this is a circuit, it is possible to start at any point; it is not a linear, sequential process. Each moment in the circuit is also inextricably tied up with each of the other” (Woodward, 1997, 2). As figure 1 indicates, in the circuit of culture model, every aspect relates to the other. Following this model, the way the audience as users consume the media knowledge will be heavily influenced by other factors such as their identity or socioeconomic context. Similarly, the representation of media content could be influenced by how content producers want to regulate the users and their consumption process (Woodward, 1997). This is again, evident in the presentation of advertisements on social media; for example, the algorithmic production of ads on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram is heavily influenced by the user’s engagement and interaction on these platforms. The ads in turn, also determine the user’s consumption methods and regulate their interactions accordingly. Considering the interrelated and interconnected circle of media, it can be stated that the audience is thus, not separate from the media. In fact, in the era of social media, audiences as users constitute and contribute widely within media at every stage, including but not limited to production, regulation, and representation. Hence, media studies need to reconsider the study of users as the audience, and as real people that are influenced and hold the power to influence the overall process of media representations.

The discussion so far emphasizes the growing need for new media to establish a focus on how audiences’ identities, their roles in the societies and their consumption methods can affect the cycle of knowledge production. However, in the age of big data, interconnected yet fragmented modes of communications, diversified and digitized media, understanding users’ ways of thinking, doing, and being may present a challenge within media studies. The pressing issue at this juncture is how to distinguish between what people are in real life and what do they click, comment, shop, watch or write on social media platforms.

Peoples’ ‘datafied’ and digitized lives on social media might be different from their lives in the actual social world where several other factors such as socioeconomic background, gender, or political ideologies may come into play. As mentioned, “…this enhanced visibility obscures more than it reveals. In data visualizations of audiences’ (or users’) activities, much of importance is stripped away. Away with the socio-cultural, displaced by individual “behaviors.” Away with context, meaning interpretation, for it is the hidden patterns beneath awareness that matter” (Livingstone, 2018, 176). Consequently, the gap between reality and data persists which poses a great methodological challenge in audience research today (Livingstone & Das, 2013). Nevertheless, at the same time, the existing gap between reality and data in the new media also signals the increasing need to prioritize users as the audiences, and as people embedded in sociocultural fabrics. It indicates that critical analysis of audiences cannot be achieved by cherry-picked data surveys or decontextualized behavioral observations. In response, experts and academics in the field need to consider users as an important category of audiences, embedded in sociopolitical and cultural webs, and that requires deep analysis and research.

Conclusion:

Historically, audience studies have remained crucially linked with media studies. However, defining what audience is and its relation to media has been discussed in contrasting contexts. As the paper illustrated, the audience has never remained a static, unchangeable, and unified category. Alternatively, it has taken various forms and meanings as the new forms of media appeared. A considerable change in audience occurred as we moved from mass media to new forms of media that are highly interconnected and data-dependent. The shift led the audience to change from passive and gullible to active and critical users of media. Instead of just consuming the information provided through top-down approaches, audiences can now engage and interpret, and actively participate in the process of media representations.

Considering this shift in the audience as a result of new media forms, the theoretical discussion has pointed that the audience has ended and become irrelevant as a category of analysis for media studies. However, in the light of contrasting arguments and examples, this essay argued that the audience did not end but rather, took a new form as users in the age of new media. These audiences, as users, are more active than ever as seen in the examples of social media platforms like Facebook. Taking this argument into concern, the essay further stated that the rise of new platforms like social media accordingly indicates an increased significance of audience as users to be explored within the new media studies.

To understand how the audience in its new form as users remain significant to media studies was further evaluated by considering the increasing dependence of social media platforms on ‘user-generated data’ and the role that users play in the process of meaning-making and knowledge production. By using Hall’s theoretical frameworks of encoding/decoding and circuit of culture, it discussed how audiences as users remain vital to be studied to comprehend how societies translate, engage, or react to media symbols. Additionally, it helps in understanding the influence of media on the audience and how audiences as users influence the media representations.

To conclude, although social media has signaled the end of audience in its historic forms and need of audiences in its new form as users as an important category for analysis, it has also directed towards the new challenges that may come in the way of audience analysis in the age of new media. These are the methodological challenges that invite scholars and experts in the field to reconsider their ways of audience research to incorporate the diverse socio-cultural and behavioral contexts that cannot be comprehended through big data or digital interventions. Hence, new methods of audience research are required to attempt a deeper analysis of audiences as users that continue to be a necessary category within the field of media studies.

Hall, S. (1973/1980). “Encoding/Decoding.” In Culture, Media, Language, edited by Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andy Lowe, and Paul Willis, 128–38. London: Hutchinson.

Jermyn, D., & Holmes, S. (2006). The Audience is Dead; Long Live the Audience: Interactivity, ‘Telephilia’ and the Contemporary Television Audience. Critical Studies in Television, 1(1), 49–57.

Livingstone, S. (2004). The Challenge of Changing Audiences: Or, What is the Audience Researcher to Do in the Age of the Internet? European Journal of Communication, 19(1), 75–86.

Livingstone, S. (2018). Audiences in an Age of Datafication: Critical Questions for Media research. Television & New Media, 20, 170 - 183.

Livingstone, S., and Das, R. (2013) The End of Audiences? Theoretical echoes of reception amidst the uncertainties of use. In J. Hartley, J. Burgess and A. Bruns (Eds.) Blackwell Companion to New Media Dynamics (pp.104-121). Oxford: Blackwell.

Peters, J. D. (2003). The Subtlety of Horkheimer and Adorno: Reading “The Culture Industry”. In Canonic texts in media research: Are there any? should there be? how about these? Cambridge: Polity Press.

Rosen. J (2006) Press Think: The people formerly known as the audience.

Woodward, K. (1997). Identity and difference. London etc.: Sage.