MDSA02H3 : Concept of Mass Audience article
Document Summary
Radio and television seen as mass communication and characterizes many people as. The mass audience is the foundation of the media"s economic and cultural power. The mass, then, is a heterogeneous collection of individuals who are separate from one another and act autonomously. (p. 7); the shape of mass audience was revealed by quantifying selected attributes of individual audience members and aggregating the results. Of central importance were the selections people made from available media offerings. (p. 8-9) Obsolete no such thing as a mass audience. Simplistic issues of taste and class; taste segments might be more accurate. Self-serving study of audiences works toward further institutionalization and reinforcement of market ideology/advertising; the mass audience is a commodity. Social character of the audience we do not view alone; mass audience thinking pays very little attention to the operation of social relations among audience members (p. 13) There are no masses, only ways of seeing people as masses (p. 15)
