Media Audience Emergence as Forces to be Reckoned with in the Internet Age
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Date
2022-03-30
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Publisher
Sapientia Global Journal of Arts, Humanities and Development Studies (SGOJAHDS)
Abstract
This paper aims to examine the traditional concept of the audience as mere listeners,
viewers or readers of mass media content in the light of the advent of the New media
which has given them new and multiple roles in the communication process and the
role of the mass media as a one-time all-powerful information purveyor— both of which
is undergoing tremendous changes in the digital age. The multiplication of media
channels and sources has reorganized the audience configuration—along-time
collective term for the receivers in the simple sequential model of the mass
communication process—source-channel-message-receiver-effect-feedback and the
media and communication industry have witnessed an irreversible revolution as it has
to do with the nature and behaviour of the mass media audience occasioned by the
digital age. Therefore, employing causal explanatory research design, while using
literature review as a research instrument; this paper examined the changing roles of
the media audience, beginning from the Mass Society, Hypodermic Needle and Magic
Bullet research era to the ongoing User-generated content, mass involvement, citizens
journalism revolution. The paper put forward that since the audience, having been
empowered by the New media to free itself from the earlier 'manipulative' influence of
the traditional media have assumed the role of content creators—the time is now ripe
for scholars and researchers in the field of media and communication studies to
reappraise the audience configuration and continue the design and redesign of new
models of communication to put the audience in the digital age in proper perspective.
Description
Keywords
Media Audience, Citizens Journalism, Internet Age, Audience Behaviour, Media Access
Citation
Obiaje, K. M., & Adelabu, O. T. (2022). Media Audience Emergence as Forces to be Reckoned With in the Internet Age. Sapientia Global Journal of Arts, Humanities and Development Studies (SGOJAHDS), Vol.5 No.1 March, 2022; p.g. 101 – 111; ISSN: 2695-2319 (Print); ISSN: 2695-2327 (Online). http://www.sgojahds.com/index.php/SGOJAHDS/article/view/313