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*uantitati#e media studies approach focuses. 'he solution offered by this approach is to gather large groups of indi#iduals from all social groups, age categories, geographical locations and also with different #iewing habits. -athering such a mass of representati#es with different opinions allows the researcher to generali,e his findings and apply them to the bigger part of population. 1a#ing a large group of #arious representati#es or test sub(ects is also a good factor influencing the ob(ecti#ity of a research. $'he first conceptuali,ation of the audience in American *uantitati#e media studies largely referred to a mass of undifferentiated people who are anonymous to the producer of the mediated message and become a collecti#e of unorgani,ed indi#iduals centered on the use or e+posure to a particular media te+t.&
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people with potential to interact with each other and to discus and share their ideas and #iews about certain ob(ect of interest in the media. 3o when we talk about audience, we usually mean a group of people or set of indi#iduals, which implies that when we talk about an indi#idual related to audience, we talk about a single member of the audience or a media user. !or e+ample millions of Americans watching the presidential debate can be described as an audience. And when this audience is organi,ed and possesses ability to influence some public or social institution or organi,ation, we refer to this group of people as a public. But when speaking about entertainment media audiences, such as theater, film or music, the main focus is on the audience, not public, and how the media affect the audience. 4urrent researches tend to focus greatly on these factors. Researching how and whom do the media influence is an important thing for ad#ertisers, whose main goal is to influence potential customers. 5ue to this fact, the current researches tend to segment the potential audience according to the demographic lines such as age, ethnicity, gender or social status. 'hese researches help to understand which groups of audience can be better persuaded but also protected against certain negati#e factors such as #iolence or nudity. Another important part of *uantitati#e approach is the di#ision of the audience on acti#e and passi#e. 'he passi#e audience is a type of audience, which is easily influenced by the media)s messages. 1owe#er, the acti#e audience consists of indi#iduals that #aried in their decision which media)s messages will they accept and how will they interprete them. 'his shows us that the main issue today is to recogni,e which part of the audience is acti#e and which part is passi#e, and supply these two groups with appropriate media messages. 6hen the media researchers realised that the audience is not (ust group of people passi#ely accepting the media)s messages, but there are also acti#e groups, they ha#e to change their
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-lynn, 1erbst, ")7eefe 8 3hapiro, 9ublic "pinion :Boulder, 6est#iew 9ress, 1999;
opinion about the reception. In the past, there was no need for paying attention how the audience recie#es the media content, because it was understood that e#erybody accepts e#erything. But since the acceptance of the acti#e part of the audience, researchers started to focus also on the reception / indi#idual interpretations of the media content. As they dwelled deeper and deeper into this issue, they started to ask new *uestions like do men and women differ in their understanding of se+ual images0 5o they interprete them differently0 Are there any differnces in people)s demand for #iolence and adrenaline0 3o the main and most important *uestion is what would influence and enhance the o#erall media effects0
how to protect the target audience. 'hey want to understand how the audience makes sense of the content in comparison to their e#eryday li#es. 'here was also an issue that came to the British cultural criti*ues and that was the need to understand how #arious audiences were recie#ing and interpreting the media te+ts. If there was a belief that some audiences can acti#ely resist the ideological meanings in these te+ts, there was need to clarify why and demonstrated how it was occurring. According to the study performed, the audiences may argue about the meaning of the te+t and accept only those aspects that can be compared and fit with their real li#es. 'hose parts that does not seem to fit are simply discarded by the audience. It can e#en reach such le#el that a member of audience or e#en the whole audience simply refuse the whole content, because it does not match with their e+periences, habits or traditions.
e#ery single detail is important. 4hoice of actors, setting, effects, costumes. 'hese are all important factors that are important for the mo#ie to be succesful. And the best indicator that will tell us if the mo#ie is succesful or not is the audience reception.
Bibliography:
-lynn 4arol C., 1erbst 3., ")7eefe -., 3hapiro R. Public Opinion BoulderD 6est#iew 9ress, 1999
Internet sources:
'he Ad#antages and Eimitations of a !ocus on Audience in .edia 3tudies, Accessed 5ecember 1B, 2=12, http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/ tudents/pph!"#$.html