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Audience Studies Blog Post #3

News and other current media content travel across a multitude of platforms to reach us as audience members within our contemporary society. Over the last decade, and in connection towards shifts in technological abilities, it has been seen that individuals have slowly shifted from physical media such as newspapers, towards more digital platforms like television. Mover, and most recently, another shift has been noticeably altering audience viewings of news and current events, with a direction towards social media platforms such as twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Within my third and final audience experience blog, I will be speaking on behalf of my audience experience recognizing this shift in media consumption, and its understanding in our modern society.

Traditional media consumption practices have been slowly becoming obsolete in the light of a new era of technological media and news consumption within our contemporary society. With individuals becoming more and more impatient and eager towards being updated with the latest news on current events, social media platforms has been viewed as revolutionary in giving strong coverage and quick updates towards media and news. These platforms are on a new level in comparison to newspapers and news television. Social media corporations have also been seen to market news to millennia's through social media, as the outdated traditional practices of news and media coverage has seen to not appeal to that age demographic anymore. As a 20 year old, I’ve never had a strong reach with television news, but due to my millennial habits of social media use, I've almost been forced to subscribe to world news through the mediums of Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram.

Media has seemed to have found a path directed to convergence, where media content can be displayed on any number of different devices (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.217). Moreover, convergence, “represents a cultural shader as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content” (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.217). Our society has been provided the ability to interact with news on a massively wide range of platforms to subscribe to whichever best suits their interest. The factor of someone waiting to watch the 8 O'clock news, to be updated on current events, has since vanished from or schedules.

There have been two noticeable shifting trends in relation to audiences and their media consumption, and it has to do with audience fragmentation and audience autonomy (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.217). Audience fragmentation refers to audiences being fragmented into smaller groups from dramatic expansion in media channels and platforms, resulting in making traditional forms of audience measurement obsolete, scattering audiences across many different media channels (Sullivan, J.L., Pg. 217). With my experience as a audience member to this ideology, Platforms such as Snapchat provide a discover page where they provide endless news and media sources, both official and unofficial. Snapchat slowly narrows down what media I prefer to look at based on what I click on. Some media I ascribe to include Barstool Sports, CNN and NFL Sunday night football. I am apart of a audience group that views more sports related news, and with everyone having such different preferences of media, the fragmentation of different groups is massive. Audience autonomy is describes as, “how contemporary characteristics of the media environment… serve to enhance the extent to which audiences have control over the process of media consumption”(Sullivan, J.L., Pg.217). Audiences have been seen to have much more of a stake in how news is consumed and portrayed on different platforms today. Especially with social media, as a goal of reaching a certain number of audience members is crucial, meaning some media platforms will do almost anything to appeal to the millennial segment. An example could be providing more exciting or relatable news to this audience segment to attract a larger reach, opposed to traditional reported news. As an audience member participating in this revolution, I've seen this within my own social media. Snapchat is a great example, as they provide exciting ‘click bait’ and titles on the discover page, in order to get more clicks and reaching a quota of audience members.

The internet has empowered audiences to create a new participatory culture, and people are now invited to actively participate in the creation and circulation of new media content (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.219). This has something to do with the idea of crossovers, where there is a blurring of boundaries between distinct media texts, and introducing traits from one media narrative into another (Good, J. 2018). The concept of participatory culture has two noticeable trends associated, which relate towards the ways audiences correspond with media and news. First off, new technology enables audiences to, “archive, annotate, appropriate, recirculate media content” (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.219). We have much more of an interactive state with news media now than ever, and relating to Twitter for example, we have the ability to connect with, retweet to recirculate, and give personal opinions towards news coming from creditable sources such as CNN and NBC News. These factors gives us, as an audience, a higher status of power towards what we are provided as news on social media, more so than before. 

The rise of subcultures towards ‘do-it-yourself’, DIY media production are also relatable towards participatory culture of media (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.219). Providing the examples of Instagram and Twitter, we as an audience have now been granted the ability to create our own media, or provide opinions towards certain world news issues, which in turn give us the ability to become viral, providing that individual has enough audience and reach. Though we are still audience members ascribing to certain media content and news on such platforms, individuals can have a audience following of their own, labelled as ‘followers’ or ‘friends’. These followers scribe to such content, providing the audience, an audience of their own, and in turn demonstrating the multi-level practice that consists within media consumption.

Fandom and loyalty plays a key role when finding reasoning behind audiences and their subscription towards viewing news and media on new platforms as spoken about previously. Fandom is associated with, “the cultural taste of subordinated formations of people, particularly those disempowered by any combination of gender, age, class and race” (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.193). Fandom has the ability to alter and create new cultural experiences out of popular media texts, where in this scenario, the new and easily accessible platforms to view media and current events established a new experience for audience members, creating a euphoria of fan culture around social media’s (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.191). 

Social media’s popularization around audience viewership towards news can connect towards two aspects of media fandom. Social aspect is categorized as media fan’s banding together in either informal or more formally structured groups for the purpose of sharing their mutual interests with one anther (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.195). Instagram can be an example of this fandom, where audience members ascribe to certain people, corporations and other groups on this platform to mutually be continuously updated with regards towards that user. This phenomenon creates follower loyalty, and a certain relationship that is hard to unsubscribe to on Instagram. Interpretive aspect of media fandom constitutes fans that act as interpreters and producers of media content (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.195). Fans can create content that relates or adheres to certain media provided to them on social media platforms such as Twitter. We as audience members can post about media we are fans of, and are very credited towards, such as news on Equal rights movements, or Black Lives Matter. We have an ability to participate in movements, and be fans of such through social media. This demonstrates social media’s continuous communication pattern. Fan audiences, “may feel so connected to the narrative that they…develop a sense of ownership over the text”, providing the aspect of fandom within social media (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.198).

To narrow it down to one of the most influential and revolutionary news platforms, Twitter has seen to be a growing source of current events for especially younger people within our modern age media society. Twitter is, “a real time information network that connects [users] to the latest series, ideas, opinions and news about what [they] find interesting” (Wasike,B. Pg.8). Twitter is factually the most popular microblogging site available, with an estimate of 200 to 500 million active users, tweeting average 400 million tweets daily (Wasike,B. Pg.8). Within the social media platform, users can follow any other user, including those apart of the cannon, which includes users with texts considered significant or valuable, and information deemed worthy from a respected source or user (Sullivan, J.L., Pg.200). Examples include official news twitter accounts, credible politicians and so on and so fourth. Another example points towards social media editors, who can be defined as tech savvy journalists appointed by certain news agencies to act as newsroom intermediaries towards the digital world, or as others know it by, the social media-sphere (Wasike,B. Pg.6). Their main functions are to monitor social media for latest trends, procure important information for editors, maintain the organizations online presence and interact with readers and post news articles online (Wasike, B. Pg.6). With my experience with SME’s on twitter, they provide information thats up to date, current and for the most part, accurate towards the credited source I follow. I use twitter as its not as time consuming compared to watching traditional television news. Moreover, SME’s are useful in getting to the point in 140 characters of less, providing an efficient platform to display news for savvy younger audience members interested in news.

Finally, three reasons justify why twitter is worth associating with social media editors, and its impact on the audience sector towards media usage. First off, Twitter has uniqueness and suitability for audience interaction (Wasike, B. Pg.6). Twitter is most likely the best suited platform for interaction purposes, and with SME’s being involved, they have the ability to reach large numbers of dedicated ‘readers’ in a short period of time with small bursts of information (Wasike, B. Pg.6). They create quick and effective messages, and guarantees a long lasting audience, as, “consistent and sustained rate of communication gives twitter a clear edge over competing social media tools, and even traditional modes of news delivery” (Wasike, B. Pg.6). Moreover, “there are millions of audience members that want to be engaged as well as informed, entertained, and outraged by their media today”, proving SME’s a job that’s been cut out for them (Sullivan, J. L., Pg.225). 

The second reason consists towards Twitter’s skill as an expert news breaking tool (Wasike, B. Pg.7). This meaning Twitter has the capability to deliver up to date breaking news at revolutionary speed, with continuous updates by not only official users, but credible audience members as well (Wasike, B. Pg.7). Twitter is ahead of the curve, way ahead of any media source with official sources being able to report news at such a fast rate for audience members. The third and final factor is the overall dwindling news readership within our society (Wasike, B. Pg.8). There has been increasing public distrust of media agencies, and an increase in online news readership (Wasike, B. Pg.8). SME’s are seen as the faces of the media agencies in the digital world, having a position to control how news flows into the social media sphere (Wasike, B. Pg.8). They play a massive factor in delivering creditable media and news towards audience members on Twitter and other social media platforms.

Our contemporary society is past the brink of new age news and media consumption, providing the tactics and factors consisting of the social media apps we use. Through understanding social media apps such as Instagram and Twitter, is has become apparent how strong of a factor we as an audience play in todays world of media consumption.

Works cited;

Good, J., (2018, November 8). Lecture presented at Brock University.

Sullivan, J. L. (2013). Media audiences: Effects, users, institutions, and power. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wasike, B. (2013). Framing news in 140 Characters: How social media editors frame the news and interact with audiences via Twitter. Global Media Journal - Canadian Edition, 6(1), 5-23.

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Audience Studies Blog Post #2

As we grow older, we as individuals seem to look deeper into codes and conventions, seeking more understanding and multi-dimensional ideologies. The basis of this blog will be looking into my two personal experiences of being an audience member of a traditional Hawaii Luau, where I compare and contrast my two experiences of going in my youth, and as an adult. 

A Luau is an old tradition in Hawaii which represents a celebration party, where Hawaiian performers and dancers entertain an audience with a story of Hawaiian culture. The performance includes dances and live music that matches the story portrayed. These dances include traditional Hawaiian Hula, as well as majority acts with fire tossing and variations. The Theory of Empathy can been seen in the audience watching the performance, where we reacted to the media in a three step process that balances emotional resources and rational processes (Granelli, pg.5059). The first and second response being the automatic and physiological retort, and third being the cognitive process where we as an audience judge and respond to the dangerous stunts and acts (Granelli, pg.5059). In addition to the performance, the Transparent Audience Engagement Text is portrayed where people read the ‘text as life’ and experience a strong immersion into the text, feeling a strong emotion towards the show (Granelli, pg.5058). This occurs when people are chosen to participate in the final dance near the end where audience members Hula with Hawaiian Hula dancers. Finally, a five course feast including a pig roast and other traditional foods as part of Hawaiian culture are served to the audience members mid show.

The Luau, though based on a traditional Hawaii celebration, now had noticed to have been transformed into a show for financial gain. Political economy is defined as the study of social relationships, particularly the power relations that constitute the production, distribution and consumption of resources (Sullivan, J.L., pg.78-79). More specifically, the aspect of Intense historical shifts of the rise of capitalism is noticeable with the Luau’s I was an audience member of. (Sullivan, J.L., pg.78-79). The Luau was being hosted at the Maui Marriott hotel, the most expensive hotel in the tourism sector of Maui. Moreover the performance was advertised as an amazing tourism cultural experience, while being very overly expensive. It seemed as if the tourism sector exploited the traditional culture of Hawaii for its own financial gain. With that being said, each show I attended was completely full.

My family, according to lifestyle measurements, would be labelled as travellers and tourists due to our frequent adventures to vacations to enjoy ourselves (Sullivan, J.L., pg.98). Moreover, the reasoning behind us attending the Luau in the first place was based on my parents ideologies, and their desire for me and my siblings to educate ourselves on Hawaiian culture and traditions. Instrumental audiences search for specific kinds of message content, often seeking out and selecting informational material in a purposive way, where in our instance it was the aspiration for education within our family of the Hawaiian culture (Sullivan, J.L., pg.177).

My first of two experiences at the Marriott Luau was in 2015, when I was 16 years old. As I started my blog saying, as people grow older they seem to look deeper into ideologies and signifiers as a form of signs (Sullivan, J.L., pg.137). I felt as if my parents forced me to come to the show with the purpose of a family activity, connecting to Katz study of social needs, it relates to strengthening contact with family. (Sullivan, J.L., pg.114). I did not care much for the performance at all, with most of my excitement towards the buffet. I walked into the performance with a one dimensional denotative level of meaning. This level of meaning is defined as “the literal, ‘near universe’, common sense meaning of a sign”, and surface meaning of the performance, which in this case was basic entertainment from the performers (Sullivan, J.L., pg.141). 

The Functional Audience Inquiry asks why people choose to consume different types of media messages and, “begin with the assumption that the message of even the most potent of the media cannot ordinarily influence an individual who has no ‘use’ for it in the local and psychological context in which..[he].. lives” (Sullivan, J.L., pg.109). Since I was stubborn to the fact to look any deeper towards the meaning of the Luau, I had no ‘use’ for the message at that point and time. The ‘uses’ approach assumes, “peoples values, their interests, their associations, their social roles, are prepotent and…selectively ‘fashion’ what they see and hear to those interests” (Sullivan, J.L., pg.109). 

I brought my own set of values and beliefs to the show, where I felt as if I was stuck watching a dance performance for an hour and than rewarded with a meal, not excited or attentive to the show itself. I Just watched the Luau for basic one sided entertainment, and used a dominant-hegemonic position of accepting the performance exactly in terms of the code in which it was produced, accepting a dominant ideology without looking to deep into it (Sullivan, J.L., pg.142). All I remember taking away from my first experience was the entertainment factor of the fire tricks the performers did in the finally, and the tasty meal. In addition, the entire actualized meaning of the performance itself flew right over my head. I was stubborn and unwilling to look deeper into the real meaning of what the Luau was all about, where my parents took away a different conceptualization from the show.

To my enjoyment, I had the pleasure of attending the same Luau performance three years later at the age of 19, while this time the performance to me consisted of the hypothetical negotiated position. I interpreted the performance with, “a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements”, where I understood the dominant code from before, but also filtered the content through a new lens (Sullivan, J.L., pg.142). A connotative level of meaning was prevalent that I failed to pay attention to three years prior (Sullivan, J.L., pg.141).

The Luau’s premise is based entirely on telling a story of Hawaii’s history. This is demonstrated in the dances the performers do and the songs they play, as it all constitutes and relates to the overall story of Hawaii’s culture and story from their ‘beginning'. The Luau’s goal is to educate the audience of tourists that attend the performance of their heritage. Each specific dance reflect sections of Hawaii, and more specifically, Maui’s heritage, with war cries, ceremonial chants to honour the gods and other deep rooted symbolism of Maui and Hawaii.

The definition of Affordances pertains to the dilemma I faced while watching the Luau for a second time. The idea of an affordance relates to allowing the experience of media in newer ways, and also actively contributing your own content (Sundar, S. Shyam, pg.505). Affordances allowed me to engage with the content of the Luau with an actively constructed meaning to understand the two dimensional purpose of the performance (Sundar, S. Shyam, Pg.505).

Moreover, as connecting to my thesis, I myself during my second experience at the Luau went into the performance excited and wanting more in relation to cognitive needs of strengthening information, knowledge and understanding towards the culture and traditions of Hawaii (Sullivan, J.L., pg.114). I wanted to learn and be educated by the experience as an audience member, opposed to my first experience as a younger more uncultured teen. 

The use of the Encoding and Decoding model is prevalent when creating meanings in my audience experiences during both the first and second Luau. Encoding is defined as the first moment, when the message producer encodes the message itself (Sullivan, J.L., pg.140). Moreover, ‘the creator must place an idea or event or experience in a format that will be meaningful for audiences” (Sullivan, J.L., pg.140). The Luau performance as the ‘creator’ succeeded with the fact of making the show meaningful to the audience both times. Though, during my first Luau, it was my own personal mediated audience engagement that caused me to fail in properly encoding the message the performance was trying to portray (Granelli, pg.5058). A mediated audience engagement represents a framework of audience reception of media texts where an individual reads ‘text as a production’ (Granelli, pg.5058). Moreover, the individual interprets a text based upon its aesthetics and their own media production literacy where they are less likely to engage the themes and messages of the text (Granelli, Pg.5058).

The performance was being encoded in the same way both times, since the performance had the same premise and storyline for the different audiences. On contrary, the factor of the decoding model changed for me as an audience member between my two Luau experiences. Decoding represents the reception of a message by the audience, where before any communication message can have an influence, effect or persuasion, must be “appropriated as a meaningful discource and be meaningfully decoded” (Sullivan, J.L., pg.141). I had two opposing receptions towards the performance while an audience member. The first was a one dimensional view on the ideology of the Luau as strictly entertainment by the performers, and the food provided. The other as two dimensional, looking at deeper connotative meanings in the text with messages portrayed from the performance as part of Hawaii’s culture and traditions with attempts to educate the audience.

From a realization, I noticed that a factor by which each experience was so different to me was through the influences and motivations I had prior to watching each Luau. When I went for the first time, having no motivation to go, the show stayed one dimensional with just a surface meaning. This constitutes towards not attempting  to understand and participate in the educational aspect from the experience.

Moreover, in connecting to the Uses and Gratifications approach of choosing content to suit my own needs at a particular moment, I walked into my second Luau experience with accordance to one of the 5 basic assumption as an audience member. Considered active, with media use directed towards particular goals of me as an individual (Sullivan, J.L., pg.113). In other words, I came to the performance with high engagement and the interest in learning Hawaiian culture.

The comparison of these two ideological factors of my interests and motivations towards my Hawaiian Luau audience experiences are fascinating in where I was able to draw two different meanings from the same experience in two separate occasions. Moreover, I believe that my older and more open-minded self gave reasoning towards why my second experience was much more two dimensional and enjoyable.

References;

Granelli, Steven and Zenor, Jason. “Decoding ‘The Code’: Reception Theory and Moral Judgement of Dexter”. International Journal of Communication, 10(2016), 5056-5078., 1932-8036/20160005

Sullivan, J. L. (2013). Media audiences: Effects, users, institutions, and power. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Sundar, S. Shyam, and Anthony M. Limperos. “Uses and Grats 2.0: New Gratifications for New Media.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, vol. 57, no. 4, 2013, pp. 504–525., doi:10.1080/08838151.2013.845827.

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Audience Studies Blog Post #1

As a constant audience member in society, there have been numerous instances in my life where I could speak on behalf of a very interesting audience experience. For this first blog post, I decided to write about my childhood memory of being lit on fire as part of a street performer act.

Street performances have been around since day one, and are example that were apart of some of the ‘earliest audience’s’. Major cities and popular tourist destinations are of many areas where street performers thrive and make a living by entertaining by-passers in the simplest manner of old fashioned face-to-face entertainment. The structure in relation to street performers is the ideology where there have always been street performers in areas with tourists, as structure is defined by, “any type of social behaviour or set of interactions or relationships between human beings that is reproduced over time” (Sullivan, J.L., pg.16). Moreover, duality of structure is defined as, “structures effectively enabl[ing] certain types of behaviours and social outcomes as well” (Sullivan, J.L., pg.17). What this pertains to is the basis where families and tourists come to these areas of street performers for the purpose to be entertained and watch performances.

Close to 10 years ago, my parents purchased a condo, located just a bike ride away from Clearwater Beach, voted ‘Best Beach in America” for 2018 (Perry, Z.). Pinpointed in Tampa Bay Florida, we as a family regularly fly down and spend time at our condo to relax and enjoy the beach. With the beach being a popular destination for tourists and Florida locals, street performers have taken the beach as a strategic spot to make money off of dancing acts, dangerous stunts and many other creative and entertaining performances. In accord to the towns bylaws, street performers are only allowed to set up and perform once it got dark, as they take up large amounts of walking path space. Moreover, most of the performers were veterans of the craft, and have been performing for years. They all had their own sections, and never stepped into other performers territories. The use of Gemeinshaft is prevalent here, as the street performers consisted of a small community with social relationships deeply intertwined with webs of reciprocal trust as well as cooperation (Sullivan, J.L., pg.30). Along with the performers, people set up tents and tables all along the pier to sell trinkets and souvenirs to the abundant amount of tourists. This daily festival was called The Sunsets at Pier 60.

More specifically, the street performer act that I wanted to analyze was a set of Father and Son street performers who were famous for their dangerous and fire related stunts. They attracted the largest audiences of the festival due to their specialized performance. With making sense of audiences, three factors can be observed and analyzed; audience size, danger and power. Size can be examined as both small and unmediated or large and mediated (Good, J.). In terms of the night I was apart of the audience, there was a large mediated group. Though street performers typically are small and have turn-outs due to word of mouth, these specific performers were Florida renown and specifically had an above average turn out, opposed to the rest of the performers at Pier 60. As street performers are among the basis of ‘early audiences’, three factors of early audiences are analyzed. The performers organized planned activities that were public in nature, which were the daily performances that fell in the same location of Pier 60 (Good, J.). They share space and time with other performers along the boardwalk, and there are specific roles of both performers and spectators (Good, J.). Spectators consisting of the audience I was apart of.

The other members of the audience viewing the show all consisted of audience of mass. The audience of mass theory sees audience as a large collection of people, those of which are scattered across time and space (Sullivan, J.L., pg.6). Moreover, the audience act autonomously, and have no immediate knowledge of one another (Sullivan, J.L., pg.6). The people in the audience were all random tourists and families to each other, who only came together for the goal of specifically watching and to be entertained by the two street performers and their act.

Audience and danger co-exist closely together, specifically with street performers and their performances, as there isn't very many rules pertaining towards what the audience is and isn't allowed to do, aside from standing in a circle around the performers while they do their act. With the circumstances at hand, there is a possibility for audiences to be talkative and unruly, distracting performances by shouting, cheering and distracting the performers (Good, J.). As the performers were doing their stunts, consisting of juggling boards, balancing on top of unbalanced tables and chairs and playing with fire, the audience often would shout with fear, murmur with anxiety and mostly talk amongst themselves during the stunts. There was even a time where separate tourists outside the audience of the performers walked right through the circle that the audience was gathered around, due to the crowded nature of the sidewalks around the area.

To speak on behalf of my additional experience with the show, I was chosen by both the audience and the performers for the finale to come on stage to aid the performers with a difficult trick. First off, this connects to Audience and Power as the audience as a group decided that I was the person that was fit to be the helper during the finale, and nothing I could say or do would change their decision. Power consists of the ability of someone to alter a decision made, where the audience had the power as a group to organize and decide certain outcomes (Good, J.).

The first thing that the Performers said to me and the rest of the audience once I got on stage was, “who wants to see me light this kid on fire?”. Of course he was just trying to rattle the crowd for the finale, but due to the consistency of fire in his performance previously, the significance of audience as agent was portrayed throughout the audience. The audience as agent theory consists of audiences making their own separate meanings and interpretations (Sullivan, L.J., pg.7-8). Where they are actively interpreting types of media within the framework of their own personal experiences (Sullivan, J.L., pg.8). Much of the crowd, including 12 year old me, legitimately thought I was somehow going to be lit on fire by the performers. The crowd then became worrisome and intrigued based on the interpretations and meanings they shaped by what the performers meant by, “who wants to see me light this kid on fire?”. Turns out he was joking, and I ended up just holding a knife for him for the finale.

In addition, the theory of audience as agent portrays audiences as free agents choosing what they want to experience, and using media to suit themselves (Sullivan, J.L., pg.7-8). This pertains to the variety of different street performers and attractions on Pier 60, where the audience can decide which performance they would rather experience in suiting their best interests of entertainment.

Emotional contagion is defined as, “the viral-like spread of emotional states and attitudes from one individual to another” where this defines the audiences emotional reactions throughout the performance (Sullivan, J.L., pg.33). The aspects of danger within the performance created worry and terror throughout the entire audience. Moreover he audience had mixed emotions as throughout the performance, the two men would use comedic elements to easy the audience from worrying, and this triggered majority of the audience to laugh and calm down. The majority of the audience was worried and interested once I became apart of the performance in the finale, spreading fear to one another while asking other fellow audience members what the man meant by, “who wants to see me light this kid on fire?”.

Finally, the journal article entitled, What Do We Fear? Expected Sanctions for Expressing Minority Opinions in Offline and Online Communication, written by German Neubau and Nicole C. Krämer, relate to the situation I was in when being chosen to participate in the performance finale. The article analyzes the spiral of silence theory, where it, “suggests that individuals are motivated to continuously gauge whether their stance on a controversial issue corresponds to the majority opinion (Neubaum, G., pg. 140). Moreover, “If one’s opinion is perceived to conform to the majority, individuals are more likely to express their stance than individuals who find themselves on the side of the minority — these latter people might lapse into silence” (Neubaum, G., pg.140). We were all an audience of the performers, and when he announced that he wanted to pick me to light on fire, most of the audience cheered and agreed with him that I was the right choice. But, aside from the majority, there were some members in the audience who were skeptical and worried about my well being, including my family who were curious what the man meant. Although my parents were uneasy about the idea, they were in minority opinion compared to the other hundred people in the audience. They decided to go along with the majority opinion and let me participate in the finale. In the article it discuses that, “humans have a fundamental need to not be socially rejected, and therefore conform to perceived social standards rather than represent a deviant perspective and risk isolation from others” (Neubaum, G., pg.140). My parents and a few other audience members fell in this category, but didn't want to make a scene and be judged, so they decided to conform to the majority opinion of letting me participate in the act.

After analyzing different aspects of an audience, its revealed how influential and powerful being apart of a large audience is, and how important audiences are to performers. In conclusion, being apart of an audience is an interesting experience, and shapes who we are. We are always continuously apart of different audiences, and I'm glad that I could share one of my interesting experiences as being both an audience member and a performer for an audience.

References

Good, J., (2018, September 13). Lecture presented at Brock University.

Neubaum, G., & Krämer, N. C. (2016). What Do We Fear? Expected Sanctions for Expressing Minority Opinions in Offline and Online Communication. Communication Research, 45(2), 139-164. doi:10.1177/0093650215623837

Perry, Z. (2018, February 22). Clearwater Beach named 'Best Beach in America' for 2018. Retrieved from https://www.abcactionnews.com/lifestyle/taste-and-see/clearwater-beach-named-best-beach-in-america-for-2018

Sullivan, J. L. (2013). Media audiences: Effects, users, institutions, and power. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.