Audience: fragmentation ofA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWparticular, Th ompson counters Schiller’s view
that American cultural imperialism has wreaked
havoc with indigenous cultures throughout the
world, and that it is a seemingly unstoppable
force. Th ompson is of the opinion that ‘Schiller
... presents too uniform a view of American
media culture ... and of its global dominance’.
The landscape of media-use has been
substantially altered with the advent of network
communication (see networking: social
networking). Mass media has lost some of its
centrality in relation to audience; and audiences
have become much more proactive not only
in receiving messages, but also in becoming
producers of messages. Th ey are able as never
before to pick and choose their online sources,
to feedback more readily, to become practised
communicators through blogs and enrolling
on various platforms of social interaction.
See audience: fragmentation of; blogo-
sphere; facebook; myspace; twitter; self-
identity; semiotic power; youtube.
★Audience: fragmentation of In Audience
Analysis (Sage, 1997) Denis McQuail publishes
the following models, with acknowledgment to
Jan van Cuilenburg, illustrating in four succeed-
ing stages how audiences for mass media have
become fragmented since the early years of TV.
Th e Unitary Model ‘implies a single audience
that is more or less coextensive with the general
public’. Th e texts of media – broadcasting in
particular – were shared by all, and homogenous.
With the expansion of provision and the
increase in the number of channels, diversity
is shown in the Pluralist Model, representing
a ‘pattern of limited internal diversification’.
The Core-Periphery Model ‘is one in which
the multiplication of channels makes possible
additional and competing alternatives outside
this framework’.
At this stage, says McQuail, ‘it becomes
possible to enjoy a television diet that diff ers
signifi cantly from the majority or mainstream’.
Th e Breakup Model is characterized by ‘exten-
sive fragmentation and the disintegration of the
central core. Th e audience is distributed over
many different channels in no fixed pattern,
and there is only sporadically shared audience
experiences’.
McQuail says that for the most part the ‘core’
still dominates audience use of TV: ‘Th e reasons
lie primarily in the near-universal appeal of
mainstream content and the advantages to media
organizations of continuing with mass provision,
plus the continuing habits and patterns of social
life.’ Th e author believes that ‘media change isplatforms are multiplying and audiences are
fragmenting, for many elements of the media
the search for a mass audience is fast losing its
rationality as the basis for doing business.’
See blogosphere; demotic turn; digital
optimism; journalism: citizen journal-
ism; mobilization; networking: social
networking; web 2.0. See also topic guide
under audiences/consumption and recep-
tion of media.
▶Pertti Alasuutari, ed., Rethinking the Media Audi-
ence: Th e New Agenda (Sage, 1999); Andy Ruddock,
Investigating Audiences (Sage, 2007); Michael
Higgins, Th e Media and Th eir Publics (Open Univer-
sity, 2007); Dan Hind, Th e Return of the Public (Verso,
2010); Philip M. Napoli, Audience Evolution: New
Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audi-
ences (Columbia University Press, 2011).
Audience: active audience An age-old media
debate centres on the nature of audience reac-
tion to traditional mass-media messages. Th e
notion of the active audience considers audi-
ences to be proactive and independent rather
than docile and accepting. Th e active audience
is seen to use the media rather than be used by
it (see uses and gratifications theory).
Th is perception has come about substantially
through fi ndings of research which has observed
members of audiences consuming media in their
own homes (see ethnographic approach to
audience measurement).
Writing in the 1980s, American media analyst
Herbert Schiller took issue with the optimistic
view of the active or resistive audience. In
Culture Inc.: Th e Corporate Takeover of Public
Expression (Oxford University Press, 1989)
Schiller argues that transnational corporations
have colonized culture and cultural expression,
in the US and globally. He writes of ‘corporate
pillaging of the national information supply’ and
the ‘proprietary control of information’. Such
manifest power, he believes, calls into question
the active-audience paradigm: ‘A great emphasis
is given to the “resistance”, “subversion”, and
“empowerment” of the viewer. Where this resis-
tance and subversion of the audience lead and
what eff ects they have on the existing structure
of power remain a mystery.’
In turn Schiller has been criticized for under-
estimating the potential resistance of audience
to ‘corporatization’. John B. Th ompson in Th e
Media and Modernity: A Social Th eory of Media
(Polity, 1995) says that ‘even if one sympathizes
with Schiller’s broad theoretical view and his
critical perspectives, there are many respects in
which the argument is deeply unsatisfactory’. In