Audiences

Television, radio, newspaper, and website viewers and readers are usually referred to as audiences. These are the people who make any media product matter: They are the targeted recipients of most media products, especially advertising. Media products such as newspapers, magazines, television shows, and radio programmes are often designed to attract particular types of audiences, so they can sell advertising to companies that want those same people to learn about and buy their products and services. For media companies that rely on advertising, any money generated by subscriptions is not nearly as much as that gained from selling advertising space and audiences to advertisers.

How audience members relate to and negotiate with the media and its products has long been an interest of researchers, and the ...