Audience is important to a lot of people in the media industry. A list from week 8’s names some of these. including; Advertises, Production Houses, Policy Makers and Cultural Theorists. Obviously the audience is an extremely important aspect of media. I remember in one of the first lectures, Brian asked us to list the things we immediately think about when we hear the word ‘media’. A fair amount of our answers referred to audiences. In fact, ‘audience’ is the first word on my list. Other things we were able to come up with included;

• Human Culture
• Connection of identity
• Reflection of values
• Accessibility

The point is that the central priority for all types of media seems to be it’s audience. The concern for an audiences well being as caused some controversy in the media world. Back in the 1940’s people were convinced of a ‘hypodermic needle theory’. Audiences weren’t involved with the production of media as we are now, so there was a belief that media had the power to influence an audience behaviour exactly. As time went on this changed and more theories came into existence that suggested the audience has more involvement with the content they consume then previously thought. It came to the surface that audiences weren’t as subjective to media content, that they can be active towards the media they consume. Although, there is still caution towards these ideas, since there remains the belief that media can still hold direct influence over it’s consumers. Despite the fact that audiences are now even producing their own content, the idea of passive audiences still remain relevant.