- 88% of social media users are registered voters
- 94% of voting age social media users who see a political message online watch the entire things; 34% then go on to share it
- "JFK is the first television president. This year's victor may well be determined by the impact of Facebook and Twitter
Application of Active Audience Theory (Qualtrics Survey)
- 43 respondents
- Testing to see exposure, interpretation, and effects of 2 political ads
- Asked questions regarding race, origin, socioeconomic class, parents highest education, politically active, political opinion on the election, and whether or not the 2 political ads had an impact
The Two Political Ads
How Is the Theory Relevant
Cons
- Interpretation
- Construction of text
What Is Active Audience Theory?
• Active Audience Theory was developed by Stuart Hall.
• Early theorists had an interpretation that mass media messages simply treat an audience as if they were a sponge.
• There are different ways that the audience can receive the message and decode it based on their identity, cultural knowledge and opinions.
• Every message that is received through an audience could be decoded into more than just one way.
- “Sociopolitical role of the media, the audience member’s cognition of self and “reality,” as well as, the moment-to-moment cognitive processes by which individual decodes media content form”
- "A new dominant paradigm in effects research"
- Activity is said to exist prior to media use ("pre-activity'), during media use ("duractivity'), and following media use ("post-activity') (Blumler, 1979;Levy, 1983;Levy& Windahl, 1984a, 1984b)
Applying Active Audience Theory
- Media audiences are heavily influenced by personal beliefs and values
- Active Audience Theory implies those who have predetermined strong belief toward a specific candidate will do their part
- Active Audience Theory proposes media audiences are influenced by social class and race
- Viewers take in information and make sense of it within their own personal and social context
- To some people the "47 percent" video has Mitt Romney come off as a man who is out of touch with reality
- To other people the same video can be viewed in a complete different context
Active Audience Theory