Audience Studies (3P18) Blog Post #1
Being apart of an audience is an experience everyone has in their everyday lives. As Sullivan (2013) suggests, audiences can be physical (attending a concert) or temporal: watching a television show live at the same time as others in different places (p. 2). Mass media plays a significant role in constructing audiences as it functions as one of the main mediums different media can project their content to the world.
Politics and pop culture experience heavy overlapping, especially in today’s mediated world. It is extremely rare that one will witness a political scandal without it becoming a “meme” on social media platforms, the subject of discussion on a Tumblr dashboard, or a Twitter moment. This blog post will analyze four of my own audience experiences with the use of academic writings. I will then explore the several ways audiences have overlapped with politics and pop culture.
1. Pop Culture and Politics: the Brett Kavanaugh hearing
When the sexual assault hearing of U.S. Judge Brett Kavanaugh took place on September 27th, I did not pay any attention to it. I know how theses hearings usually end, especially having some background knowledge with the ways in which victims of sexual assault have been treated in court (and anywhere else, really).
A few days later, my best friend began to inform me about the specifics of the hearing, and how surprised she was to see that what people online have been saying about Republicans are true – they really are the most inconsiderate and ignorant individuals to ever walk on Earth. Since I previously had no knowledge of what the allegations were about, my best friend took on the role of being an opinion leader. Sullivan (2013) describes opinion leaders as being “knowledgeable about a particular issue and [are] consulted by others as a source on that issue” (p. 43). Because I knew that my best friend had more knowledge about the topic of Kavanaugh than I did from the beginning, I trusted her to relay that information on to me, believing that it was accurate.
The Kavanaugh hearing brought about a public outcry on social media. Many individuals on all platforms began to voice their opinions on the issue, which contained mostly left wing comments on the case. The hearing got so popular that these audiences began to create “memes” on the Internet about Kavanaugh’s behaviour. Twitter user @TurtleTears posted this tweet with a photo of Kavanaugh’s problematic angry-face along with it. The tweet shows that users online are not afraid to create jokes out of serious situations because the situation is so ridiculous (no one cares that you went to Yale, Kavanaugh).
2. Pop Culture and Politics: Kanye West’s (unwanted) SNL rant
The season premiere of Saturday Night Live this past Saturday (the 29th) featured musical guest Kanye West. Months prior to the episode airing, West had announced that he was supporting President Donald Trump, which tends to be a controversial issue among people in America, mostly because a large number of the population want nothing to do with him at all, let alone have him as a president. Therefore, West had an already established reputation among the right wing population, which is not a favourable one.
My best friend and I watched the SNL episode live together, and we were already skeptical and uneasy during his performances. At the ending credits of the show, West began to sing a song then proceed to voice his opinion on feeling marginalized by the American population for supporting Trump. This received widespread media coverage, with this tweet showing a short clip of West’s speech. As you can see in the video, the SNL cast members in the background look visibly uncomfortable, with some even leaving the stage when he starts singing again.
I don’t know about you, but I can clearly see how uncomfortable these cast members look while West is speaking. It is clear that his views are not well received with everyone on that stage, but no one is compelled to speak up against him on his opinion. In their study on the reasonings why individuals might refrain from voicing their opinions in online settings, Neubaum & Kramer (2018) found that people are less likely to voice their opinions online than offline because of the fear of isolation and not being able to control the situation. As you can see with the above example, this is the opposite. The SNL cast members refrain from voicing their true opinions in this particular situation due to the fears of rejection (possibly from the producers and creators of the show). This instance could work as an online situation in the sense that the cast members would not have much control over the situation should they voice their opinions anyway, due to the show airing on live television in front of millions of viewers.
This situation also relates to the idea that citizens look to media personalities to help form an opinion on a subject. Lippman (1922) argued that “individual citizens had neither the time nor the resources to be able to develop complex and reasoned responses to national or international events. Instead, they reflect chiefly on elites in the news media to gather intelligence on those events in they place” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 66). In this way, West acts as a public personality who helps his public following and audiences form an opinion on pressing issues in today’s society. Trusting fans of West before Trump rose to power will count on him to deliver honest and right opinions on topics they do not know what to think of.
All in all, audiences today have the easiest access to events and topics affecting society at the tough of their fingertips. Through social media, users share and re-share stories so that audiences throughout the world can be exposed to the same content and form their own opinions.
Liana's Audience Analysis Blog 