What is the difference between passive and active audiences in terms of media?
The active audience Instead of picturing the audience as a heterogeneous vulnerable, and easily influenced mass that is open to persuasion, the general notion nowadays pictures the audience as active and selective with special interests and interpretations of media polysemic texts, on the grounds that people have different social experiences and cultural backgrounds as well as different personal histories of learning and development. A general shift from perceiving the viewer as easy to manipulate towards an interpreting user can be noticed. Acknowledging the concept of an active and selective audience is a step towards believing in the intelligence and autonomy of people and furthermore grants people some power and agency in their use of media (Croteau & Hoynes, 2003:266-269). Croteau & Hoynes (2003:268) point out that audience activity not only resolves in actively interpreting media messages, but rather includes that audiences interpret media messages socially. Considering the media
