Ways that Audience Members Respond to Media: A Framework for Studying Audience Effects

Audience research has entered a new era in the twenty-first century such that the demarcation between producer and consumer is no longer as clear as it once might have been. As a result, audience studies continually negotiate the nature of the roles of those who produce media and those who are media users. This chapter describes the continued salience of key concepts and theories that are relevant to the understanding of audience members and the ways that they respond to media. Parasocial experiences, identification, and transportation continue to be relevant to understanding media effects. In addition, understanding the ways that audiences break into various demographically distinguished groups is important in understanding the different ways that media are important in the social lives of consumers today.