Media, Society, and Audience Dynamics

In a convergent media ecosystem, the nature of the audience is changed, hence, the societal dynamics and its interrelationship with media and mediated communications are also taking new shapes. Society at large is mediatized and audiences are the new “producers” of the content who reappropriate it with their contexts. On the other hand, there are the old forms still existing. For example, while the television viewership in the Indian rural areas is yet to reach saturation with entertainment-based segments and 24 × 7 news channels, there is an addition of OTT platforms that are robustly leveraging the outreach in urban and semi-urban or “rurban” areas. Not only this, new forms and reshaping of the audiences can be witnessed in the way the audiences are accessing digital media. On virtual screens, the “activity” of the passive audience is as registered by the brand promotors, media producers and advertisers, as the “participation” by the active audience. There is a mobility and fluidity visible between the mediated communication to the mediatized contexts that are being communicated between audiences and the media itself. With this, there is a transition taking place (or, at least perceived) at many levels, such as, from media representations to representation of the self in media; from opinion leaders to media influencers beyond time and space. Against this backdrop, the chapter revisits the old theories in the new contexts with a critical perspective to provide a much more contemporary and contextual underpinning on the subject.