Active audience theory is a theory that people receive and interpret media

Media (communication)

In communications, media are the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data...

 messages in different ways, usually according to factors such as age

Ageing

Ageing or aging is the accumulation of changes in a person over time. Ageing in humans refers to a multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change. Some dimensions of ageing grow and expand over time, while others decline...

, ethnicity, social class

Social class

Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...

, etc. The audience is neither passive nor homogenous.

Katz

Elihu Katz

Elihu Katz is an American and Israeli sociologist.-Biography:Katz has spent most of a lifetime in research on communication, his main focus being the interplay between media, conversation, opinion, and action in the public sphere...

 and Lazarsfeld

Paul Lazarsfeld

Paul Felix Lazarsfeld was one of the major figures in 20th-century American sociology. The founder of Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, he exerted a tremendous influence over the techniques and the organization of social research...

 in 1955 came up with a two step flow

Two-step flow of communication

- Basic Overview :Also known as the Multistep Flow Model is a theory based on a 1940's study on social influence that states that media effects are indirectly established through the personal influence of opinion leaders...

 theory in which people discuss media texts in their social network

Social network

A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...

s where there will usually be opinion leaders

Opinion leadership

Opinion leadership is a concept that arises out of the theory of two-step flow of communication propounded by Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz. This theory is one of several models that try to explain the diffusion of innovations, ideas, or commercial products....

 who set the tone for what the rest of the group think.

In 1980 David Morley did a study to see how viewers interpreted a television show at the time: Nationwide

Nationwide (TV series)

Nationwide was a BBC News and Current affairs television programme broadcast on BBC One each weekday following the early evening news. It followed a magazine format, combining political analysis and discussion with consumer affairs, light entertainment and sports reporting...

. He found there were generally three types of reading:

• Oppositional - people disagree with the message and reject it.
• Negotiated - On the whole, the view is agreed with but slightly altered.
• Dominant - The message is fully accepted.

External links

• David Morley’s Study of the Nationwide Audience (1980) - Daniel Chandler, January 1997 (notes from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth
  University of Wales, Aberystwyth
  Aberystwyth University is a university located in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding Member Institution of the former federal University of Wales. As of late 2006, the university had over 12,000 students spread across seventeen academic departments.The university was founded in 1872 as...
  
  )