Audience
Encyclopedia
Person
A person is a human being, or an entity that has certain capacities or attributes strongly associated with being human , for example in a particular moral or legal context...
who participate in a show
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
or encounter a work of art
Work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
(in which they are called "readers"), theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
, music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
(in which they are called "listeners") or academics in any medium
Media (arts)
In the arts, a media or medium is a material used by an artist or designer to create a work.-Architecture:In the art and science of architecture, the design and construction of buildings and interiors, infrastructure and other physical structures are created...
. Audience members participate in different ways in different kinds of art; some events invite overt audience participation and others allowing only modest clapping
Clapping
A clap is the sound made by striking together two flat surfaces, as in the body parts of humans or animals. Humans clap with the palms of their hands, often in a constant drone to express appreciation or approval , but also in rhythm to match sounds in music and dance...
and criticism
Criticism
Criticism is the judgement of the merits and faults of the work or actions of an individual or group by another . To criticize does not necessarily imply to find fault, but the word is often taken to mean the simple expression of an objection against prejudice, or a disapproval.Another meaning of...
and reception.
Media audiences are studied by academics in media audience studies. Audience theory
Audience theory
Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies.With a specific focus on rhetoric, some, such as Walter Ong, have suggested that the audience is a construct made up by the rhetoric and the rhetorical situation the text is addressing...
offers scholarly insight into audiences in general. These insights shape our knowledge of just how audiences affect and are affected by different forms of art.
Audience participation
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
. Examples include the traditional British pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
s, stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
, and creative stage shows such as Blue Man Group
Blue Man Group
Blue Man Group is an organization founded by Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton. The organization produces theatrical shows and concerts featuring popular music, comedy and multimedia; recorded music and scores for film and television; television appearances for shows such as The Tonight...
One of the most well-known examples of popular audience participation is the motion picture The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the 1975 film adaptation of the British rock musical stageplay, The Rocky Horror Show, written by Richard O'Brien. The film is a parody of B-movie, science fiction and horror films of the late 1940s through early 1970s. Director Jim Sharman collaborated on the...
and its earlier stage incarnation The Rocky Horror Show
The Rocky Horror Show
The Rocky Horror Show is a long-running British horror comedy stage musical, which opened in London on 19 June 1973. It was written by Richard O'Brien, produced and directed by Jim Sharman. It came eighth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals"...
. The audience participation elements are often seen as the most important part of the picture, to the extent that the audio options on the DVD version include the option.
In the audience participation for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, the audience make "call backs", and yell at the screen at certain parts of the movie. Also, a number of props are thrown and used by the audience during certain parts of the film. These props include:
- Rice - for the wedding scene
- Water pistols - to simulate the rain that Brad and Janet are walking in
- Toilet paper - when Dr. Scott enters the lab and Brad cries out "Great Scott!"
- Noisemakers - used at the beginning of the creation scene
- Confetti - used at the end of "I can make you a Man"
- Toast - used at the dinner scene
- Party hats - used at the dinner scene
- Playing cards - used in "I'm going home"
Examples of audience participation
The Mystery of Edwin Drood (musical)
Drood is a musical based on the unfinished Charles Dickens novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It is written by Rupert Holmes, and was the first Broadway musical with multiple endings . Holmes received Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score...
", a Broadway musical based on Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
's last, unfinished work. In it, the audience must vote for who they think the murderer is, as well as the real identity of the detective and the couple who end up together.
During the 1984 Summer Olympics, cards were inserted into the seats of the Olympic Stadium. The announcer gave a countdown to and told the audience to the raise the cards, revealing the flags of all the participating Nations.
Tony and Tina's Wedding is an example of a form of audience participation that engages the entire audience at once, staging a narrative set during a wedding in which the audience performs the role of "guests".
The British panel game
Panel game
A panel game or panel show is a radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participates. Panelists may compete with each other, such as on The News Quiz; facilitate play by guest contestants, such as on Match Game/Blankety Blank; or do both, such as on Wait Wait.....
QI
QI
QI is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and co-produced by John Lloyd, hosted by Stephen Fry, and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. Most of the questions are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given...
often allows the audience to try to answer questions. Currently, the audience have won one show, and have come last in another.
Magic shows often rely on some audience participation. Psychological illusionist Derren Brown
Derren Brown
Derren Victor Brown is a British illusionist, mentalist, painter, writer and sceptic. He is known for his appearances in television specials, stage productions and British television series such as Trick of the Mind and Trick or Treat...
relies heavily on audience participation in his live shows.
Particular (real) audiences
In rhetoricRhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...
, particular audiences depend on circumstance and situation, and are characterized by the individuals that make up the audience. Particular audiences are subject to persuasion and engage with the ideas of the speaker. Ranging in size and composition, particular audiences can come together to form a "composite" audience of multiple particular groups.
Immediate audiences
An immediate audience is a type of particular audience that is composed of individuals who are face-to-face subjects with a speaker and a speaker’s rhetorical text or speech. This type of audience directly listens to, engages with, and consumes the rhetorical text in an unmediated fashion. In measuring immediate audience reception and feedback, (audience measurementAudience measurement
Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites...
), one can depend on personal interviews, applause, and verbal comments made during and after a rhetorical speech.
Mediated audiences
In contrast to immediate audiences, mediated audiences are composed of individuals who consume rhetorical texts in a manner that is different from the time or place in which the speaker presents a text. Audiences who consume texts or speeches through television, radio, and Internet are considered mediated audiences because those mediums separate the rhetor and the audience. Understanding the size and composition of mediated audiences can be difficult because mediums such as television, radio, and Internet can displace the audience from the time and circumstance of a rhetorical text or speech. In measuring mediated audience reception and feedback, (audience measurementAudience measurement
Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites...
), one can depend on opinion polls and ratings, as well as comments and forums that may be featured on a website.
Theoretical (imagined) audiences
Theoretical audiences are audiences that are imagined for the purpose of helping the speaker compose, or a critic to understand, a rhetorical text or speech.Self as audience (self-deliberation)
When a rhetor deeply considers, questions, and deliberates over the content of the ideas they are conveying, it can be said that these individuals are addressing the audience of self, or self-deliberating. Scholars Chaim PerelmanChaim Perelman
Chaïm Perelman was a Polish-born philosopher of law, who studied, taught, and lived most of his life in Brussels. He was among the most important argumentation theorists of the twentieth century...
and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, in their book The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, argue that the rhetor “is in a better position than anyone else to test the value of his own arguments." The audience of self, while not serving as the ends to all rhetorical purpose or circumstance, nevertheless acts as a type of audience that not only operates as a function of self-help, but as instrument used to discover the available means of persuasion.
Universal audience
The universal audience is an imagined audience that serves as an ethical and argumentative test for the rhetor. It requires the speaker to imagine a composite audience that contains individuals from diverse backgrounds and to discern whether or not the content of the rhetorical text or speech would appeal to individuals within that audience. Scholars Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca ascertain that the content addressed to a universal audience "must convince the reader that the reasons adduced are of a compelling character, that they are self-evident, and possess an absolute and timeless validity". The concept of the universal audience has received criticism for being idealistic because it can be considered as an impediment in achieving persuasive effect with particular audiences. Yet, it still may be useful as an ethical guide for a speaker and a critical tool for a reader or audience.Ideal audience
An ideal audience is a rhetor's imagined, intended audience. In creating a rhetorical text, a rhetor imagines a target audienceTarget audience
In marketing and advertising, a target audience, is a specific group of people within the target market at which the marketing message is aimed .....
, a group of individuals that will be addressed, persuaded, or affected by the speech or rhetorical text. This type of audience is not necessarily imagined as the most receptive audience, but as the future particular audience that the rhetor will engage with. Imagining such an audience allows a rhetor to formulate appeals that will grant success in engaging with the future particular audience. In considering an ideal audience, a rhetor can imagine future conditions of mediation, size, demographics, and shared beliefs among the audience to be persuaded.