Active Audience and Passive Audience

[Audio] Today's presentation is going to focus on active and passive audience..

[Audio] So, what is active audience? According to Frank A. Biocca, characteristics of active audience are individualistic, "impervious to influence, "rationally intentional and selective. Basically, this means that active audience understands, and tend to react to a media text in all sorts of ways. They are also prone to questioning the concepts behind that media text. For example, we probably came across a popular statement on the internet which claims that having a cup of coffee every day is in a way beneficial to one's body. Active audiences may interpret such information with scepticism instead of taking the content as it is, being sceptical about something allows them to find out more about the said content and in turn help them decide on whether to believe such information..

[Audio] On the other hand, passive audience are seen as conformist, gullible, anomic, vulnerable, and are usually victims. According to Stuart Hall, a passive audience is more likely to take the contents in a media text at its face value and be directly impacted by the messages as a result. Continuing with the above example, A passive audience may only skim over the content and then decide to fully believe the statement. He or she would have probably started with a habit of consuming a cup of coffee daily as soon as he or she is exposed to such information..

[Audio] The example above would prove that active audiences are less likely to be manipulated since they possess the ability to think critically when receiving information. However, they might also have more quarrel with others as they always have a lot of thoughts and opinions. In contrast, passive audiences may be more susceptible to manipulation because they are less inclined to think critically, but it may be easier for them to make friends or get others trust as they don't always fight back..

[Audio] In my opinion, I am an active audience most of the time. I do not believe information at its face value, as I am the type of person that cares about whether the information, I take in are true or are in fact real. I would do research about information I found on the internet, which I may find sceptical about, in order to decide on whether I would believe it or not. I believe that we often could see a better and bigger picture by questioning and researching more about a certain topic, rather than just taking in information that has no context to begin with. As human as I am, some information on certain topics I see on the internet may not be able to motivate me to probe on the underlying meaning, I then would intentionally become a passive audience. Take celebrity entertainment news as an example, I often do not find interest in reading it thoroughly or in depth, as I think that the life of one celebrity does not concern me or would in any way affect the society at large and me. I would say that I am a passive audience in such situation..

[Audio] In conclusion, active and passive audience forms our society as a whole. Active audience interacts with information, whereas passive audience listens and take in information directly as it is. As a result, active audiences are less likely to be fooled than passive audiences, but they may have more fights with others. In my opinion, the world would be a better place if there are more active audience, as this would mean that more people will develop critical thinking skills and innovative barriers can be broken..

Thank you.