BLOG POST: WEEK 2

Welcome to my very first blog entry! This is an academic blog for an Audience Studies class and will explore various topics and key concepts in relation to audiences and audience experiences. Throughout each blog, I will be discussing core concepts within the assigned readings and lectures in relation to my own experiences as an audience member. For this first blog, I will be focusing on the changing culture behind my experience(s) as an audience member throughout this year, as COVID has changed how we interact with other people and platforms as audience members.

While reading Chapter 1 of Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power by J. Sullivan, as well as the Giving People a Voice article by S. Livingstone, it became clear to me that the concepts discussed within both academic sources relate to the issues of COVID-19, and the various changes that have come with it.

Throughout the COVID chaos, I believe that the most important role I continuously play as an audience member is actively watching the News and engaging in COVID related news sites and information.

COVID has changed how we operate daily in terms of human interaction. This change can be seen when it comes to how we generate and share new information that serves the purpose of ending the virus and saving many lives.

Since the COVID lockdown started, the delivery of important news has had a large impact on Canadian citizens. Within the first few weeks of the Corona Virus, everyone (worldwide) was in a mass panic, often turning to the news stations to gain some answers. I found myself stalking news channels with my mom while waiting to hear about the latest statements and facts released about the virus.

As audience members through a global pandemic, keeping up to date on facts and statistics is essential. This is especially important as such facts can be lifesaving. As an audience member, I have not only been staying on-top of such news stations but have also kept up-to-date on government statements and special instructions.

We all know that the government has a large influence on the content that is reported live on news stations, if not all of the content in the world. As an audience member, this made me truly realize the amount of power that the news stations and government have, especially in terms of releasing important information about COVID.

To define power simply, it is referred to as "the capacity to achieve outcomes” (Gidden, 1986; Sullivan, 2020). A more precise definition of power was offered by Bartlett (1989), who said that “power involves the ability of one actor to alter the decision made and/or welfare experienced by another actor relative to the choices that would have been made and/or welfare that would have been experienced had the actor not existed or acted” (J. Sullivan, p. 30). A man by the name of Steven Lukes offered another important definition of power, and said that “power is identified through the decision-making of the individual agents, through the non-decision-making of agents (passive non-choices), and through the ability of institutions to shape our decisions without our even knowing it” (S. Lukes; J. Sullivan, Ch. 1).

It is clear that before COVID, the government has and will forever have a large amount of power over its people. Since the COVID outbreak, it is clear that the government's power over Canadian citizens has increased significantly. As an audience member, I am constantly told where I can go, when I can go, who I can/cannot go with, how far apart I have to be from everyone, and what protective gear I MUST be wearing. As of a by-law introduced on July 7th, it is mandatory to wear a mask while inside of indoor public spaces (toronto.ca). I have always been one to cooperate with instructions if it is to maintain the well-being of fellow citizens, but now more than ever, the government has expressed a lot of power over the audience members that keep up with various news channels.

Something that I noticed as an audience member was that shortly after the pandemic started, many people took to social media to re-share information. I found this extremely helpful at first, but it turned out to be extremely detrimental as people started sharing false information.

As an audience member, I found this extremely annoying because I would never know if what I was reading online was true or not. There was a lot of uncertainty at the time. Even when news stations were posting about COVID, a lot of information was still getting fact-checked, meaning that not all of the information that was circulating was 100% accurate. Before COVID news stations were almost always certain about the news stories and breaking news in which they featured. Since COVID hit, I feel very unsure about anything I see on the same news stations, especially anything I see online.

After reading Chapter 1 of Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power (2020) by J. Sullivan, a historical event involving the bible caught my attention, as it resonates with what is happening nowadays with the emergence of Social Media, and other new technologies and platforms.

The event was regarding “print, and the shift toward mediated audiences” (J. Sullivan, 2020). What happened was, “when copies of the Bible were printed and circulated in languages other than Latin, local priests and parishioners were no longer bound to the Vatican for access to the Bible or the news from around Europe, and the church’s monopoly on information was disrupted” (J. Sullivan, 2020).

Instead of people coming together and reading the bible aloud, “individuals would consume messages in private, and virtual communities of readers began to develop” (J. Sullivan, 2020). This example is quite similar to the spreading of current days news and information. It all starts with a source and a news station but quickly spreads through social media and word of mouth information sharing. With the rise of computer technology and media sites, people can know what is going on in the world without even turning on any sort of news station or channel. Sadly, this leaves a lot of room for fake news and misunderstanding.

Through various educational resources, I have been able to make sense of my current situation as an audience member during COVID. Although the circumstances are very different than life before COVID, I know that the Audience Studies class I am enrolled in will help me develop a better understanding of how I am an audience member, and what I can do to better my experiences. Being an audience member through COVID is most certainly not ideal, but I am just happy that my Audience Studies course may help me come to terms with understanding the importance of an audience member, especially through crucial times such as global emergencies.