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COMM 3P18 WEEK 10: Digitalization

In this week’s lecture we take a closer look at digitalization and how we as the audience interact with the media culture. As the world evolves so does the technology around us and humans have no other option but to adapt to change and adapting to this change is easier for some than others. We have all been  user of the internet regardless of what age we are, everyone at one point has come across it for any reason. There was a time when technology was not that important but that does not mean it did not exists, we were never aware of it in the past century now it is clear to us that there are many forms of technology out there for the users. I remember when the blackberry first came out people went crazy for that phone but where is it now? Apart from a handful of business men the world is not too fond of that phone anymore because Apple started to come up on the rise. Digitalization is the process of images videos and texts that are translated as digital codes and Snapchat, Instagram and Tiktok are three big platforms that can fall under this category. Snapchat however is different from Instagram and Tiktok because everything works quick on snapchat and the communication there is short.

Sullivan discusses that “Participatory culture refers to the active participation of the fans and other consumers in creation and circulation of new content” (Sullivan, 2020). I would fall under participatory culture just as much as the next person because I am a consumer of the content out there today. I use snapchat to send streaks to my friends, I use Instagram to send posts and other information as well. Platforms such as twitter and Instagram have become my main resources to rely on when needing information on current events. First thing that many of us do when we wake up is check our phones for any notifications and the last thing before we go to bed is check our phones as well. It has become such a norm amongst humans to rely on their digital technology to move forward with their day to day. The other day I was watching this video on Mark Cuban and for those who don’t know him he is a multi-millionaire entrepreneur with investment in so many business. So when watching this video what I had noticed is that the first thing Cuban does is wake up and check his emails and he claims to get around 700 emails a day which is believable being the person he is, however it is has become such a practise for him that he needs two different phones with two different plans just to move forward with his day. I might not be involved in participatory culture like that but I still do invest my time in social media a lot to gain and provide information for those who need it. YouTube is another major platform that practices participatory culture. This platform has become a lively hood to many individuals as they produce content and in return we as the audience watch the video and they get money and sponsorships in return. The new big thing on YouTube is youtubers transition into boxing, they like to call out boxers and set a date to fight them and the most recent fight that happened was Jake Paul a youtuber versus Nate Robinson a former NBA player. The amount of revenue one fight brings is beyond ridiculous and where does this money come from? It come from us the audience who is participating in watching and betting on these games. Lastly I want to discuss the concept of Big Data and Sullivan explains it as “the movement to analyze the increasingly vast amounts of information stored multiple locations, but mainly online and primarily in the cloud” (Sullivan, 2020) All our phones consist of the cloud that provides more information that you require. Rather than just providing the basic needs of calling and texting the modern technology has advanced itself and provides more from the Big Data.

References 

Sullivan. (2020). Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions and Power. Second Edition. Sage Publications Inc., New York, NY.

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COMM 3P18 WEEK 9: Media Fandoms and Audiences

This week lecture focuses on the Media fandoms and audiences and how they decode the content that is provided to them. To start off what does it mean to have or to be a Media Fandom? Media fandom relates to work produced by a fan based on their interest such tv shows, movies, sports, games etc. How an individual shows their support and opinion on the subject matter that they are a fan of. Also monitoring on specifics on how does this fan show the support through the use of technology. The whole thought process of media fandom comes from a person becoming a fan of the media content that they are engaged in, as Sullivan says it is people who are “emotionally invested in their favorite media by thinking deeply about the plots, characters, and messages of those texts” (Sullivan, Ch 8).  A fan can be created easily depending on the content they are consuming, also there are multiple things in the world a person could be a fan of because getting emotionally invested is easier than you think.

I fall under media fandom just as much as anyone else does and I take that fandom spirit to my social media as well. With the millennial generation we are made to show our support of what we believe, in any way possible and what better way is there to spread awareness than social media itself. Just as much as I gain information from the internet I also share my inputs and ideas on the things I believe and support in. Sports in on big criteria in my life that I can think of where I can relate to the topic of Media fandom. This is something I grew up with, from watching to playing to getting involved as much as possible I try to do it all. I remember in high school I was more invested in sports more than my education. This energy into playing sports relates back to my involvement with watching and keeping up with major league sports such as NBA, NFL, CFL ,MLS, FIFA. I have invested so many man hours into learning the sport that it became a second nature for me and I had to keep up with the daily news that was happening for each of my favorite teams or players. Instagram is one of the biggest platforms where you could see my involvement into sports, if you were to scroll through my feed I can guarantee you 85% of the content I consume is sports related, whether it is teams trading or drafting players or individual sport players promoting their sponsors or even if it is just a day to day team training, you can see it all on my feed. What is my involvement in media fandom? I am the type of person that likes to share information for the public to see regardless of them being a fan or not. The reason I share is mainly for the purpose that I am huge fan of this team and secondly my viewers that are not big fans can still keep up to date with their basic knowledge. For example the most recent post I have shared was one when the quarter back named Patrick Mahomes was offered one the biggest record breaking contracts in the NFL that has never been done before. To see a young player get a max contract of $500 million for 10 years is just mind blowing information that I feel like everybody should know about because these are not consistent occurrences. By sharing this on my story I am practising media fandom and sharing my thoughts and opinions on the matter. Secondly the most recent post I have had was Lebron James extending his contact to a 2 year deal for $85 million. For those who don’t Lebron is the King when it comes to basketball and the NBA fanbase wants to know this hot news on when might he be retiring or what is his plan next. So by sharing this post I can let my viewers know my involvement in the sports and Lebron James as a person.

As Sullivan mention in his article  “Media fans are members of subcultures in the sense that they adopt their own linguistic codes (specialized ways of talk for example) and symbolic forms (including styles of dress) that delineate them from the rest of the population” (Sullivan Ch 8). This is something so common that I have noticed amongst people. Member of subculture do talk in their coded language that an outsider cannot understand or make meaning of what is being said. For example let’s stick with sports, my friends and I are always talking about the sport’s updates and we have a group chat with the girls in it as well. So when the guys get to talking about the sports we start using sports terms that are used in games and will only be understood by those who watch the games. For instance basketball has terms such as travelling and charge, to those that do know basketball we can say that travelling is called when a player holds the ball and takes more than two steps without dribbling it and charge is when a defender takes a hit from the opponent while standing in still motion. These terms can switch up for individuals that are not so involved in basketball and the conversation gets confusing if not boring for them.

References 

Sullivan. (2020). Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions and Power. Second Edition. Sage Publications Inc., New York, NY.

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COMM 3P18 WEEK 8: Spatial and Physical Context

In this week’s lecture we focus on Spatial and Physical Context and how that can affect our media experiences. If I was to watch a movie at home by myself versus watching it in the theater with my friends surrounded by better speakers and a bigger screen, I am bond to end up having two different types of experience. There are certain movies that needs to be watched in theatres and there are couple of them where it is okay to watch it at home. In my personal opinion I believe it depends on the genre of the movie, if it is an action thriller then it needs to be watched in a theatre where as if it is a comedy drama you can watch that from the comfort of your own home. The quality of the production becomes 10 times better when you are out watching and the fact that you can share that experience with your friends and family is better than watching a movie alone. This is where spatial context plays a role, it differentiates the mood of one allowing them to have two different experiences while consuming the same thing twice. I am huge fan of the Fast and the Furious series and I have watched all the movies starting from 1 to 8 in theaters and I have also watched those movies at home, the same thing goes for all the Avengers movies from marvel. I really enjoy the experience I had at the theatres because of the volume and quality provided from that atmosphere versus at home I have either watched the movie by myself or with couple friends and its  not the same however it is still fun but there was still couple missing factors.

The spatial and physical aspect played a huge role in the standards it set for me each time I watched the movie. Obviously one major reason the first time was better was because there is a level of excitement and curiosity to see how the movie will pan out. As a first time viewer you set standards you want the movie to achieve and you have built up those standards by watching the trailer. That’s why movies can make or break on release date because it all relates back to audience feedback whether or not they enjoyed the production. I remember going to the movies with full excitement because I was curious to know what happens in the movie. However the second time I was still excited but not that curious because I know how the movie ends. The excitement lasted because it finally came out on Netflix and I had something to watch while eating dinner. When Avengers came out, people could not even buy tickets from theaters because that’s how much the audiences wanted to see the movie and they wanted to watch the movie the right way which is in theatres, in IMAX with popcorn in their hands. Sullivan states that “Rituals also refers to the framework of social interactions and how it can pass the traditions to others….carry the transcendent meanings and are often carried out in spaces and places that have special, significant meanings” (Sullivan 2020). I have to agree with Sullivan here as he makes a valid point about the tradition, spaces and places having significant meaning. For example I am huge sports guy and the Scotiabank arena, where they play basketball is a huge deal for me and being a fan while taking part in cheering my team on is different from a live game versus watching the same game on a live stream. The atmospheres of thousands of people cheering and celebrating a win is something you cannot experience from home. When the Raptors won the 2019 NBA championship the whole country was going crazy because for the first time ever the Canadian team had won a ring. I went downtown to Jurassic park to attend game and after the title the amount of people parading the streets getting drunk and partying, Drake coming in a cadillac to celebrate with his fans and the CN Tower was lit up in gold and had the writing “We the North” on the side, it was one of most memorable and iconic moments in my life that I am proud to say I was part of. That’s why the Scotiabank Arena and the city of Toronto will always be close to my heart.

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COMM 3P18 WEEK 7: Interpretation and Decoding

As we live in the modern day and age of technology, we learn to adapt to our environment better and faster than our previous generations, the same goes for the future generation. Younger kids who are just starting off with school are being introduced to technology even before their books. My experience with modern technology has grown from when I was born till now, that is pretty obvious one would say but what I mean is that, sometimes you miss some details that would help you progress better and day by day I learn something new about technology that I did not catch earlier. We see it and experience it in our everyday lives as corporation and the education system slowly transition to technology during this pandemic. Classes are online and so our multiple jobs, now the world has been introduced to a new phase that we normalize in our society. Companies are starting to realize certain jobs can be accomplished by working from home and school systems realize students can learn from home as well. Technology is a platform that attracts millions of people every day and it has become a habit people cannot survive without. I personally am active on all major platforms such as Instagram, snapchat, twitter and now even Tiktok as made a huge name for themselves. It makes our lives so much easier to gather information on world affairs and also people’s lives.

In lecture this week we had discussed the importance of semiotics and how it benefits texts or what happens when a message is sent or received. In chapter six Sullivan mentions semiotics as is “the systematic study of signs and their significance in society” (Sullivan, Ch 6). The use of semiotics helps individuals understand a text much more and they can interpret the meaning that is meant to be portrayed. From the lecture we focus on encoding messages. What is encoding a message mean? An individual builds up a message using encoding, the means of which they want their receiver to understand. What should this message say? How should this message be delivered? What is meaning behind the message we want the audience to understand? These are all question that would come to mind when looking into encoding, it is more so focused on the senders perspective. Let’s break it down with my personal experience and when I use semiotics, for example hypothetically I am about to send a text message to my girlfriend, now the mood I want to send this message is through a upset and angry setting because something she did earlier didn’t set too well with me. However one thing she knows about me is that I am a very sarcastic and happy guy so when I do send her a upsetting message the first thing she would think is that I am joking. Now I would I convey her that I am not joking and in fact I am very serious. Perhaps I would use an exclamation points or capitals to show the emphasizes or tone, or I could even tell her straight up “Hey listen I am just upset right now about the thing that happened earlier, can we talk about it?” This right is for of encoding and I am taking part in semiotics by creating that serious message I would want my girlfriend to understand. Another example could be Instagram and coming up with caption, I personally have never been too good when coming up with caption so more often than not I rely on artist’s lyrics to post a nice caption. However, in this scenario I want my audience to understand the relation between the pic and the caption I have chosen. So I have a picture on my Instagram where I am wearing a Nike top and adidas pants and the caption I used for that is by the Artist Drake and it says “ Checks over Stripes, that’s what I like” checks metaphorically speaks to Nike and stripes speaks to Adidas and from this caption I want my viewers to acknowledge that I prefer the brand Nike over Adidas.

Sullivan also talks about the signifier and the signified. Signifier is a physical sign that relates to the signified which in this case is the Nike sweat jacket and the Adidas pants I am wearing and Signified would be the meaning behind the picture, which in this case again is the acknowledgement of the preferred brand. As Sullivan mention “The signified is the concept the signifier represents.” (Sullivan, Ch 6). I feel like semiotics plays a huge role in our daily lives and it plays a bigger role in an online communication setting. Messages can be misinterpreted many times it is one of the biggest and common errors that occur in relationship or management setting. The tone you want to convey the message and how the audience will receive it is all part of the semiotics process, which leads to my second point of decoding. This is process accounted from the receivers point of view, once the message has been sent it is the receiver job to decode the meaning behind the message. For example let’s talk about decoding artist’s lyrics, individuals that are just getting into R&B and Rap they sometimes find it challenging to understand what the rapper is really talking about. I remember when I was first introduced to this type the of music I could not keep up with the meaning the artist is trying to convey and I had to slow down the phase to understand one sentence. As time moved on I realized most of the time rappers talk about the things that happen in their lives and they are basically telling a story of what happened through creating music. This is forum of decoding because I used to misinterpret the message a lot growing up but then came a day when you just love the music they produce because that someone is your favourite artist and their lyric is something you can relate to.

Reference

Sullivan. (2020). Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions and Power. Second Edition. Sage Publications Inc., New York, NY.

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COMM 3P18 WEEK 6: Uses and Gratification

In this week’s topic we will be talking about Uses and Gratification and how it relates to media content that are talked about. Sullivan states that “ They consider audience are active and there are individual goals of the media use” (Sullivan, 2020) People use media for multiple uses, not everyone has the same motives and purpose when using or consuming media content. Some could use it to gain information and make their knowledge stronger whereas other could use it just to kill some spare time, both are acceptable and both are different. Sullivan also talks about how the audiences can select the type of media they want to consume and that satisfy theirs needs and wants and by choosing the specific content individuals are able to motivate themselves through it. These certain criteria’s helps us get a better understanding on media content. How does uses and gratification come into all of this? It plays a role when choosing the media content and the outcome in their audiences.

One of the biggest factors to tie in would be gender, male and female have different needs from the content they view and more often than not the opposite sex is not too fond each other’s choice of media. Our society nowadays stereotypes often and we are build up with the mentality that women cannot do what men do or vice versa. I remember having  a discussion in seminar one time about occupation that stereotype type gender and two things caught my ears, one was doctor and the other was mechanic. When we here these two words our mind automatically goes to a male and we can’t even for a second think of a female building our car however there are plenty of female mechanics out there. Similar to this is another example brought up in lecture where a father and son got into a car accident and when the kid was rushed to the hospital the doctor said I can’t operate on this kid because this kid is my son. This becomes a brain teaser because from the story we understand that the father of the son was involved in the car crash with the son so then who is the doctor? We start to think oh maybe they are a gay couple who adopted son or maybe one is a father and the doctor could be a step farther but the reality is that the mother is the doctor. Our minds does not register that right away because we heard that the doctor said “This is my son” instead if riddle was to the say the Nurse said “This is my son” then we would have thought of a female right away. Let’s look into a relationship for a second when my girlfriend asks me if we can watch a romantic drama movie my first initial thought would be I don’t want to sit through something I won’t enjoy or doesn’t interest me, then my second reaction would be to suck it up and watch it with her because who else is she going to watch it with her, so its a minor sacrifice guys make. Same thing goes for females not all ladies are into gaming so when asked to play they tend to refuse the offer rather take up their time doing something they find interesting. When looking at term of uses and gratification in particular we can talk about the live stream twitch. Twitch is a gaming stream network for  gamers to reach out to their audience by producing gaming content, it is a live stream with live audience. These audience can show their gratification by sending money to the steamers and by subscribing to their twitch channel. The more they game the more involved the audiences get and as professor Good mentioned “Audiences do not just receive or select media and contents they want, but also, they can actively involve” (Good, 2020).

Reference 

Good, J. (2020). Lecture Notes. Brock University. St Catharines.

Sullivan. (2020). Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions and Power. Second Edition. Sage Publications Inc., New York, NY.

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COMM 3P18 Week 5: Target Markets and Media ratings

In the lecture, we had discussed about target marketing and media ratings, how do they go together, and what is the difference between them. It is relatively easy to distinguish between the two and also see how one helps the other. This week’s reading was “ The rise of market information regimes and historical development of audience ratings” written by Karen S.F Buzzard. Target marketing is something every corporation tries to do, and marketers usually benefit a lot from doing so. What does it mean? It means that marketer tries targeting a specific product or services to individuals based on some research. How are these research collected? It all depends on the individual, what they like and what they search up on the internet. For example, if you’re an Instagram user, there are specific pages you would follow that seeks your interest such as cars or clothing lines different brands extra. Marketers analyze this data we provide them with, and they send specific ads to you so that you can click on the ad. There was a case study I read earlier this semester that had mentioned that marketers study the number of clicks you do on a website or product to see if this ad would be beneficial for you.

Does target marketing benefit companies? I would say yes because they are doing further research on the consumer itself, and by targeting these individuals with the product that interest them, it is bound to be more profitable for the company. The number of times we have talked about something so specific for example like a drone, with the next couple of hours you are scrolling through any social media and you see an ad for drones pop up. As creepy as it is and the more you think the government is listing that is rarely the case. Marketers target you with the drone ad because you probably have searched up something related to the product or the product itself earlier. Target market is a group of people that is interested in a similar product or service as one and another. Comparing both the target market and media rating, there are similarities in the sense that media ratings could go up if they were targeted. For instance, kids show like YTV, Disney, Nickelodeon there are specific target markets they want to provide to which kids from the age of 3 to 12. They can’t go past a certain age because if they do, the media ratings will go down. Grown-ups are not going to watch the kids channel, so there is no need to target any ages above that. Flip it around kids aren’t going to be interested in watching CBC or CMT because they won’t understand the content that they are watching. So target markets are a significant factor when it comes to media ratings. In other for broadcasting channels whether it is television or radio to be profitable, they need the media ratings from the consumer. Now that there is a pandemic upon us, people are forced to stay inside their home. Media ratings have been going up because everybody is home and in self-isolation that they tune into their favourite channel more so than often.

 Reference

Buzzard, K. S. (2015). The Rise of Market Information Regimes and the Historical Development of Audience Ratings. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 35(3), 511-517. doi:10.1080/01439685.2015.1052219

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COMM 3P18 Week 4: Self Disclosure

In today discussion, I'll be taking a closer look into "When do Online Audiences Amplify Benefits of Self-Disclosure? The Role of Shared Experience and Anticipated Interactivity" an article written by Rachel Kornfield and Catalina L. Toma. To give a summary on this article, it provides information on the level of self-disclosure the user provides. It is an experiment conducted to see the status of information one person would provide in an online self-disclosure environment where they can post their experience and find people with similar interest or backgrounds. Now, this is something I have a tough time relating to because I genuinely believe that I haven't come across environments that have provided  a space for individuals to do a self-disclosure,

I can think of a couple of platforms that individuals post out there for people to relate too. One being Instagram, but the downside of Instagram is that it has the capability of being too public, so people tend to not reply to the things they won't interact with. There is a level of comfort that comes when talking about platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc. Unless you are private, there is a high chance of your message and posts getting out for everyone to see. Although you can post pictures, comment on people pictures or even share your idea on your post, these platforms limit the amount of number you can type plus it is not normalized that these platforms are the best for this job either.

The one platform that stood out to me where blogging platformers, now I am not a blogger myself and to be fair I know the bare minimum of blogging, but it is a space for people to share their ideas, opinions and experience. Blogs usually tend to be written daily by the individuals that are invested in that, and they can share their ideas out there for others to like, comment and relate. One can add pictures to the information they wish to share, and it is their bubble to share their thoughts on a topic. Now if you are interested in this personal opinion, you can comment on their post to wheatear or not you agree or disagree. It involves full disclosure, or it could be anonymous too. Regardless of what platform it in my opinion people would feel more comfortable sharing their ideas when it is done anonymously. For example, online gamers sit back and talk so much trash behind a mike because they know they can't be seen nor can their identity be found, so they get that confidence to speak up to other players and take it to extremes. Similar to that, people are afraid to be bashed in by the internet for sharing their opinion, so they tend to hold back as much before doing so. Blogging platforms allows those users to talk freely and share their views without any discomfort.

References

Kornfield, R., & Toma, C. L. (2020). When do Online Audiences Amplify Benefits of Self-Disclosure? The Role of Shared Experience and Anticipated Interactivity. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 64(2), 277-297. doi:10.1080/08838151.2020.1757366

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COMM 3P18 Week 3: Four process of audience involvement

In today’s discussion, I will be talking about the four audience involvement of media persona. The article reference for this is week is “Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae: Transportation, Parasocial Interaction, Identification, and Worship” written by William J. Brown. The main focus for today will be on the parasocial interaction talked about during the lecture, which is parasocial interaction and parasocial relationship. What the difference between the two and how do they go hand in hand. When talking about the difference, we can look at the word interaction and relationship. In simple terms, when you watch specific content, you are interacting with what is presented in front of you. As Brown mentions in his article “They describe as imaginary interaction between a television viewer and a television personality, which over time may develop into a self-defined one-way relationship called a parasocial relationship” (Brown 262). PSR is when you build up a relationship with the content you consume. Watching the same movie or tv show or even following someone on social media or liking individuals content on YouTube can all play as factors towards PSR.

Transportation is described as “Both involvements in a story and involvement with the characters of a story, noting that “attachment to characters may play a critical role in narrative-based belief change” (Brown 262). What Brown is trying to factor is our involvement with the content we are consuming. More than building a relationship are we more involved in the story told and the characters that apart of the story. Then there is the identification which is “Is the process of conforming to the perceived identity of a mediated persona both during and after media consumption or through participation in a mediated event” (Brown 275). This is a self-accepting aspect of the persona where you confront and realize that this is a content you either love or hate. Lastly is worship which defines as “The process of expressing devotion, commitment and love to a mediated persona both during and after media consumption or participation in a media event” (Brown 276). In my opinion, I feel that worship is something that occurs more with the music industry. You have a favourite artist you idealizes so much that you have to attend their concert or have to buy their merchandise when it drops and or take every chance to meet them.  

These sorts of media involvement are widespread in an individuals life. I would be surprised if people can’t even relate to one of the personas because I could relate to all of them. Let’s start by taking a closer look at PSI and PSR. When I was a kid, I used to love watching television. Still, as I got older, I started drifting away from that and transitioned into watching YouTube videos and Netflix I don’t even have cable at home anymore because no one in my family watches TV. When looking at my parasocial interaction, you could see a pattern in what I watch consistently through my YouTube subscriptions. Pages such as Sports, Travel, Cars, gamers etc. and the movie recommendation on Netflix, which would show genres such as action thriller or comedy. Looking at YouTube and the content I consume, the most viewed would be of this group named Dude Perfect, and throughout the years I have watched them ever since they started producing content which was five years ago. In these five years, I am building a parasocial relationship with this group, and I get to know more who they are as individuals not and not just the content they produce. When talking about movies, I am the type of person to watch a movie over and over again If I like it. For example, Kevin Hart movies I could watch them more than three times, maybe not in a day but definitely in a month. Although I know the plot and climax of the movie, I am still building that relationship with Kevin hart as an actor and as a comedian. Ride along, Central Intelligence, What Now, Laugh At My Pain, Get Hard, these are some of his movies that I have watched multiple time.

Parasocial relationship can also lead to worship in my opinion because when building a relationship, so can obsession grow. My favourite artist is The Weeknd and it started with parasocial interaction which lead to parasocial relationship then finally worship. I am the type of fan that loves The Weeknd over any other artist, love all his albums, and when he releases his merchandise I tend to purchase some them, in fact, my room is filled with his merchandise, painting and posters. If he has a concert in Toronto, I try my hardest to go to the show even if I purchase the nose bleed seats (which are the worst and furthest seats from the stage) I still tend to have a good time.  

Reference

Brown, W. J. (2015). Examining Four Processes of Audience Involvement With Media Personae: Transportation, Parasocial Interaction, Identification, and Worship. Communication Theory, 25(3), 259-283. doi:10.1111/comt.12053

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COMM 3P18 Week 2: Audience Power

In today's discussion, I will be focusing on the audience, and audience power as talked about in lecture, also giving some insights on Sonia Livingston's article, "Giving People a Voice: On the Critical Role of an Interview in the History of Audience Research". To start off, do audiences really have power? In my personal opinion, I would say yes because we determine the outcome of a product or service. I am sure everyone has heard the term "The customer is always right", theoretically that analogy cannot be used here; however, it does make sense. We as the audience choose what is right and wrong in a product and corporations take those feedbacks from the audience and input the necessary steps in what needs to be changed or if there needs to be a change at all, this process could also be known as a test market. Researches release a product to be tested by the consumers to receive feedback. When thinking about what gives audience power, Livingston mentions that the audience gains power when they are interviewed or put in any interview scenario. This is where the audience has a voice when interviewed the individuals can speak up about what is wrong and what they expect from such a product or service. Now the question is how do company's conduct such interviews. It is physically impossible to for them to go out and conduct surveys and interviews on each induvial, as read in Livingstons article "Yet for some, going out and asking audiences still seems difficult—students and even colleagues betray a rather practical reluctance to going outside the university, perhaps a distaste for risky negotiations with "real people" on their home ground" (Livingston, 569)

To answer the question of how the company's and corporations conduct these interviews and give the audience a voice, I have decided to make a comparison between Microsoft's Xbox, and Sony's PlayStation. To provide a little bit of background on this topic, there are three sorts of game users; one is Xbox the other is PlayStation, and the last is Pc gamers. Now PC gamers are on an entirely different level; they are too advanced to be playing on these consoles that's why they aren't included in this discussion. Ever since I was little I loved to play video games and as far as I can remember I used to be a vast PlayStation fan and I owned every consul starting from the PlayStation Portable (PSP) to PS1 all the way up to PS3. When Sony announced the release of their new consul PS4 every gamer including myself was so excited to buy that consul because it was known as the best in the gaming business, however along with that came the bad news. Ever since the first Xbox and PS1 came out the difference between those two where the subtraction fee aspect, the specs, storage space and HD quality and majority of the games would have been the same but the subscription fee was always different.

For those that don't know what a subscription fee does, it allows users to play online and connect with other gamers who have similar interest. Microsoft had always implemented this subscription fee rule where the users must pay to access online gaming, or they could just stick with offline instead. When Sony introduced that they have added subscription fee to their new PS4's, it took their gamers by surprise, and many wondered why Sony would want to make such a move for this particular generation. It was smooth sailing till PS3 so then why should the users start paying now to play online? According to Quro's website, the servers that Sony was hosting was beginning to become more expensive hence why they had to start charging users. It also mentions that Sony wanted to see if they would lose customers by making this change. Xbox 360 has always had a better server for their gamers to use and Sony decided to provided better servers along with their PS4 consul. Although this was a risky move by Sony to see if they would lose customers over the fee, they decided to go through with to provide a better environment for their user although it means chagrining them $69.99 for 12 months.

When a company decides to make a massive change in its production, it can either benefit them or end up in complete loss. Now, how is this determined? Through the power of the audience. According to Forbes magazine "well-placed source" Sony will take a loss of $60 per unit sold on the PlayStation 4" They came up with these numbers because they belied that users would buy the product however not pay the subscription fee Sony thought otherwise, they believe that individuals that purchase the product wants to play on better servers and will pay the subscription fee to do so. How was this decided? Sony decided to conduct a test market interview where they allowed individuals and YouTube gaming influencers early access to the product so they could test it out and give appropriate feedbacks through their platforms, according to that Sony could make the changes needed before the launch date. Results came back as expected, although there was some decrease in the purchase of PS4 it was not anything Sony didn't count for, there was even some user that switched from a PS4 to an Xbox One yet they were still profitable and broke even with their competition.  

References

Kain, E. (2013, September 20). Sony To Take A Loss On PlayStation 4 Sales. Retrieved October 28, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/09/20/sony-to-take-a-loss-on-playstation-4-sales/

Livingstone, S. (2010). Giving People a Voice: On the Critical Role of the Interview in the History of Audience Research. Communication, Culture & Critique, 3(4), 566-571. doi:10.1111/j.1753-9137.2010.01086.x