I’m not entirely sure what it is. I suppose that is one of the attractions as to why “figuring” out the audience is enticing. The audience isn’t natural. It’s the result of who ever has the power to define the audience in the situation. 

Part of this exercise of power came from an unlikely place that I discovered incidentally. Sociology had a large part in the “invention of the audience“. That quote is taken from a chapter title in Susan Douglas’ gift to the study of the sociological importance of radio. If you are academically or casually interested in the social importance of communication and its illumination in radio, Professor Douglas is necessary reading. 

In her illuminating account of a fascinating historical juncture  between academia, the burgeoning radio industry,  and the governmental attempts to regulate a “new” space there was a need to figure out what was being listening too (the “easiest” question to address),  who was listening (difficult), how were they listening (even tougher), and, by some stroke of luck, why were they listening. The efforts of Theodore Adorno, Paul Lazersfeld, and Herta Herzog allowed for the social science to empirically capture a mass mediated audience. Along with contributions from Columbia University, Princeton University, the Ford Foundation (and through it, United States government authorities), and mass media organizations (see Jackie Orr’s Panic Diaries ) the a mass mediated audience was able to be operationalized. 

Marketers would prove more effective than nearly all social scientists for monetizing and making an industry out of these insights, but credit for a rigorous conceptualization of a mass mediated audience is outlined in the sources above; and they were most definitely social scientists.  

More recently, and with citations that I’ll put in shortly, the line between the audience and producer (cultural producer of media) is becoming blurred in myriad instances. But with that, there is something of the audience built of those oriented towards “reacting”. 

More to come, but as working examples see some of these prolific cultural entrepreneurs that are attracting audiences that are economically and culturally important: