ABSTRACT
What an audience is might seem very obvious; common sense, in fact. As we have done elsewhere in this book, however, we need to rethink the ‘common-sense’ quality of so much that we take for granted in discussions about media. Here, we need to think about the nature of audiences as audiences, the literalness and quality of being ‘in the act’ of consuming media products, the ways in which we are invited to consume, and why we seek out various forms of television, radio, music, journalism and so on. The act of consuming media presents us with observable actions, feelings and relationships with media forms, at the individual and group levels, which we can understand in conceptual and theoretical terms.
