ABSTRACT
The modern mass media possess a hitherto unheard-of power to encode, preserve, manipulate, reproduce and circulate symbolic representations of knowledge. In this paper I shall address the relationship between audiences and mediated knowledge, using the opportunity to consider some broader problems currently facing audience reception research. How shall we think about the relationship between audiences and mediated knowledge, why are audiences not overwhelmed by the constructive power of the media, and in what ways, if any, are audiences the beneficiaries of mediated knowledge? Much depends on how we conceptualize the audience. Thus we may regard audiences as citizens who need knowledge for informed participation and public opinion (the public right to know, public service ethic, etc.; Corner 1991). We may see them as consumers who place some market value on having their social surveillance or informational needs met by the media (Rubin 1984). Or we may see them as workers in need of diverting entertainment whose uncritical stance makes them vulnerable to varieties of misinformation (including significant silences and overrepresented mainstream images of society; Gerbner and Gross 1976; McCombs and Shaw 1972; Noelle-Neumann 1974).1
