ABSTRACT
Three decades ago, when communication science was introduced to Mainland China, 1 Chinese scholars invented a new word, shouzhong (https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203380017/86cc87b4-d58d-4b5e-afa9-48648f75c605/content/fig11-1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>), which literally means “receiving masses,” 2 to translate the concept of “audience(s),” because in Chinese although there are vocabularies referring to the specific terms “reader,” “listener,” “viewer,” etc., no word exists equivalent to the collective term “audience” as the “receiver” in the communication process. This translation was not perfect, because it did not fully represent the meanings of “active user” in user studies and “meaning-maker” in cultural studies. Nevertheless, this notion had already been inspiring for scholars and practitioners in the pursuit of media reform: the media should not only function as an ideological propagator, but also serve information to the “audiences” by all means. Audience awareness greatly stimulated China's journalistic reform since the end of the 1970s, and legitimized the status of Chinese communication research.
