Are we passive audiences?

There's always the argument of whether media platforms audiences are passive or actively engaging in or within the media sphere. For instance, the discourse of television studies argues that tv audiences are passive, where they just receive the informations on tv without any degree of interactivity.

But the thing is, with new media platform such as the internet, the argument seems to change for a little bit. We can now argue that new media platform users are no longer passive dolls that sit in front of a computer or ipad and just receiving without contributing, or interacting with it. My perspective on this particular argument is quite simple: i do agree that we are not as passive as many many studies suggested we were as an audience.

Internet itself is an interactive media platform. Unlike most of the media platforms such as the print media and the traditional broadcasting media platforms, where the audience are provided with every information that they might need to know and the discourse of agency seems to be absence in such traditional media platforms. For instance, you can't choose specifically what you want to watch on tv, although we do get the limited choices of few channels with different programs, but it is not tailored to cater every individuals.

I would definitely see internet as a new media platform with more agency, and in other words, more choices and more things to choose from that actually might cater to different crowds. And by that, it sort of transform us from the audience that will just sit in our tv room watching the pre-selected programs that might not cater to us at all, to an active participant where we search for what we want to watch or do specifically.

We are more interactive on internet platform, providing that we are able to construct our personal viewing or using experience in an individual way. Internet are a celebration of individualism, and it does not really urges anyone to conform in one way or another. In contradiction to this, traditional media platforms assumes that there is this imaginary household(argues by John Bignell, 2004) that they are cater to, where they assume every audiences that they are catering to are somehow collective individuals that shares the same interest. The way that they are assuming their audience to be somehow collective and sharing the same interest has transform the audience themselves into passive receiver that does not have distinguishable interests.

Internet as a new media platform is way complicated than just assuming us to be all the same. We are no longer passive audiences that get fed by loads of informations, but instead, we search online for informations or things that will entertain or educate us, and we no longer rely on spoon-fed information. And internet audiences or users are now seen as prosumer than just passive audiences because we produce and consume at the same time. For instance, sites like youtube or twitter generates their content from user-produced materials, and it is also the user themselves who consumes these materials for their own entertainment purposes. We are not passive audiences or users if we are actively producing and interact with the internet.

I would say that the discourse of media audiences being passive will only be applicable if the audiences are just merely being a spectator. But in the internet, we are not just spectators, but we actually construct and interact on this virtual space.