How has the digital age changed the audience, and what do Shirky and Jenkins argue about the end of audience, participation and fandom?
Audiences: the end of audience (Clay Shirky) and fandom and participatory culture (Henry Jenkins). Here comes everybody, cognitive surplus, prosumers, textual poaching, convergence culture and the collapse of the producer-audience divide.
An Eduqas A-Level Media Studies guide to the end of audience (Clay Shirky) and fandom and participatory culture (Henry Jenkins). Covers here comes everybody, cognitive surplus, prosumers, textual poaching, convergence culture and the collapse of the producer-audience divide, with the application skills the audiences essays reward.
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What this dot point is asking
Eduqas names two theorists of the digital audience: Clay Shirky (the end of audience) and Henry Jenkins (fandom and participatory culture). Both argue the passive audience is over: audiences now participate, share and create. You need each theory, the ability to apply them to participatory products, and the judgement of how far the producer-audience divide has really collapsed.
The answer
Shirky: the end of audience
In Here Comes Everybody Shirky argues that ordinary people can now organise and publish without gatekeepers, so the old one-way relationship between institutions and audiences becomes a two-way, participatory one. His idea of cognitive surplus is that the spare time and talent audiences once spent only consuming can now be pooled to make and share things (from reviews and wikis to whole creative communities).
Jenkins: fandom and participatory culture
Jenkins's participatory culture argues fans are active participants, not passive consumers. Through textual poaching they take elements of media texts and remix, rework and build on them to create their own meanings and products (fan fiction, fan art, fan videos). Fans form communities that circulate and produce content, and his convergence culture describes how the boundaries between producers and audiences blur as content flows across platforms and audiences help shape it. The audience is not just active in interpretation (Hall) but active in production.
The collapse of the producer-audience divide
Both theories see a collapse of the producer-audience divide. This connects audiences directly to media industries (convergence) and to identity (Gauntlett: audiences select and create their own identities from media resources). The participatory products and forms (a platform with user creation, a brand with active social media, a fan community) are the clearest evidence of audiences crossing into production.
How far has the divide really collapsed?
The evaluative question is how far this is true. Professional producers still control major content and platforms, participation is unequal (not everyone creates, and platforms profit from user labour), and effects and reception theory show audiences are still influenced and guided. So audiences have become far more active and productive, but within platforms and industries still controlled by powerful producers. The honest judgement is that the divide is reduced, not erased.
Examples in context
A strong answer applies Shirky or Jenkins to a participatory product, shows the participation in action, and judges how far the producer-audience divide has really collapsed.
Try this
Q1. Explain what Jenkins means by "textual poaching". [5 marks]
- What the marker wants. Fans actively taking, remixing and building on elements of media texts to create their own meanings and products in communities (AO1).
Q2. Explain how Shirky's "end of audience" applies to one participatory product or form. [10 marks]
- Cue. Apply prosumers, user-generated content and the two-way model to the product, showing the collapse of the producer-audience divide, and note that producers still hold power (AO2).
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of WJEC Eduqas exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Eduqas C1 202210 marksExplain Shirky's 'end of audience' theory and how it applies to one media product or form. [10]Show worked answer →
An Explain question (AO1 and AO2). The marker rewards accurate use of Shirky applied to a product or form, not a general claim about social media.
Method. Set out Shirky: digital technology has ended the traditional passive audience; people are now prosumers who produce as well as consume, sharing and creating content ("here comes everybody").
Develop. Apply to a participatory product or form (a brand with active social media, a platform with user creation). The top band shows the collapse of the producer-audience divide with named detail, and may add cognitive surplus.
Eduqas C1 202315 marksExplain how far audiences have become producers in the digital age. Refer to products you have studied. [15]Show worked answer →
An extended response (AO1 and AO2), shown at 15 marks (Eduqas Section B questions range higher and lower; this site caps practice items at 20), marked by levels of response.
Argument. Use Shirky's end of audience and Jenkins's participatory culture: audiences now poach, remix, share and create; convergence collapses the producer-audience divide. Apply to named participatory products.
Balance and judge. Note that professional producers still control major content and platforms, participation is unequal, and effects and reception theory show audiences are still influenced. A supported judgement on how far the divide has collapsed reaches the top band.
Related dot points
- Audiences: targeting, categorising and reaching audiences. Demographics and psychographics, mass and niche audiences, mode of address and positioning, and uses and gratifications (Blumler and Katz) as a model of the active audience.
An Eduqas A-Level Media Studies guide to targeting and categorising audiences. Covers demographics and psychographics, mass and niche audiences, mode of address and positioning, and Blumler and Katz's uses and gratifications, with the application skills the audiences questions reward.
- Audiences: uses and gratifications (Blumler and Katz). The active audience that selects media to gratify needs, the four gratifications (information, personal identity, personal relationships, diversion), and the contrast with passive-audience models.
An Eduqas A-Level Media Studies guide to uses and gratifications and Blumler and Katz. Covers the active audience that selects media to gratify needs, the four gratifications (information, personal identity, personal relationships, diversion), and the contrast with passive-audience theories, with the application skills the audiences essays reward.
- Audiences: reception theory (Stuart Hall). The encoding/decoding model, the preferred (dominant), negotiated and oppositional reading positions, and the idea that meaning is completed by the audience, not fixed in the text.
An Eduqas A-Level Media Studies guide to reception theory and Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model. Covers encoding and decoding, the preferred, negotiated and oppositional reading positions, and the idea that meaning is completed by the audience, with the application skills the audiences essays reward.
- Audiences: applying the audience theories. Choosing and applying Blumler and Katz, Gerbner, Hall, Shirky and Jenkins to products, structuring the active-versus-passive audience debate, and reaching the judgement the answers reward.
An Eduqas A-Level Media Studies guide to applying the audience theories. Covers choosing and applying Blumler and Katz, Gerbner, Hall, Shirky and Jenkins to products, structuring the active-versus-passive debate, and reaching the judgement, with the exam skills Components 1 and 2 reward.
- Representation: identity theory (David Gauntlett). The media provide tools and resources audiences use to construct their identities, the pick and mix relationship with representations, the shift from singular to fluid and negotiated identities, and the role of participatory, do-it-yourself media.
An Eduqas A-Level Media Studies guide to identity theory and David Gauntlett. Covers the media as tools and resources for constructing identity, the pick and mix relationship with representations, the shift to fluid and negotiated identities, and the role of participatory media, with the application skills the representation essays reward.
Sources & how we know this
- Eduqas A Level Media Studies (A680QS) specification — Eduqas (WJEC) (2023)
- Here Comes Everybody; Cognitive Surplus — Clay Shirky (2008)