How do you apply Shirky's end-of-audience theory, that digital media turn former consumers into producers who speak back and create content, to analyse the product and audience relationship?
End of audience (Clay Shirky): digital and networked media have changed the relationship between media and audiences; consumers are no longer only passive receivers but have become producers who 'speak back' to the media, creating and sharing content with one another.
How to apply Clay Shirky's end-of-audience theory in WJEC A-Level Media Studies. Covers how digital and networked media change the media and audience relationship, the shift from passive consumers to producers who speak back, content creation and sharing, the criticisms of the theory, and how to use it on the product and audience relationship in the exam.
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What this dot point is asking
Audiences asks how media affect audiences and how audiences use media. Clay Shirky's end of audience theory is a set theory for this area, and it is the most strongly digital of the active-audience models. Its core claim is that digital and networked media have changed the media and audience relationship: consumers are no longer only passive receivers but have become producers who "speak back", creating and sharing content with one another. The exam skill is to read a producing, participating audience around a set product, and to weigh how far the claim holds.
The answer
The shift to producers
- From consumers to producers. Audiences now make and share content, not only receive it.
- Networked. Many-to-many communication replaces one-to-many broadcasting.
Speaking back
This is the part to apply. Reading a set product through Shirky means identifying how its audience speaks back and produces around it: the comments, forums, user content, shares and self-made media that circulate alongside the official product. The marks lie in naming these specific producing behaviours, not asserting in general that "audiences are active online".
Why the claim is contested
For the higher WJEC bands, the criticisms are where the evaluation marks sit. The internet has changed audience behaviour, but it has not abolished industrial power or made everyone a producer, and recognising that the same platforms enabling speaking back are owned by large companies (linking to Curran and Seaton and Hesmondhalgh) shows command of the debate.
Shirky and the active-audience tradition
Using the theory in the exam
- Name Shirky and the end of audience as a consumer-to-producer shift.
- Identify how the set product's audience produces and circulates content around it.
- Give specific behaviours: comments, forums, user content, blogs, vlogs, sharing.
- Place Shirky in the active-audience line with Hall and Jenkins.
- Evaluate, noting passive consumption, low-level or promotional "speaking back", and industrial power, and judge how far the theory applies.
Examples in context
Reading a product and audience with Shirky. Suppose a set product circulates in a digital, networked environment. Using Shirky, the first move is to establish the shift: its audience is not only receiving the product but producing content around it. The second move is to identify speaking back: comments, forums, user-generated content, shares, and audience-made blogs or vlogs that respond to and extend the product, sidestepping traditional gatekeepers. The third move, decisive for the top bands, is to evaluate: not all of the audience produce, much speaking back is low-level or actually promotes the product for free (the audience as unwitting advertiser), and the platforms are owned by powerful media industries. Conclude on how far the end of audience explains the relationship. A strong answer names specific producing behaviours around the set product and weighs the digital shift against persistent passivity and industrial control.
Try this
Q1. What change to the media and audience relationship does Shirky describe? [2 marks]
- Cue. Digital and networked media turn passive consumers into producers who speak back and create and share content.
Q2. Give two ways audiences "speak back" to the media, according to Shirky. [3 marks]
- Cue. Through comments sections and internet forums, and by producing their own media such as blogs and vlogs.
Q3. Using Shirky, assess how far the end-of-audience theory explains the relationship between one set product and its audience. [15 marks]
- What the marker wants. The consumer-to-producer shift and speaking back identified around the product, Shirky placed in the active-audience line, passive consumption and industrial power weighed, and a supported judgement.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of WJEC exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
WJEC specimen15 marksHow far does Shirky's end-of-audience theory explain the relationship between one set product and its audience? Refer to the set product.Show worked answer →
The question rewards reading a producing, speaking-back audience, then weighing how far it applies.
Establish the theory: Shirky argues that digital and networked media have changed the media and audience relationship, so that consumers are no longer only passive receivers but have become producers who "speak back" to the media, creating and sharing content with one another.
Apply it to the set product: identify how its audience produces and circulates content around it (comments, forums, user content, blogs, vlogs, sharing) rather than only receiving it. The "how far" demands judgement: not all audiences produce, much "speaking back" is low-level or actually promotes existing products, and media industries remain powerful gatekeepers; weigh this and conclude with Shirky named.
WJEC specimen10 marksExplain what Shirky means by the 'end of audience'.Show worked answer →
A focused "explain" wants the shift stated precisely.
State that Shirky argues new media, the internet and digital technologies, have significantly changed the relationship between media and audiences. It is no longer adequate to think of audience members as passive consumers of mass media content, because consumers have become producers who "speak back" to the media, creating and sharing content with one another.
Give the means: comments sections, internet forums, and creating media such as blogs and vlogs. A strong answer names Shirky, states the consumer-to-producer shift driven by digital media, and signals that the claim is debated.
Related dot points
- Media effects (Albert Bandura): media can influence audiences directly; audiences acquire attitudes, emotional responses and behaviours by observing and imitating behaviours modelled in media products, so represented behaviour such as aggression can be learned and reproduced.
How to apply Albert Bandura's media effects theory in WJEC A-Level Media Studies. Covers the effects tradition and the hypodermic model, social learning through modelling and imitation, the link to aggression, the strong criticisms of effects research, and how to use the theory on the audience and product relationship in the exam.
- Cultivation theory (George Gerbner): repeated, long-term exposure to consistent patterns of representation cultivates audiences' beliefs about the world; this gradual shaping tends to reinforce mainstream, hegemonic values rather than change behaviour suddenly.
How to apply George Gerbner's cultivation theory in WJEC A-Level Media Studies. Covers cultivation through repeated long-term exposure, the shaping of beliefs about the world, mainstreaming and the reinforcement of dominant ideology, how it differs from immediate effects, and how to use it on the product and audience relationship in the exam.
- Reception theory (Stuart Hall): communication is a process of encoding by producers and decoding by audiences; audiences decode the encoded message through a preferred (dominant-hegemonic), negotiated or oppositional reading, shaped by their social position.
How to apply Stuart Hall's reception theory in WJEC A-Level Media Studies. Covers the encoding and decoding model, the preferred or dominant-hegemonic reading, the negotiated reading and the oppositional reading, how social position shapes decoding, and how to use the theory on the product and audience relationship in the exam.
- Fandom (Henry Jenkins): fans are active participants, not passive spectators; through textual poaching they appropriate and rework media texts in ways not fully intended by producers, and they build social identity and community around shared cultural materials.
How to apply Henry Jenkins's theory of fandom in WJEC A-Level Media Studies. Covers fans as active participants, textual poaching, participatory culture, fan production such as fan fiction and conventions, the building of identity and community, and how to use the theory on the product and audience relationship in the exam.
Sources & how we know this
- WJEC Eduqas GCE A Level Media Studies specification — WJEC Eduqas (2017)
- WJEC GCE Media Studies specification (Wales) — WJEC (2017)