Hey guys it’s Abi! I wanted to share with you some of my audience experiences recently and different things I have learned about Media Audiences!

First I wanted to talk about parasocial relationships!  If you do not know what a parasocial relationship is, it is an imaginary interaction between a media consumer and a media star. For instance, you and a celebrity. A false sense of intimacy is created when you consume the media that is related to the celebrity. I’m sure a lot of people have parasocial relationships without even realizing! I for one know that I have lots!

An example that I have experienced with a parasocial relationship is when I was thirteen. I went to meet Tom Felton who plays Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter. I was so excited and I knew so much information about him! Who he was dating, his middle name, his favorite color just all these random facts when I have never even spoken to him before. Here I was knowing so much about him while he had no clue who I even was, I was a complete stranger in his eyes. I had a huge celebrity crush on him but all I knew about him was everything through the media not through my own eyes.

 (Here is fetus Abi being in cloud nine)

(I did cry of happiness after this photo was taken, out of view of Tom Felton of course because I keep it classy and made sure to be out of his line of sight but 75 or so of his other fans did witness my tears, that would have been an interesting audience experience for them!)

There are three different levels of celebrity worship. I feel like a lot of people experience low-level worship. It focuses on following celebrities on social media and talking with friends about celebrities.

For instance, the other day I witnessed my two roommates, Kenzie and Taylor, participating in a conversation that showed a focus on a low-level worship.

Kenzie: Black Chyna must be so rich!

Taylor: Why?

Kenzie: She gets so much money from Rob because of Child Support.

Taylor: Really? She is so rich though!

Kenzie: Yeah! Rob still has to pay her though and she can spend it on whatever she wants!

Even though they were not using Rob and Black Chyna’s last names we all still knew who they were talking about. We talk about celebrities like they are people we are acquainted with when we only know everything about them because of media.

Another example of this is when my dad and I were arguing about how many people Jennifer Aniston has married. I said she had only married Brad Pitt and Justin Theroux but my dad argued that she had also married Vince Vaughn. I ended up being right, Jennifer had dated Vince Vaughn but never married him. My dad and I were talking about Jennifer Aniston like we knew her but we only know her because of the media. We also talk about how much we love her because everyone always says how down-to-earth she is, that makes her sound so amazing and relatable.

An example of medium level worship is when you have intense person feelings towards a celebrity. For instance, my one cousin is obsessed with all things Kardashian related. We went together on a trip to L.A. and she knew where each of them were whenever we were there. One day we were in Calabasas, where the Kardashians live and she was like “all the Kardashians are at Kourtney’s house, Kourtney is throwing a party for North’s birthday.” It was slightly obsessive; she even took me to the salad place where the Kardashians always eat. We even saw Lamar Odom, a used to be Kardashian.

I recently heard something that in all honestly creeps me out. It was about the girl who is known as the “Human Barbie.” WHY, why would you do that to yourself?

It is absolutely insane to get two celebrities names tattooed on yourself. This fan has never met Kim Kardashian or Kanye West but he felts like he knew and loved them so much that he decided to get a tattoo for them.

I wanted to talk a little about the history of audiences. Now you are more likely to always be part of an audience. You can be part of an audience without even realizing. Now people are more likely to have TV playing in the background or the radio on then fifty years ago. We are always passing billboards and signs and always getting promoted thing without even realizing because now people have more of an opportunity to do that than before. My parents were still part of people promoting things for them as an audience but not as much as how often I get promoted things as an audience. The media makes it so much more accessible these days.

Audience in the news is a very interesting thing. Depending on what side you take on a situation you get that audience. There was a huge party on Winterberry Boulevard for homecoming weekend. It has been all over the news recently. Winterberry is half student housing and half a residential area. The family residents are starting to complain about the student partying and noise. The Thorold government is trying to enforce a law against street parties. The news is saying how crazy and out of control the party once. The news also said how they’re were 400 people at this party.

People who read this in the news are going to believe what happened that there were 400 people there, I live two doors down and across the street from this party. I personally went out on my porch and saw this party happen. I agree that we need to respect residences but it was not 400 people, there was about 150 kids partying. Does it make it still inconvenient to residence? Yes. However, 150 kids and 400 kids is a huge difference and they make a huge over exaggeration. I agree with the broken beer bottles and how there were a lot of students but they are making it sound worse than it was. Depending on if people believe the media they are going to view this audience experience differently than me. First they will see it secondhand where I saw it first hand and secondly they will see it through the media where I experienced it. The power of media messages can shift attitudes.

 I think they went with the negative approach for this case because most people who read the news are older. Students do not generally listen to news radio stations or look at news articles. I found out about this article because of my dad who heard about it on the radio. My friends also found out because of their parents, specifically three of my friends, my first friend’s mom heard it on the radio and told my friend, my second friends mom shared a link to her and my third friend’s mom told her about it. It is crazy how all four of us heard it from our parents instead of finding out about it ourselves. It is kind of shocking because us four as teens are always connected to social media.

I want to talk a bit about opinion and knowledge in relation to audience experiences. Depending on your knowledge and opinions different audience experiences can relate differently towards yourself. For instance, this weekend I went up to Toronto to go to a nightclub with a huge group of friends. There was 12 of us. I had left earlier than some of them but the others stayed longer and witnessed two groups of people fighting outside the club. They were whipping belts at each other and throwing punches. My friends then also leave and we all go back to the hotel. I had not seen the fight but they had. The next day we find out that there was a shooting 30 minutes after the second group had left the club. Two people died on the scene. For them they had more knowledge about the fight because they had seen it happen. They had heard some of the names of the people fighting and got emotionally attached to some of them. They had seen a guy named peter fighting and he was getting yelled at from his girlfriend. It had stuck in all their minds because it was such a strange experience for them. When they heard about the shooting they kept talking about how they hoped it wasn’t peter. For me I did not see the fight or anyone in a fight, it is a different experience for me because I have no knowledge about any of the people in the fight. It is a different for me. I also have less opinion about it because I did not see any of it. They can all talk about what they witnessed and what they thought happened but more me I do not know very much about this occurrence. It is still insane for me because we were all there a good hour before the shooting happened. We were all glad we had left earlier and did not witness what had happened.