超越作为实体的受众与作为话语的受众——论基于技术视角的受众观的兴起

Transcending the Notions of Audience as a Psychological Subject and as a Discursive Entity: The Rise of an Audience Theory Based on a Technological Perspective

受众研究是传播研究的核心范畴。长期以来,两种完全不同的受众观左右着这一领域:即作为心理实体的受众观和作为话语实在的受众观,这两种针锋相对的受众观各有所长,但也各有所短,只是盲人摸象式的展示了一些关于受众的碎片化的观念和想象,无法解释今天发生在互联网上的受众实践。鉴于技术的偏向常常会改变受众与传播者的关系并进而影响到受众的观念和行动,因此将媒介看作是一种关系汇集和展演的空间,并就此分析技术与受众的相互建构,是更为科学的受众观。

Audience research is the core category of communication studies,which have long been dominated by two completely different audience theories.One views audience as an entity with mental capacity and psychological activities while the other regards audience as a discursive reality,each with its strengths and weaknesses.However,the two theories both fail to explain the audience practice today on the Internet due to their fragmented concepts and imaginations on audience.The relationships between audience and the transmitters are often changed by technological bias,and the ideas and actions of audience are accordingly affected.In view of this,it is more scientific to regard media as a space for the aggregation and display of various relationships,and to analyze the mutual construction of technology and audience.