| Theme | Newsbeat | War of the wrlds |
| AUDIENCE (ACTIVE / PASSIVE) | Newsbeat has adapted to the younger generations short attention span who need their news in short digestible chunks instead of being complex and requiring thought however Audiences are more active, they are not just given programmes that they want but are given what they need (Paternalism) as a result of not being arsed to look further | The broadcast of wotw + the reaction raises debate and evidence regarding lazarsfield’s theory about passive audiences |
| AUDIENCE (LAZARSFELD) (active/passive) | Theory on people being drawn to those with similar opinions, BBC is essentially an opinion leader | |
| AUDIENCE (HALL) | The Newsbeat producers hope their short-form news stories will engage their audience and keep them up to date about the latest events around the world. This is the preferred reading. Some listeners might appreciate the snackable content but will be then turn to other sources for the stories behind the headlines. This could be considered a negotiated reading. Other listeners will simply reject the encoded message and construct their own meanings. Perhaps the news stories are irrelevant to their own situations. They might even tune into another station if they just want to hear music. | the anticipated reading was it was fictional, rejected reading was that it was really happening |
- Press/newspapers negatively reporting on TWOTW, as radio was still a new media form