Active audience – when an audience is engaging, interpreting, and responding to media messages and are able to question the message.

Passive audience – An audience that is exposed to media material but doesn’t actively engage with the content or messaging.

Extension task: Explain the ways in which media products are thought to impact on audiences cognitively, affectively and behaviourally?

Media products such as newspapers and magazines can affect audiences cognitively as they provide factual information, meaning that the information involved is more likely to be understood by the audience and they can absorb the information through memorization.

Any media product can impact the audience affectively if the content in the product relates to the viewer.  Media messages can have no effect if no one sees or hears them. However, what the audience chooses to look into depends on their interests, education and work commitments.

Other media products online such as advertising can affect pre-teen and teenage behaviour negatively, including self-image, body image, health and citizenship. Any child’s self-image and body image can be influenced by social media.