Hello:
Abhiyan here with weekly questions/comments

While I was reading the book, I was trying to tie its subject matter in some ways to the ‘digital divide’ problems and issues we have been discussing.

The book deals with audience research and how audience research is advocated, conducted, what drives it and what are the implications of such audience research?

Audience research is driven primarily by competition and commerce. And it is a well-known fact that they want to make huge profits, hence sell as much as possible, obviously some people will not be addressed, as ‘they’ according to advertisers do not have the capital to purchase. How do we address the social and moral meanings of this practice??

It is not surprising that there is a social construction of reality by the media, be it advertisements, movies, or television. But the million-dollar question is how much of this portrayed reality coincides or matches or reflects the ‘reality’ in our social lives?

If it doesn’t, then we have to critically scrutinize the past 75 years of social science research and reevaluate the media effects paradigm.

Advertiser's (devil) Advocate Question:
On the other hand, we all like personalized services, messages and products tailored according to our interests so that we can identify with them and conform our individuality in the society. Is this wrong??