Reassessing the Power of the Media: Is the Audience really King?

For many years, researchers have attempted to ascertain the role of audience members in media content production and distribution, especially in the midst of commercialization and overbearing advertisers. This paper probes the power of the media to sell audience members as products to advertisers bearing in mind the age of digital technologies that provide a multiplicity of options for members of the audience to not only consume, but to choose and to determine what they want to consume.