Audience Theory

Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies.With a specific focus on rhetoric, some, such as Walter Ong, have suggested that the audience is a construct made up by the rhetoric and the rhetorical situation the text is addressing. Others, such as Ruth Mitchell and Mary Taylor have said writers and speakers actually can target their communication to address a real audience. Some others like Ede and Lunsford try to mingle these two approaches and create situations where audience is "fictionalized," as Ong would say, but in recognition of some real attributes of the actual audience.

Active audience theory:
Active audience theory is a theory that people receive and interpret media messages in different ways, usually according to factors such as age, ethnicity, social class, etc. The audience is neither passive nor similar.