Do audience members have the power to subvert messages brought to them by the mass media?

Audience members generally gravitate to messages that appeal to them.  Even in instances of a person watching television while performing another task, they tend to put on something they prefer as oppose to something they do not necessarily like.  So audience members may not be receptive to the message being sent.  It’s been shown that some people use messages by the mass media to empower them to take a stand against others.

Another challenge for the mass media to send a message is how the message will be received.  Demographics have been used to help aim a message at an audience.  The problem is that people receive these messages differently based on their background and how they socialize with society.  Some argue that the key message is still received, but others don’t see that.

So the audience has to receive the message, and the message has to be decoded by them.  Can the audience subvert the messages?  Yes.  Although we don’t always see it, many challenges do exist for the mass media to pass to reach the audience.