Global Justice Audiences and Performance Paradigms

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as subaltern, but in some ways minority groups criticizing the status quo maintained by dominant powers, also can be seen as either socially, politically, economically, or culturally marginalized. Scholars must therefore, recognize that while previous methods of analysis of audience paradigms, such as that of Behavioral Paradigm and Incorporation/Resistance Paradigm provided some positive results, showing how audiences may resist dominant ideologies imposed by the elites, such analysis remain somewhat limited due to the approach of looking at the impact of a collective group on an individual rather than on an individual’s position within and his or her impact on a collective outcome.

Because of today’s evolving technologies and the ever- blurring line between media audiences and representatives, the need for understanding audience behavior is relevant for the future. Both media representatives and audiences are encouraged to realize that going against the dominant ideology by actively ‘performing’ within the media can lead to a possible change in such often manufactured ideology that seems to be nothing else but the oppression of difference by dominant groups who have the economic and political power to limit subordinate groups by negatively depicting them to the majority. Such active performance, however, will only be possible when the focus is shifted towards analyzing audience performance in the media using ‘a standpoint theory’ that studies audience’s role within communities, cultures, and societies using a bottom-up approach. By doing so, it will be evident how media audience can remain somewhat in control, being able to “perform their own position” (154) while constructing their own cultural identity without completely having to adapt that of the dominant ideology imposed by the power elite.