How far do you agree with the comment that mass audiences are still passive recipients of media texts?

In media there are primary, secondary and tertiary ways of taking in the media. However the question is to what extent do we conform to each of those three categories; as in which out of primary, secondary and tertiary ways of taking in information do we as the audience use the most.

Passively is in the tertiary section where we are aware it is there yet we are not engaging with it or meaning to read, listen or take any of what it is in. This is known as passive; the sending of subliminal messages or ideas unconsciously without you actually knowing of it. In media this is commonly used to send across messages either to persuade in advertisement or get a message across to someones target audience. One way of showing this is that what you may see on television you may not take note of, say you hear something on the programme like a word, yet you don't take note of it. However you then end up using the word in the future. This is a sign of conforming to taking in information passively. This links in to sensory in media. As years ago directors and companies were scared of displaying footage like the ridicule of religion or showing the leg above knee as they thought it would provoke their audiences to do the same and act in such a way. Therefore they didn't want to risk it by showing explicit footage considered at the time. This is known as censoring. This is constantly used throughout media to stop certain scenes or explicit images being displayed as people would get used to it and passively conform to it until they do the same and act the same and eventually see nothing wrong with anything. This is because we are constantly being injected with the medias opinions and ideas whether it is intentionally or passively taken in. We are constantly taking in information whether it is positive or negative, therefore affecting our own thoughts and opinions on certain subjects in life which then affect us as a person: our characteristics, personality, clothing, likes, dislikes and just us a whole.

Personally I think that the mass audience does conform to taking in media texts passively. Although I think that is to an extent. I think that people chose what they want to watch, read, see and listen to; however I feel that the media only give us certain categories or genres to chose from. As if they have set us a bunch of characters and personalities to act like and we are only choosing a certain stereotype to be rather than being an original. So therefore I think we do passively take in all these ideas and opinions that the media send to us but we do have some leeway in it to an extent. However the main reason we take it in passively is just because media is everywhere and virtually impossible to escape so we have no other choice but to take in the information whether it is intentionally or not.