Abstract
The following essay examines the development of paradigms of the audience used in mass communication research and the problems that occur when audience performance perspectives such as the Spectacle/Performance Paradigm (SPP) are utilized to examine resistance groups or protest groups as audiences of alternative media. The SPP provides excellent insight into the functions and performances of the audience in everyday modern life, but this is problematic whenever such perspectives are used to examine protest groups—particularly global justice movements. The essay concludes by providing some ideas on how to introduce power and ideology to the SPP and social constructionist views of alternative media audiences through feminist standpoint theories. The following paper was presented for the Communication Theory Division at the 2003 Western States Communication Association Conference in Salt Lake City, UT. The author would like to thank his friend and colleague Debbie S. Dougherty for her advice, guidance, and efforts on this essay.
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