Reexamination of the Concept of Mass Audience : With an emphasis on the advancement in media technology

(1)媒体技术的进步带来了电视频道的多元化，即可用电视频道的数量不断增加。频道倍增对收视行为的影响被认为是（a）大众受众的细分，和（B）对内容的参与度的增强。(2)为了检验在多频道背景下的观看行为经验，问卷调查的随机样本的有线电视系统的用户，共有27个视频频道，位于郊区城市，樱花，千叶。(3)平均频道总数（每周观看一天以上的频道数目）为7.1个，地面频道总数为5.3个。这一发现和其他相关发现表明，至少在目前，受众细分不太可能发生，尽管我们必须小心，不要草率地概括。(4)受访者倾向于认为新闻频道和电影频道都提供了灵活的机会，可以随时享受服务，而不是传统的地面频道。看起来，观看专门的有线电视频道更具有工具性，因此具有更高水平的自我参与。

(1) The advancement of media technology is bringing about the multiplication of TV channel, that is, the growing number of available TV channels. The influences of the multiplication of channels upon viewing behavior are assumed to be (a) segmentation of the mass audience, and (b) enhanced involvement with the contents.(2) To examine viewing behavior in the multi-channel context empirically, the questionnaire was administered to the random sample of the subscribers of the cable system with a total of 27 video channels, located in a suburban city, sakura, Chiba.(3) The average channel repertory (the number of channels watched more than one day a week) is 7.1 with repertory of the terrestrial channels 5.3. This and other related findings suggested that, at least for the time being, audience segmentation was unlikely to happen, though we must be careful of a hasty generalization.(4) The respondents were apt to see both the news channels and the movie channels as providing flexible opportunities to enjoy the services whenever they wish to do so, than the traditional terrestrial channels do. It seems that watching specialized cable channels are more of instrumental nature, and thus with a higher level of ego-involvement.