Feedback has usually been viewed as a receiver-source loop or interaction. A process view of communication implies consideration of intra-audience interaction. Such consideration resulted in the conceptualization of a receiverreceiver loop that was designated observable audience response. A three treatment experiment was designed to test hypotheses that observable audience response would change attitudes toward a message topic and a speaker.Two treatments consisted of conditions in which coached confederates supplied either positive or negative feedback during the presentation of a message; in the third no effort was made to manipulate response. Although some individual hypotheses were not supported at the .05 criterion set, the overall results supplied evidence supporting the major predictions of the study.In the past few years an increasing number of "feedback studies" have been conducted. Investigators, for the most part, have been interested in observing the effects of varied receiver or audience responses on speakers.l Such observable response, or feedback, could be examined with a view toward determining its effects upon other receivers or audience members.A term other than "feedback" is needed because the variable is not a receiver-source loop, but rather a receiver-receiver loop.
Audience feedback has been demonstrated to result in intra-audience effects in addition to having effects on message sources. This experiment was designed to demonstrate intra-audience effects in a naturalistic field setting. Sixty male and female undergraduates were required as part of a bogus class assignment to go to a bar on one of two nights and "observe communication behaviors in the field." A group of about 30 confederates attended both nights, one night giving positive responses to the band and the other night giving negative responses. Subjects filled out a questionnaire in their classes on the day following participation. Results supported predictions that observable audience responses would affect subjects' evaluations of the band and the length of time spent at the bar.
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