Karolina Albińska: The radio listener of the XXI century – in search of the contemporary radio audience profile

From the time immemorial scholars have noticed that at the end of the communication chain there are some ‘members of an audience’, ‘addressees’ or ‘target individuals’. During this time various meanings and various definitions of these concepts, and theoretical approaches to them, have been created due to, among other things, the mass media hierarchy change. The subject of this article therefore is to answer the question: who nowadays can be called “radio listener”? By analyzing current media environment the paper focuses on the contemporary radio listener that must exist in the age of media convergence. It also examines and describes his/her modern media behaviors. As a result, to clarify the problem in question, two typologies of modern radio listeners are presented. Finally, the last part sets out the major aspect of the change that lead to the shift from the mass public to the fan culture.

Keywords: radio, contemporary radio listener, mass media, media convergence.