The theory is a population approach to understand mass communication. Instead of asking 'what does the media do to people?' you would ask 'what do people do with the media?'
It assumes that members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media and not their lives.
How you use media for your own uses, for example if you go to the cinema with the intention of getting scared, you would watch a horror film to gratify your intention. You have the choice what you see who you interact with. Your Facebook, Twitter and Snap-chat become an echo chamber what the things you want to hear and you become enveloped in a social bubble.
There are many different media outlets that we use to gratify our needs.
Reception
The reception of an audience is the way they react to a product by the media. A producer of a media product has a certain perception of how people would react to that product. Sometimes the pressured reception and actual reception of the audience can differ. There are many different reactions to the same thing. Media can also be a means of showing the reception to a film or video game via ratings on websites such as IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes. There are three main groups of audience reception: first is the receptive audience, this group of people would watch a film and think 'yes this is really good'.
Second would be the opposition where people would think 'oh no what a load of rubbish'.
Lastly there are the negotiable audience who may like some aspects of a film a dislike others.
Images from Google
Active and passive audience
Passive- Not taking action related to something you have seen or heard. People may not take action to what they have been or heard because they are unaffected by the news. Sometimes people do nothing because they may think it's pointless.
For example the result of Brexit may not have a big impact on your life so you take it as it comes.
Active- Taking action that is related to something you have seen or heard. People may take action in a supportive or destructive way.
Using the Brexit example again, people may actively put out their comments onto social network. People may start strikes to get their point across.
