Today, with a pool of hundreds of media channels, the audience chooses products that are valuable to them, and reflect their social community. With this consumer index it is easy to assess a news agency reputation, brand, and social strength.

The social influence of a news agency lies in its ability to influence the audience’s perceptions, attitudes, and behavior. News and information can only possess real power when it spreads and positively influences the community and society after it has received the support of the audience. The news agency has social power when it has a large audience, and informs the audience with emerging social problems and potential solutions. Subjective examples would be environmental pollution and gender inequality. It also enlightens the audience to support the poor and disadvantaged people, to behave civilly in public places, and to follow the law and state policies.

Third, the audience contributes to improving the cultural content of journalistic works. The audience is the judge of news content. They will not settle for a poor quality production. The audience accepts only current news presented in a quality manner. This provides the impetus for news agencies to constantly find new ways to increase the interest, novelty, and accuracy of their stories to attract the audience.

Fourth, the audience contributes to shaping the culture of newscasters, their news organizations, and communication in general. The culture of reporters and news agencies is expressed in many ways. The first requirement is professional competency. Do their organization’s skill reflect the quality of the newscasters work? At the level of communication, organizational culture is reflected in the way they communicate and behave with each other, with their partners, with the audience.

It can be said that the audience is the supervisors, the “eyes and ears” of journalists and newscasters in society. With its role as both spectator and judge, the audience establishes unwritten rules for the industry. Journalists and news agencies must have manners and communicate in the context of the many life circumstances in which they find themselves. This requires them to project a spirit of learning, mutual respect, and courtesy and in many circumstances project a feeling of intimacy and closeness. If successful, they will gain the trust of the audience. From that the audience will be willing to help create cooperative conditions for journalists. They will show a willingness to collaborate, a readiness to read newspapers, and listen to radio and watch television programs. These requirements motivate journalists and news agencies to comply with professional ethics, and journalism laws as well as to make constant efforts to produce quality and effective works.

Fifth, the audience is the customer, the consumer of news. It is obvious that although journalism produces socially relevant products which carry out a socio-cultural mission, news organizations are also commercial enterprises, charged with generating revenue for their investors. The audience is the buyer, the consumer. The more people buy newspapers, listen to the radio, watch television, and read online news stories, the greater the profits the news agencies get. There are both tangible and intangible profits, generated both directly and indirectly.

A tangible, direct profit is the amount of money the news agency collects from the audience daily and weekly. Intangible profits are the social profits procured by establishing the brand and building its reputation. Further intangible revenue is generated from there, including the ability to attract advertising, organizing public promotional events, which are realized with the audience’s participation. All of these intangible assets form the best profit that any media agency could want. So in reality newspapers frequently suffer financial losses from printing their publications because the price of a newspaper is lower than the cost of producing it. Nevertheless, they still print and publish in large quantity to reach the largest audience possible. Throughout the world, there are free newspapers, which are distributed to the audience everyday. Nevertheless, profitable or not, selling newspapers, advertising, event organization, etc. is a prime source of nourishment for both agencies and their journalists. As revenue is generated, the greater is an organization’s ability to reinvest in its facilities, technical equipment, and personnel, all of which help to improve the value of the organization. Therefore, creating innovative ways to attract the audience is a primary purpose for any media agency.

Sixth, the audience is a collaborator in the creation of communication products. In fact, every news agency, every journalist has a team of collaborators. Being closely attached to the source of innovation, the audience’s collective contribution, although rough, brings a breath of fresh air, a new taste, to the creative work of a news media organization.

Since the advent of online newspapers, the presence of collaborators has become more obvious and vital. Many newspapers have dedicated columns for their public collaborators. Examples include the “View” section in VnExpress.net, “I Think” in Tienphong.vn, “Blog” and “Forums” in Dantri.vn. The Sinh Vien, and Hoa Hoc Tro also regularly publish articles and pictures of collaborator students from all over the country. On radio and television, there are programs such as “Following Viewers’ Footsteps”, “Letters from Radio Listeners”, “Connecting Audience”, “Letters of Music”, and “Journey with You.” The dominant materials are letters, personal stories, and public sharing. The respect for collaborating authors, shown through the use of their works in the press, is the glue that firmly binds the audience to news agencies. This is a very intelligent public intellectual process of news agencies.

Seventh, the audience is an endless source of topics and inspiration for communication and content creation. One of the main subjects of journalism is people, and by extension the audience. Public awareness, changing attitudes, and socially acceptable behavior contribute to the creation of waves of events arising daily. As a result, people with exceptional events, or meaningful contributions to the community or society as a whole are an endless source of inspiration for the journalism community to explore every day. In other words, the audience is nourishment for journalism. Without the audience, sources for ideas are quickly exhausted.

Eighth, the audience leads the way in shaping content and quality communication models. Sociologic qualities, needs, interests, and habits, such as the capacity to receive information about each target group are different. Therefore, it is not surprising that major Western news agencies always conduct research on topics the audience finds interesting before deciding which story to produce and publish. They periodically conduct surveys on the content and format of their programs, considering its publishing format, what time it is broadcast, and so on. Follow-up is conducted to register the audience’s feedback to make adjustments in the future.

Even public comments have the ability to influence future topics the news agency needs to focus on. “The audience’s critical response will be one of the factors that determine future communication activities.”(1) In the case of an online newspaper, the number of responses and views of an article is a strong indicator of success or failure. It is an important indicator for journalists to make a decision on developing a successful subject line. Information content as viewed through public comments can also reveal interesting details and generate new ideas for journalists to delve into and develop. These are some of the road signs that guide the media in creating new content to place before the modern public.

In short, the development of an increasingly democratic society includes the improvement of public understanding of the world they live in. The continuous improvement of technology creates conditions for transforming the mass communication model from didactic and congested one-way streets, to a new paradigm of a two-way communication superhighway, flexible in ways not imagined just a few decades ago. The boundaries between journalists, news agencies, and the audience are narrowing. Unification between the communicators and the communicated has become the main feature of the new model in the contemporary media era.

2. Dimensions of journalism culture of the audience

The power and influence of the audience over communication activities have been subdivided into eight sections presented above. From another perspective, there are three main pillars supporting journalistic culture, namely the journalist, the news organization, and the audience. Today more than ever, these three components are inextricably linked to each other. Journalism in order to achieve a cultural context needs to have a synchronization with public awareness. This is because only a well-informed public with a receptive capability can receive and decipher incoming information correctly, completely, and accurately. Moreover, only a public with developed cultural attitudes and behaviors can contribute to increasing the effectiveness and social influence of sophisticated international communications.

With this in mind, it can be concluded that today’s media culture is a new style of reception by the audience toward journalists and news agencies, all of which contributes to promoting the quality and effectiveness of communication protocols.

In other words, public journalism culture is the attitude and behavior of communicating and dealing with news organizations and the audience, all contributing to enhancing the general content found in the field of journalism and communication. From this concept it is possible to model the dimensions of media culture and the audience:

2.1. Cultural attitudes of the audience

- Uses and gratifications

Media products in Vietnam are almost all freely available to the audience with the exception of printed newspapers. With this variety of newspapers, radio and television programs operating day and night, the audience enjoys an abundant, informative, valuable, and inexpensive entertainment resource. Therefore, cultural attitudes can be expressed through:

1) Preference: the audience can access their favorite medium and indulge their passions, whatever their “addiction”. They can freely read, listen, and watch any communication product. They can arrange their work schedule and free time to receive their favorite media channels, programs, pages, products, etc. Afterwards they are ready to gratify their interest in the form of feedback, sending emojis, etc. They can like and share.

2) Acceptance: the audience can show acceptance by the way they choose their media whether it be print, radio, television, or online newspapers. They have a myriad choice in their media and are led to other tools to access more information, entertainment. They can also use it as a means to study society to better understand the political, economic, cultural, and social environments. They spend time exchanging and discussing what they have seen with family, friends, and colleagues about the issues and events. They also have the opportunity to seriously reflect on the messages received through the media, thus facilitating changes in their behavior.

3) Adaptation or neutrality: This group of the audience read, listen to or watch very little. They believe that media can serve many different purposes from providing information to entertainment needs, however corporate investment in content is required to make it more attractive to these people.

Statistical indicators about uses and gratifications by the audience contribute to helping news agencies direct content and delivery methods in a positive direction.

- Smart audience

Under the influence of modern communication technology and economic development, a new generation of audience has also emerged – the smart masses. This group differentiates from the passive masses, the generation of the audience coming of age before internet communication was born in Vietnam.

The smart masses are mostly people with high education and good knowledge.

First, they always uphold the accuracy, objectivity, speed and balance of journalism information using their own critical thinking. Through information extracted from many sources, they will use their own intelligence to analyze and judge the developing trends of the economy, and anticipate the upcoming movement of policies from the authorities. They also bring this rational thinking to understanding topics as diverse as international political leverage or the audience relation implications for a brand.

Second, the intelligent public does not necessarily opt for free information. They are willing to pay a fee to exploit proprietary information, in many cases ordering information, thereby acquiring information that is uniquely valuable to them.

Third, the intelligent public has a new reading preference, both in receiving information from social networks which we will call unconventional information gathering, and receiving information from journalism which would be official information collection. They use this information later for their own analysis and appraisal, self-improvement, and refinement.

Fourth, the intelligent audience walks ahead of the media, with the ability to personalize media delivery and to listen to the media in order to speak freely, writing what the audience is interested in and concerned about.

- Art and aesthetic opinion

The term audience covers a diverse cross section of humanity. Each person has different qualifications and abilities, needs and habits. However, in the consumption and enjoyment of media, some public groups can be defined with soul, personality, and work, which are rich in artistic and aesthetic feeling. This personality distinction makes it easy to define and empathize with the aesthetics of journalism. Artistic and aesthetic feelings are expressed in the expectation of a presentation, with an excitement primed to receive new information, an attitude of respect for journalists’ work and their chosen mode of communication. Added to that are the vibrations coming from the heart of the journalists. That harmony is what leads many to believe in the press, to love the press, to always inspire them to create good and beautiful things in life. In return, this connection has the potential to energize the journalist’s creativity and dedication.

- Adaptive transitions

Under the influence of modern communication techniques and technology, the audience is gradually developing the ability to adapt, to become mentally flexible, to transform habits, needs, and improve their ability to receive information.

It is apparent that today, the audience is transforming from “a reading culture to an audiovisual culture, from a printed newspaper culture to an online newspaper culture, from an elitist culture to a consumer culture.”(2) This transformation of the audience is creating a need on their part to learn to decipher information from new media channels under the influence of advancing technology. In this technology age, it is a habit of tens of millions of radio listeners to turn on the radio every time they get into their cars, to turn on the mobile device to receive news on mobile platforms every hour, in any space, instead of reading printed newspaper. And with the network culture, surfing on the keyboard to discuss, criticize, express views and opinions has become a psychological need. The behavior of surfing news has already instilled itself as a habit. Even the audience is used to consuming and shopping through online news-source apps. The broad picture of the varied types of journalism and internet communications, spurred by new creative forms of communication is both a consequence and now an essential condition for acculturation of the audience. Access to information has become more immediate and more familiar to the masses than at any time in history. Information has become a necessity like food and water, a habit in the lifestyle of individuals, families, and society. That is today’s reality in the journalism consumption culture of the audience. This in turn has become the driving force for the expansion of mass communication channels.

2.2. Cultural behavior of the audience

- Culture expresses community thinking

The audience’s activity in consuming journalism is not only reflected in social attitudes, but also in personal behavior. Contrary to the theory of a “vortex of silence” of receiving news twenty years ago, when online newspapers had not yet blossomed, the audience now appreciates the immense variety of expressions. It is an appreciation of the expression of thought, including knowledge, understanding, and skills, and the expression of attitude including love, hate, neutrality, agreement, and disagreement.

Interacting with journalism in a public forum is the most obvious form of expression. Today, the audience is willing to appear in person on radio and television, or in print and online publications to directly express their views and attitudes on domestic and international issues. They even make “suggestions, criticisms, recommendations, complaints and denunciations in the audience media to Party organizations, State agencies, socio-political organizations, socio- political, professional organizations, social organizations, social, professional organizations, as well as other organizations and individuals” within the spirit of the Journalism Law (2016). The audience does not hesitate to appear in the media to demonstrate their knowledge, opinion and professional skills when requested by the press. Today the audience is also willing to comment on each article as a way to express their right to freely express ideas on all social issues.

The new culture of expressing community thinking erases the gap of free speech between the audience and the media. This draws the audience closer to the Party, the State and its agencies in identifying and solving social problems. This in turn has prompted news agencies to attach more importance to public opinion. For their part the audience also comprehends more clearly the responsibility of their position, role and speech.

- Culture of participation

It is the media’s role to generate creative participation by providing information to the audience. Article 10 of the Journalism Law 2016 stipulates that citizens have the right to freely participate in the creation of journalistic works in accordance with the Law without any limitation.Creative participation by the audience demonstrates their active role in disseminating information. It brings a breath of authenticity into the press, creating a vivid and colorful arrangement of the information picture. Creative culture requires enthusiasm, sensitivity to emerging problems, and proficient writing skills from the audience.

By participating in providing information the audience has positioned itself as the source of news for news collection. News agencies and journalists both need collaboration ranging from simple and easily accessible information, to confidential important information. As a participant in the process, the audience determines that they have become the eyes and ears of a journalist, reporting with sincerity and openness, but most importantly, having a moral responsibility for the information they provide.

- Properly exercising the rights and obligations of citizens when accessing information

Article 8 of the Law on Access to Information addresses the rights and obligations of citizens in accessing information is described in (2016). This law stipulates that citizens have the right to be provided with complete, accurate and timely information, and to have the right to issue complaints, initiate lawsuits, and protest violations of the law on access to information. At the same time, citizens are obliged to comply with the provisions of the law on access to information; to not falsify the content of information provided; and to not infringe upon the rights and interests of agencies, organizations, or other people when exercising the right to access information. Thus, it is evident that public rights and responsibilities need to be published. Here are some of those public rights and responsibilities:

- The right to access accurate information from the press. If news organizations are found to be delivering false information, the audience has the responsibility to respond to the news agency, or report the incident to the authorities for investigation.

- Responsibility not to falsify or distort information content from the press by spreading false information disguised as real news, thereby causing confusion to others or to the community.

- Responsibility not to infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of news agencies and journalists. In many cases, citizens as well as the news audience restrict a journalist’s access in the course of their investigations, or even have journalists wrongly arrested, causing discontent and anger among the rest of the audience. The news collection culture of the audience must be to uphold the spirit of supporting the press, and to not to commit illegal acts.