An Audience Heterogeneity View of Markets: Contributions, Tensions, and Agenda for Future Research
整合生态、社会认知和最优区分三种视角，区分了受众间异质性与受众内异质性，并归纳出受众可塑性和受众多重性两个维度，为理解市场受众异质性及其对生产者决策和动态的影响提供了清晰框架。
Producers’ resource allocation, performance, and survival depend on how market audiences identify, evaluate, and value them. While research has focused on producers’ heterogeneity, it has not consistently addressed audiences’ heterogeneity despite its critical consequences on producers’ decisions and market dynamics. This review integrates three research perspectives—ecological, socio-cognitive, and optimal distinctiveness—to offer a clearer comprehension of audience heterogeneity. It distinguishes between-audience heterogeneity from within-audience heterogeneity and regroups existing but scattered findings under two audience heterogeneity dimensions: audience plasticity and audience multiplexity. Avenues for research build on these distinctions and underscore the relationships between audience heterogeneity and market temporality, individual reactions (e.g., rooted in ideology and emotions), and technology (in particular AI-enhanced categorization).