Critical Readings: Media and Audiences

by Nightingale, Virginia; Ross, Karen

• ISBN13: 9780335211661
• ISBN10: 0335211666
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-01
• Publisher: Open University Press

Summary

What changes have taken place to the ways in which the audience is perceived? How have audiences become fragmented in the search for ratings? What next for audience research in the 21st century? The study of 'audience' is a central concept in both media and cultural studies. Although it has become an academic fashion to turn away from the idea that groups of people can share common purpose or interests, there are still enough reasons for wanting to explore the way in which audiences behave, understand and interact with media in all their various forms. One of these reasons is the vast sums of money persistently expended by advertisers and broadcasters who are trying to give 'the audience' what 'it' wants.Critical Readings: Media and Audiencesbrings together some of the important developments in the history of audience and media studies and the significant research which has shaped the field until now.This collection of original research provides students and lecturers in media, film and cultural studies with a better understanding of the rationale, findings and forms of analysis undertaken at different points in the field's research-based career.Essays by John Banks, Nancy Baym, S. Elizabeth Bird, Jay G. Blumler, Philip Elliott, Marie Gillespie, Michael Gurevitch, Stuart Hall, James D. Halloran, Henry Jenkins, Elihu Katz, Gerald Kosicki, Paul Lavrakas, Paul Lazarsfeld, L.W. Lichty, Annette N. Markham, Eileen Meehan, Graham Murdock, Virginia Nightingale, Karen Ross, J.G. Webster.

Author Biography

Virginia Nightingale is Associate Professor in the School of Communication, Design and Media at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on audience theory and research practice. She is the author of Studying Audiences: The Shock of the Real (1996).

Karen Ross is Reader in Mass Communications at Coventry University, UK. She has published extensively in the broad area of audience identities. Her recent books include Mapping the Margins (2003), Women, Politics, Media (2002) and Black and White Media (1996).

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	vii
Foreword	ix
Acknowledgements	xi
Introduction	1	(10)
PART I THE STUDY OF ACTIVE AUDIENCES	11	(97)
Movie Leaders	16	(13)
Elihu Katz
Paul Lazarsfeld
Viewers' Reactions	29	(6)
James D. Halloran
Phillip Elliott
Graham Murdock
Utilization of Mass Communication by the Individual	35	(16)
Elihu Katz
Jay G. Blumler
Michael Gurevitch
Encoding/Decoding	51	(15)
Stuart Hall
News We Can Use: An Audience Perspective on the Tabloidisation of News in the United States	66	(22)
S. Elizabeth Bird
The Opinion Polls: Still Biased to Blair	88	(20)
Ivor Crewe
PART II AUDIENCE COMMUNITIES, SEGMENTS AND COMMODITIES	108	(107)
Good and Bad Practice in Focus Group Research	112	(19)
David E. Morrison
All Ears: Radio, Reception and Discourses of Disability	131	(14)
Karen Ross
Transnational Communications and Diaspora Communities	145	(18)
Marie Gillespie
Children and Television: A Critical Overview of the Research	163	(18)
David Buckingham
Ratings Analysis in Advertising	181	(15)
James G. Webster
Patricia F. Phalen
Lawrence W. Lichty
Heads of Household and Ladies of the House: Gender, Genre and Broadcast Ratings 1929-1990	196	(19)
Eileen R. Meehan
PART III INTERACTIVE AUDIENCES: FANS, CULTURAL PRODUCTION AND NEW MEDIA	215	(82)
Improvising Elvis, Marilyn and Mickey Mouse	219	(17)
Virginia Nightingale
Tune in Tomorrow	236	(16)
Nancy Baym
Stories of Places and Ways of Being	252	(16)
Annette N. Markham
Gamers as Co-Creators: Enlisting the Virtual Audience - A Report from the Netface	268	(11)
John Banks
Interactive Audiences?	279	(18)
Henry Jenkins
Index	297