This provocative book shows how media institutions define their audiences and how these definitions shape the work of organizations within them. Leading scholars show that the audience definitions-in-use in each sector shape modern media. Receivers, they argue, are constituted as institutionally-effective audiences that have social meaning and//or economic value within the system. These include measured audiences, generated by research services, sold by media channels and bought by advertisers; specialized or segmented audiences whose particular interests are anticipated or created and then met by content producers; and hypothesized audiences whose interest, convenience and necessity are presumably protected by regulators.
In the early 20th century, a new and distinctive concept of the audience rose to prominence. The audience was seen as a mass -- a large collection of people mostly unknown to one another -- that was unified through exposure to media. This construct offered a pragmatic way to map audiences that was relevant to industry, government, and social theorists. In a relatively short period of time, it became the dominant model for studying the audience. Today, it is so pervasive that most people simply take it for granted. Recently, media scholars have reopened inquiry into the meaning of "audience." They question the utility of the mass audience concept, characterizing it as insensitive to differences among audience members inescapably bound up with discredited notions of mass society, or serving only a narrow set of industrial interests. The authors of this volume find that these assertions are often false and unwarranted either by the historical record or by contemporary industry practice. Instead, they argue for a rediscovery of the dominant model by summarizing and critiquing the very considerable body of literature on audience behavior, and by demonstrating different ways of analyzing mass audiences. Further, they provide a framework for understanding the future of the audience in the new media environment, and suggest how the concept of mass audience can illuminate research on media effects, cultural studies, and media policy.
This edited two-volume collection presents the most interesting and compelling articles pertaining to the formulation of research methods used to study information systems from the 30 year publication history of the Journal of Information Technology (JIT).
The history of audience research tells us that the relationship between the media and viewers, readers and listeners is complex and requires multiple methods of analysis. In Understanding Audiences, Andy Ruddock introduces students to the range of quantitative and qualitative methods and invites his readers to consider the merits of both. Understanding Audiences: demonstrates how - practically - to investigate media power; places audience research - from early mass communication models to cultural studies approaches - in their historical and epistemological context; explores the relationship between theory and method; concludes with a consideration of the long-running debate on media effects; includes exercises which invite readers to engage with the practical difficulties of conducting social research.
Whether we are watching TV, surfing the Internet, listening to our iPods, or reading a novel, we are all engaged with media as a member of an audience. Despite the widespread use of this term in our popular culture, the meaning of the "audience" is complex, and it has undergone significant historical shifts as new forms of mediated communication have developed from print, telegraphy, and radio to film, television, and the Internet. Media Audiences explores the concept of media audiences from four broad perspectives: as "victims" of mass media, as market constructions & commodities, as users of media, and as producers & subcultures of mass media. The goal of the text is for students to be able to think critically about the role and status of media audiences in contemporary society, reflecting on their relative power in relation to institutional media producers.
This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the complexity and diversity of audience studies in the advent of digital media. Details the study of audiences and how it is changing in relation to digital media Recognizes and appreciates valuable traditional approaches and identifies how they can be applied to, and evolve with, the changing media world Offers diverse perspectives from which being an audience, theorizing audiences, researching audiences, and doing audience research are approached today Argues that the field works best by identifying particular 'audience problems' and applying the best theories and research methods available to solving them Includes contributions from some of the most outstanding international scholars in the field
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Knowing, measuring and understanding media audiences have become a multi-billion dollar business. But the convention that underpins that business, audience ratings, is in crisis. Rating the Audience is the first book to show why and how audience ratings research became a convention, an agreement, and the first to interrogate the ways that agreement is now under threat. Taking a historical approach, the book looks at the evolution of audience ratings and the survey industry. It goes on to analyse today's media environment, looking at the role of the internet and the increased difficulties it presents for measuring audiences. The book covers all the major players and controversies, such as Facebook's privacy rulings and Google's alliance with Nielsen. Offering the first real comparative study, it will be critical for media students and professionals.
In recent years, communication scholars have taken a renewed interest in analyzing the audience and its impact on the communication process. Similarly, news editors and producers have often turned toward a marketing orientation which seeks to give new readers and viewers what they want, or at least what they say they want. Yet, there has still been little written about just how the audience factors into the news which is produced. Seeking to fill that niche, this book argues that audience images are quite important in the construction of news, but not easily detected. That is because journalists are not principally interested in their audience; they are interested in the news. USE THIS PARAGRAPH ONLY FOR GENERAL CATALOGS... This volume argues that although journalistic images of the audience may be "incomplete," they do exist and powerfully help shape the work of journalists in producing journalistic texts. Using a case study of news workers and news texts at two Chicago newsgathering organizations, the Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV, this book: * examines notions of audience and how they have been treated by academicians, * presents a detailed description of the ways in which audience is embedded within the news construction process, * presents a very representative set of journalistic news values, * presents differing ideas of audience at three key levels of the news organizations -- reporters and news gatherers, editors and producers, and senior editors, producers, and news directors, and * seeks to summarize and position this study within the larger body of mass communication research.
Annotation Napoli examines the ongoing redefinition of the industry-audience relationship by technologies that have moved the audience marketplace beyond traditional metrics.
This book won the Ohio Professional Writer's, Inc. 2014 Communication Competition Award Now in its second edition, The Televiewing Audience is a user's guide for the only household appliance that doesn't come with one. Watching television seems relatively effortless - it is, after all, a major form of entertainment in the U.S. and overseas - yet this book argues that there is nothing simple about watching television; it is a learned activity which is in a constant state of revision and upgrading. Now more than ever, televiewing requires the generation and application of critical thinking to guide program selection, inform appreciation, generate greater pleasure, and inspire dialogue after consumption. This book is about becoming a more thoughtful and informed consumer, designed to shatter the anonymity of the televiewer, and to create a sense of community, for we rarely think of ourselves as instrumental in the televiewing experience or think of the experience as a shared event. Designed for courses related to broadcasting, media effects, media literacy, and audience studies, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the ways in which television influences the way we think about ourselves and our culture. It places us center-stage in the extremely complicated, competitive, creative, and costly endeavor that is television.
