Audiences are problematic. From both left and right they have been the subject of concern
and debate. On the one hand, this has been expressed through fears about the effects of the …

The audience is one of the central elements of media studies. Yet, the term connotes many
different, sometimes contradictory things. This article surveys the field of audience studies …

It certainly seems that, over the last few years, the pendulum has swung again in the world of
audience research. As we all know, in the bad old days, TV audiences were considered as …

Active audience theory is a recent development in cultural studies, one which is now quite
popular in the field of mass communications analysis. The trend emerged from the …

As its title implies, this article explores a number of unanswered questions and outstanding
issues in contemporary audience research. These include: models of the “active audience”; …

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 …

In the winter of 2005/6, the UK news was awash with stories detailing the social havoc
wreaked by media; teenager Luke Mitchell was jailed for the inhuman slaughter of 14-year …

The study of media audiences has long been hotly contested regarding their supposed
power to construct shared meanings, to mitigate or moderate media influences, or to …

It is sometimes thought, for a variety of reasons, that audience research is dead. In the age of
multiple screens, it is difficult to pinpoint when people become audiences. And, in the wake …

While audience research, particularly reception studies, has successfully furthered the
diverse traditions from which it developed, there now seems to be some uncertainty about …