Full Description
How do young audiences play with the cultural spectacle offered by reality shows like Big Brother? How does interactive media influence learning the process in educational and everyday settings? How can corporate communicators address their ethical commitment more effectively to the general public? And is there a link between television viewing and violent behaviour? Researching Audiences is a practical hands-on guide to the main types of empirical fieldwork that have established themselves in academic, policy and commercial research. It will help you explore what audience members do with the media, how they make sense of the media, and how the media may influence social affairs from the micro to the macro level. The book introduces and discusses four complementary key approaches to empirical research: Media ethnography, reception research, survey research, and experimental research.
Each section presents - a full-scale presentation of a best-practice example of the approach - the key concepts used by its practitioners and an overview of its scholarly history - a comprehensive toolbox that equips students with the methodological prerequisites needed in order to embark on the kind of fieldwork often required in practice-oriented audience courses
Contents
Part 1 Approaching the media audience: the relevance of audience research; what is an audience?; audience research - a brief history. Part 2 Survey research on audiences: survey research in practice - an eye-opening case study; survey research - defining the field; the toolbox of survey research about media audiences. Part 3 Experimental research on audiences: experimental research in practice - an eye-opening case study; experimental research - defining the field; the toolbox of experimental research about media audiences. Part 4 Reception research: reception research in practice - an eye-opening case study; reception research - defining the field; the toolbox of reception research. Part 5 Media ethnography: media ethnography in practice - an eye-opening case study; media ethnography - defining the field; the toolbox of media ethnography. Part 6 Future horizons of media audience research - towards a common toolbox?
