Audience Studies

Audiences on the move? Use and assessment of local print and online newspapers

by Eli Skogerbø

Published in European Journal of Communication 26 (3) 214-229 (September 2011)

Wahl-Jorgensen, K., Williams, A. and Wardle, C. (2010). Audience views on user-generated content: Exploring the value of news from the bottom up. Northern Lights, 8, 177-194.

by Karin Wahl-Jorgensen

News organisations increasingly view user-generated content as a vital resource for audience engagement and... more News organisations increasingly view user-generated content as a vital resource for audience engagement and empowerment. Researchers have investigated the production practices and journalistic cultures surrounding user-generated content but have paid less attention to the audiences who produce and consume the content. This paper seeks to fill this gap in knowledge,  drawing on a series of focus groups to understand why audiences value particular forms of user-generated content and renounce others. Further, by comparing focus group findings to data from in-depth interviews with BBC producers and journalists, it explores how audience perceptions differ from those of producers. In particular, the paper focuses on why and how audiences value news-based user-generated content (in the form of images, footages and eyewitness accounts), which is perceived as authentic, immediate and “real.” This is contrasted with a dislike for audience comment, or opinion-based contributions, seen as ill-informed, repetitive and extremist. By contrast, BBC producers and journalists are more concerned with the UGC as a tool to supplement traditional news-gathering practices.

Swalwell The Early Micro User FINAL

by Melanie Swalwell

Who Do They Think They’re Talking To? Framings of the Audience by Social Media Users

by David Brake

International Journal of Communication, Vol 6 (2012) http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/932

This article examines the understandings and meanings of personal information sharing online using a predominantly... more This article examines the understandings and meanings of personal information sharing online using a predominantly symbolic interactionist analytic perspective and focusing on writers’ conceptions of their relationships with their audiences. It draws on an analysis of in-depth interviews with 23 personal bloggers. They were found to have limited interest in gathering information about their audiences, appearing to assume that readers are sympathetic. A comprehensive and grounded typology of imagined relationships with audiences was devised. Although their blogs were all public, some interviewees appeared to frame their blogging practice as primarily self-directed, with their potential audiences playing a marginal role. These factors provide one explanation for some forms of potentially risky self-exposure observed among social media users.

Participation – In what? Radio, convergence and the corporate logic of audience input through new media in Zambia

by Wendy Willems

Forthcoming in: Telematics and Informatics, 2012.

Recent literature has pointed to the way in which new media such as the internet and mobile phones have the capacity... more Recent literature has pointed to the way in which new media such as the internet and mobile phones have the capacity to enable more participatory and interactive communication, either through user-generated content or through a broader participation of audiences in mainstream media’s content production. This potential is celebrated even more in contexts in which there is deemed to be a lack of political accountability or limited consultation of citizens by government. This article investigates the extent to which new technologies have changed the quality of audience participation in radio content production in Zambia. Engaging with literature on participation in media studies as well as development studies and based on interviews with station managers, producers and presenters of six radio stations in Zambia, the article examines both the opportunities and limits of the use of internet and mobile phones in audience participation. It argues that there is a need to situate these practices within a broader corporate logic in which participation is not merely about adding more voices but also feeds into radio stations’ commercial strategies of increasing revenue and accessing personal data of listeners through SMS and social media.

Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Public broadcasters and their publics in post-Communist societies

by Janis Juzefovics

Shortly after the collapse of Communist regimes across the Central and Eastern Europe abortive attempts were made to... more Shortly after the collapse of Communist regimes across the Central and Eastern Europe abortive attempts were made to replicate Western-European-style public broadcasting systems.

The gap between public broadcasting institutions and their publics in post-Communist societies manifests vividly in the modest results public broadcasters (particularly television) have in ratings battles with commercial market players and in the huge difficulties public broadcasters face in collecting licence fee-payments.

In order to shed additional light on the peculiar interplay between public broadcasters and their publics in former Communist bloc countries I will draw on Albert Hirschman’s influential theory of ‘exit, voice and loyalty’.

Measuring Media Use Across Platforms: Evolving Audience Information Systems

by harsh taneja

Accepeted for Publication in International Journal of Media Management, Vol. 2 2012

Audience measurement worldwide is responding to the need to measure media consumption across platforms. One approach... more Audience measurement worldwide is responding to the need to measure media consumption across platforms. One approach being employed by the industry is “single source” audience information systems that measure usage across media and purchase behavior from the same set of respondents. This study evaluates the readiness of such systems to meet the current challenges in measuring audiences by analyzing single source systems from five diverse media markets. The analysis reveals that these systems capture dimensions of audience behavior other than exposure, an enhancement over traditional audience information systems. However their usage in the marketplace suggests that single source data complement existing mono media systems than serve as alternate currencies.

The Mighty Boosh: Femininity, Female Fan Practices and the figure of the 'Fangirl'

by Sarah Harman

The Mighty Boosh (dir. Paul King 2007 - present), once an underground cult text, has increasingly become rejected as... more The Mighty Boosh (dir. Paul King 2007 - present), once an underground cult text, has increasingly become rejected as 'feminine mainstream'. This gendering occurs through a number of processes: an association with consumerism and rabid consumption; an increasingly visible female fandom; and through an assimilation of these into the text itself. This paper argues that the rejection of The Mighty Boosh and its affiliation with the feminine typifies the gendering of television dialectics, as well as the gendered dichotomy of Cult verses Mainstream.

By examining female fan behaviour this paper explores the hierarchical structure of female Boosh fandom, problematising pre-existing fandom studies and their theoretical assumptions. This is primarily through what I term the Illegitimate and Legitimate fan, exploring how fans compete for dominance through their relationship to and with the text. In addition this paper takes as crucial the current phenomenon of the comedy 'fangirl' – the lowest position within this hierarchy –  concluded as central to feminist discourses of consumption, sexuality and identity whilst standing at odds with the traditional masculine position of the 'serious fan'.

(With Press, Andrea; forthcoming 2013) Audiences: A cross-generational dialogue. Special issue of Communication Review, 16 (1), Taylor and Francis

by Ranjana Das

Special issue of Communication Review (forthcoming 2013) - guest-edited by Ranjana Das and Andrea Press.

This Comm Review special issue, guest-edited by Ranjana Das (University of Leicester, UK) with Andrea Press... more This Comm Review special issue, guest-edited by Ranjana Das (University of Leicester, UK) with Andrea Press (University of Virginia, Charlottesville, co-editor of the Taylor and Francis journal Communication Review) will feature essays by David Buckingham, Sonia Livingstone, Kim Schroeder, Pille Prulmann-Vengerfeldt, Martin Barker and Denis McQuail.

It brings together plenary addresses from the COST-YECREA-ECREA workshop in Brussels, April 2012.

Staged Performance: Audience Participation or Observation?

by Emily Granozio

Folkdancing into oblivion: boosting youth participation in ethnic community festivals

by Linda Kalejs

Unpublished Masters Thesis, School of Management and Marketing, Deakin University, November 2011

Abstract:
The Australian Latvian Arts Festival has, since the 1990s, experienced a steady decline in youth... more Abstract:
The Australian Latvian Arts Festival has, since the 1990s, experienced a steady decline in youth audience participation. The Latvian refugee migrant community, arriving in Australia post-WWII, has annually celebrated its cultural heritage, with community elders passing on folk traditions to younger generations, since the inaugural Festival in 1951. The engagement of youth has been instrumental to the festival's existence, however with an aging demographic, lack of programming appeal, the community’s reluctance to accept change, and competing youth leisure demands, the Festival is facing a grim future. With research sparse in the area of ethnic community events management in a well-established diasporic migrant setting, this current research bridges the gap and attempts to understand, and provide strategic thinking around the issues and barriers for youth festival audiences and the volunteer organisers.

This thesis is a study of barriers to youth attendance at the Australian Latvian Arts Festival 2010, investigating strategies employed by voluntary community festival board members to boost attendance, providing practical recommendations to resolve the emergent disconnect between the strategies and barriers. Research design included qualitative analysis of interview data with youth aged 18-25 and Board members, using a grounded theory approach to assist in the development of new theory. Gathered interview data was triangulated with literature analysis based on policy documents, and the Festival’s online web presence and print programme. Research findings indicate there are significant barriers to youth attendance which are specific to an ethnic migrant diaspora setting, and that strategies initiated by the Board do not address these. Challenges faced by the Board in a voluntary community setting are also discussed, with findings of particular significance to upcoming Festival Directors in the areas of youth audience development, programme development and marketing. Final recommendations have a practical application for future Latvian Arts Festivals, as well as similar diaspora migrant community festivals in Australia and internationally.

The whats versus hows of film spectatorship: A comparison of genre films reception from a cognitive-affective perspective

by CarrieLynn Reinhard

This is a paper I wrote for a 2007 graduate studies seminar on film studies. It was my first foray into minutia reception studies, which is a line of research I am hoping to develop further.

Das, R. (2012). Children reading an online genre: Heterogeneity in interpretive work. Popular Communication 10 (4). Forthcoming

by Ranjana Das

2012, Popular Communication Volume 10, Issue 4

In this paper, a conceptual repertoire from audience reception studies is mobilized to interpret findings from... more In this paper, a conceptual repertoire from audience reception studies is mobilized to interpret findings from conversations with children navigating the online genre of social networking sites. Divergence and consensus across age, in children’s perception of authorial presence and intention, perceptions of other readers/users, and their collection of stories around the text, is indicated with the use of a repertoire derived from many decades of research with audience reception analysis. The problems and prospects of using the text-reader metaphor for interactive media, are then discussed. It is concluded that the act of interpretation was always one that involved a range of responsibilities (literacies) on the part of the audience/spectator and in the case of textually unstable, immersive media, new media literacies as interpretive work continue to involve a range of responsibilities in navigating textual conventions, figuring out opportunities, coping with contextual resources and restraints and tackling interruptions in the text.

Blurring fiction with reality: the strange case of Amnesia, an Italian radio mockumentary

by Tiziano Bonini

published in: Gazi A., Starkey G., Jedrzejewski S., Radio content in the Digital Age: the evolution of a sound medium, Londra, Intellect Books, 2011.

Amnésia is a mockumentary that tells the story of a young man, Matteo Caccia, a former speaker of the Italian public... more Amnésia is a mockumentary that tells the story of a young man, Matteo Caccia, a former speaker of the Italian public radio, who suffered from a form of amnesia which erased all memories from the first 32 years of his life.
Amnesia is the story of a man who is living every day as it was the first. Every day Matteo tells listeners about his new life, using the language of radio and multimedia.The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles was the first radio drama that blurred fiction with reality.Different theories tried to understand audience reactions to that broadcast. Welles was the first toshow us how media representations of reality could be realistic but false at the same time. Many years have passed since that radio drama was aired; audiences have become accustomed to a more complex mediascape and have refined their media expertise; however, the case of Italian serial radiodrama Amnesia shows us how radio can still play a powerful role in structuring and conditioning audience beliefs.This paper will describe the format of Amnesia and the way it blurred fiction with reality, experimenting with the genre of drama. The study will also show different audience reactions to the programme (believers vs. non-believers) through an analysis of listeners' emails.

The Oprah Effect: Texts, Readers and the Dialectic of Signification

by Janice Peck

Twentieth-Century Burns Scholar: J. DeLancey Ferguson.

by Corey E. Andrews

The Burns Chronicle (Winter 2011): 9-12.

This essay presents a critical appreciation of the work of J. DeLancey Ferguson, a noted Burns critic of the twentieth... more This essay presents a critical appreciation of the work of J. DeLancey Ferguson, a noted Burns critic of the twentieth century.

Let Bartlet be Bartlet? The West Wing continues on Twitter

by Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore

Co-authored with Jon Hickman. Transforming Audiences 3, 1st -2nd September 2011, London, UK.

This paper presents findings from an ongoing project that examines a particular fan community based on Twitter, where... more This paper presents findings from an ongoing project that examines a particular fan community based on Twitter, where fans are tweeting as if they were characters in the TV drama The West Wing (NBC, 1999-2006). Through accounts such as @Pres_Bartlet, @joshualyman and @donnalyman, fans interact with each other and with non-character accounts, tweeting about events from the show itself, “real world” current affairs, their ongoing personal lives, popular Twitter topics, and so on. Examining data from our own observation of this fan activity as well as interviews with the fans behind accounts for central characters, we explore three key issues: How each fan tries to shape the “Twitter voice” of their chosen character; how they manage the tension between the show’s diegesis and the “real world” through their tweets about current affairs; and what kinds of pleasures they might get from this activity. As part of our analysis, we consider how the research participants perceive their own position in the West Wing fan community, and how they see their Twitter role play in relation to other online fan activities, such as message board discussions and fan fiction writing. Through this empirical study, we aim to contribute to ongoing academic debates around media fandom by offering insights into how these Twitter users perform identities as fans, as characters and as creative producers who have gained their own fans - as evidenced by their Twitter followers.

Reviewing Romcom: (100) IMDb Users and (500) Days of Summer

by Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore

Published 2011 in Participations 8(2): 144-164

This article contributes to academic debates around the romantic comedy genre and comedy audiences by examining IMDb... more This article contributes to academic debates around the romantic comedy genre and comedy audiences by examining IMDb user reviews of (500) Days of Summer (2009). Directed by Marc Webb for Fox Searchlight Pictures, (500) Days of Summer was promoted with the tagline ‘Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t’. This presents the film as an unconventional romantic comedy in at least three ways: Firstly, it suggests that these two characters will not actually end up together, which challenges the idea of the romcom couple as ‘meant to be’. Secondly, it presents the possibility that audiences might not get the happy ending we usually expect from comedy. And finally, the tagline casts the boy, rather than the girl, in the role as yearning romantic, thereby challenging the traditional gender roles of heterosexual relationships. So how did audiences respond to this film? At the time of writing, it has been rated by 75,716 IMDb users, and has an average score of 8.0 out of 10. This clearly suggests a favourable reception, but the IMDb reviews also offer qualitative data that can shed further light on how the film has been evaluated. What kinds of criteria are in operation? What elements do reviewers highlight as important for their experiences of the film? How is the film seen to fail for some viewers? Drawing on previous studies of romantic comedy, the analysis will consider how these particular audience members articulated their responses to (500) Days of Summer, as well as their positions as reviewers.

Men of Feeling: Harley, Sindall, Zeluco, and Robert Burns.

by Corey E. Andrews

The Eighteenth-Century Novel 8 (2011): 187-226.

Accounts of Robert Burns's reading are well-documented in his correspondence, where he frequently attests to his... more Accounts of Robert Burns's reading are well-documented in his correspondence, where he frequently attests to his enjoyment of three books in particular: John Moore's Zeluco and Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling and The Man of the World. These three Scottish novels recount the lives of vividly-imagined men whose actions affect those around them in dramatic fashion. Zeluco lies, deceives, and ultimately murders his lovers and family; the “Man of the World” Sindall behaves similarly, threatening the well-being of an innocent, virtuous family. At the other end of the spectrum, Harley (the lead of The Man of Feeling) weeps and emotes in vignette-like encounters with various scenes of suffering. Each of these characters holds clues to the exceedingly popular model of masculinity represented by the writing and reputation of Robert Burns. This essay examines the templates of masculinity embodied by Zeluco, Sindall, and Harley, in order to determine how and why they commanded such an influence on Burns's imagination. The characters' relation to late eighteenth-century ideals of politeness is also examined, in addition to the novels’ engagement with sentimental discourse. The essay offers an analysis of the combined influences of these three "men of feeling" on Burns, his writing, and his posthumous reputation.

'Most people bring their own spoons': THE ROOM's participatory audiences as comedy mediators

by Richard McCulloch

The Room (Tommy Wiseau, 2003) has developed the unenviable reputation as being one of the worst films ever made, yet... more The Room (Tommy Wiseau, 2003) has developed the unenviable reputation as being one of the worst films ever made, yet at the same time is celebrated by ‘fans’ who take considerable pleasure from its perceived ineptitude. Considerable media attention has also been afforded to the film’s participatory theatrical screenings, which typically feature constant heckling, chants, and the throwing of plastic spoons.

Through the analysis of the film’s British audiences (in the form of surveys, interviews, observation and autoethnography), this article argues that The Room demonstrates the impact of audience participation on a film’s reception, which in this case transforms an ostensible drama into a comedy experience. These audiences function as temporary communities that encourage the search for humour in ‘badness’, creating a cycle of comedy mediation and verification that affirms the interpretive competence of all attendees.

The article begins to theorise the previously underdeveloped concept of ‘so bad it’s good’ by drawing a link between comedy and cult media audiences, as well as exploring the social functions of comedy as they relate to cultural texts.