"A critical overview of two decades of research into the television audience" -- [i].

Ever since the exposure of the Kitten Killer of Hangshou captured the imagination of online communities world-wide, vigilantism and digilantism has come to the fore as an emerging and poignant issue. In their book Introducing Vigilant Audiences Daniel Trottier and colleagues (and contributors) have produced an excellent and throughtful ‘must read’ for all who are studying vigilantism, or just interested in it. Prof. David Wall, University of Leeds This is a collection of cutting edge and thoughtful case studies of global digital vigilantism that advances this emerging and increasingly important field in useful and intriguing ways. Prof. Michael Pfeifer, City University of New York This ground-breaking collection of essays examines the scope and consequences of digital vigilantism – a phenomenon emerging on a global scale, which sees digital audiences using social platforms to shape social and political life. Longstanding forms of moral scrutiny and justice seeking are disseminated through our contemporary media landscape, and researchers are increasingly recognising the significance of societal impacts effected by digital media. The authors engage with a range of cross-disciplinary perspectives in order to explore the actions of a vigilant digital audience – denunciation, shaming, doxing – and to consider the role of the press and other public figures in supporting or contesting these activities. In turn, the volume illuminates several tensions underlying these justice seeking activities – from their capacity to reproduce categorical forms of discrimination, to the diverse motivations of the wider audiences who participate in vigilant denunciations. This timely volume presents thoughtful case studies drawn both from high-profile Anglo-American contexts, and from developments in regions that have received less coverage in English-language scholarship. It is distinctive in its focus on the contested boundary between policing and entertainment, and on the various contexts in which the desire to seek retribution converges with the desire to consume entertainment. Introducing Vigilant Audiences will be of great value to researchers and students of sociology, politics, criminology, critical security studies, and media and communication. It will be of further interest to those who wish to understand recent cases of citizen-led justice seeking in their global context.

"This timely volume engages with one of the most important shifts in recent film studies: the turn away from text-based analysis towards the viewer. Historically, this marks a return to early interest in the effect of film on the audience by psychoanalysts and psychologists, which was overtaken by concern with the 'effects' of film, linked to calls for censorship and moral panics rather than to understanding the mental and behavioral world of the spectator. Early cinema history has revealed the diversity of film-viewing habits, while traditional 'box office' studies, which treated the audience initially as a homogeneous market, have been replaced by the study of individual consumers and their motivations. Latterly, there has been a marked turn towards more sophisticated economic and sociological analysis of attendance data. And as the film experience fragments across multiple formats, the perceptual and cognitive experience of the individual viewer (who is also an auditor) has become increasingly accessible. With contributions from Gregory Waller, John Sedgwick and Martin Barker, this work spans the spectrum of contemporary audience studies, revealing work being done on local, non-theatrical and live digital transmission audiences, and on the relative attraction of large-scale, domestic and mobile platforms."--Publisher's website.

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.

This edited collection explores methods for conducting critical empirical research examining the potential impacts of theatrical events on audience members. Dani Snyder-Young and Matt Omasta present an overview of the burgeoning subfield of audience studies in theatre and performance studies, followed by an introduction to the wide range of ways scholars can study the experiences of spectators. Consisting of chapter-length case studies, the book addresses methodologies for examining spectatorship, including qualitative, quantitative, historical/historiographic, arts-based, participatory, and mixed methods approaches. This volume will be of great interest to theatre and performance studies scholars as well as industry professionals working in marketing, audience development, and community engagement.

A multi-faceted exploration of audience research, in which Morley draws on a rich body of empirical work to examine the emergence, development and future of audience research.

Key writings exploring questions of reception, interpretation and interactivity. The fan audience, the active audience, gender and audience, nation and ethnicity, internet audiences.