This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module examines perceptions of media audiences and their social and economic power through the study of key theorists, themes and case studies. Students will consider the audience as an object, the audience as an institution, the audience as a user and more laterally, as a producer of media in the digital age. This module also considers fandom, public opinion and ratings, and how these once fixed concepts have been blurred in the age of Web 2.0, troubling traditional notions of audiences as passive receivers or at times even victims. Through real-world contemporary examples and students' own experiences with media, this module seeks to make audience theory relevant and accessible to the study of personal and public media consumption.
One of the assessment methods employed on this module is a Digital Portfolio. The Digital Portfolio platform allows theoretical modules to create practical implementations of scholarly ideas and interactive forms of assessment, which may include blogging, video essays, and other forms of trans-media content.
Total contact hours: 48
Private study hours: 252
Total study hours: 300
Digital Portfolio (60%)
Essay (2000-words) (40%)
The Digital Portfolio platform allows theoretical modules to create practical implementations of scholarly ideas and interactive forms of assessment, which may include blogging, video essays, and other forms of trans-media content.
Butsch, R. (2008). The citizen audience: Crowds, publics, and individuals. New York, NY: Routledge.
Czitrom, D. J. (1982). Media and the American mind: From Morse to McLuhan. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Meadows, J. (2010). Broadcast and cable on the third screen: Moving television content to mobile devices. In J. A. Hendricks (Ed.), The twenty-first-century media industry: Economic and managerial implications in the age of new media, Studies in new media (pp. 173–190). Lanham, MD: Lexington Book
Webster, J. G., & Ksiazek, T. B. (2012). The dynamics of audience fragmentation: Public attention in an age of digital media. Journal of Communication, 62(1), 39–56. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2011.01616.x
Sisario, B. (2012, March 11). YouTube channels seek advertisers and audiences. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/technology/youtube-channels-seek-advertisers-and-audiences.html
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
- Demonstrate knowledge of media audiences through the study of themes and case studies.
- Demonstrate a wide-ranging understanding of the ways in which specific media and their technologies make, shape and influence audiences.
- Demonstrate a knowledge of some major thinkers, debates and key texts relevant to the study of media audiences.
- Demonstrate an understanding of fandom, public opinion and ratings, and how these concepts have been blurred in the age of Web 2.0.
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