The Handbook of Media Audiences

This book offers helpful background readings for media research courses. Summing up: recommended. Choice This much-needed volume provides up-to-date, cutting-edge research and scholarship on one of the most researched but still little understood media concepts, that of 'the audience'. Karen Ross, University of Liverpool Admirably comprehensive and with original contributions from leading scholars in the field, this is a volume that everyone should have on their shelf. Graham Murdock, Loughborough University Digital media have dramatically increased the nature and diversity of the ways people can access media content, and the bias that audiences occupy a position of reception is giving way to an understanding of audiences as media-active. The contributions assembled here offer an expansion of the conceptual frameworks underlying the field and a wealth of research wisdom and expertise for researchers requiring a solid foundation in the complexity of audience and audiences and of existing research traditions. Placing the emphasis on technologies, theories, research methods and research pragmatics, this Handbook brings together leading international scholars to provide a comprehensive overview of the complexity and diversity of audience studies.