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Audiences: A Sociological Theory of Performance and Imagination First Edition
Author(s): Nicholas Abercrombie (Author), Brian Longhurst (Author)
- Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
- Publication Date: 28 April 1998
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 208 pages
- ISBN-10: 080398961X
- ISBN-13: 9780803989610
Book Description
Audiences are problematic and the study of audiences has represented a key site of activity in the social sciences and humanities. Offering a timely review of the past 50 years of theoretical and methodological debate Audiences argues the case for a paradigmatic shift in audience research.
This shift, argue the authors, is necessitated by the emergence of the `diffused audience′. Audience experience can no longer be simply classified as `simple′ or `mass′, for in modern advanced capitalist societies, people are members of an audience all the time. Being a member of an audience is no longer an exceptional event, nor even an everyday event, rather it is constitutive of everyday life. This book offers an invaluable review of the literature and a new point of departure for audience research.
Editorial Reviews
Review
`This book brings the study of the audience into the centre of the study of electronic mediation, and the study of electronic mediation into the centre of the study of society and culture. In so doing it captures something of the inescapable intensity of the media in the late twentieth century in ways which are both accessible and provocative. It should be widely read′ – Roger Silverstone
`Timely and refreshing….the authors successfully assert is that to understand audiences both method and theory must take account of wider social processes and not to isolate media use from the complex rhythms, patterns and practices of everyday life. In locating audiences within this wider framework they have laid down a formidable challenge for future research′ – Framework
About the Author
Professor Brian Longhurst is a sociologist who has long standing interests in cultural studies, media studies and the sociology of culture. His books include Popular Music and Society (Polity Press, 1995, 2007), The Penguin Dictionary of Media Studies (co-authored, 2007), Globalization and Belonging (co-authored, Sage, 2005), Introducing Cultural Studies (co-authored, Pearson, 1999, 2004) and Audiences: A Sociological Theory of Performance and Imagination (co-authored 1998). He has held research grants from various bodies including ESRC and EPSRC and has published widely in a range of journals and edited collections. He was formerly Head of the School of English, Sociology, Politics & Contemporary History (ESPaCH), Associate Dean for Research and Director of the Institute for Social Research, all at the University of Salford. He has been a Director of Salford′s prize winning initiative, Community Finance Solutions and was the founding Chair of the Board of East Lancs Moneyline (ELM), a successful Community Reinvestment Trust.
