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  1. Dartmouth Libraries
  2. Research Guides
  3. Dartmouth Libraries Guides
  4. Film Studies
  5. Film audiences

Film Studies

This guide is an introduction to the resources for Film Studies at Dartmouth. If you are interested in Television, see the separate research guide for Television.
  • Introduction
  • Basic information on film
  • Finding a specific film title
  • Streaming film services
    • Readings on streaming video
  • National cinemas This link opens in a new window
  • Course guides for Film & Media Studies
  • Starting your research ...
  • Researching early films
  • Film history through the decades
    • 1960's film history
    • 1970's film history
    • 1980s film history
  • Books about film
  • Film reviews
  • Journals & magazines about film
  • Film theory
    • Feminist film theory
    • Auteur theory
  • Film criticism
    • Feminist film criticism
  • Box office information
  • Film audiences
  • Mass media Industry
  • Primary sources for historical film research
    • Cinema Pressbooks from the Original Studio Collections
    • Congressional Hearings & Communism
    • Film Daily
    • Herrick Library Digital Collections
    • Hollywood and the Production Code
    • Media History Digital Library
    • Moving Picture World
  • Themes
  • Acting
  • Racial & ethnic representation on film
    • African American diaspora
    • Asian American diaspora
    • Hispanic American diaspora
    • Native American & Indigenous peoples diasporas
    • Examples on film
  • LGBTQIA+
    • Examples on film
  • Women on/in/creating Film
    • Examples on film
  • Film genres This link opens in a new window
  • Film & society
  • Screenwriting
  • Film adaptations
    • Shakespeare on film
    • Television to Film adaptations
  • Color in film
  • Film music
  • Film festivals
    • A short list of film festivals
  • Film awards
  • Disney
  • Hitchcock
  • Internet resources
  • Future of Media
  • Back to Film & Media
  • Scholarly communication This link opens in a new window
  • Video Help

Subject Librarian

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Lucinda M. Hall
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Contact:
Evans Map Room, Baker-Berry Library
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Hanover, NH 03755
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Subjects: Film and Media Studies, Geography, Polar Studies

Internet resource(s)

  • Audiences from the British Film Institute (BFI)
    • Link
    Their research covers gender, age, ethnicity, social group and region, both for the UK audience as a whole and for particular popular titles.
  • European Cinema Audiences Research
    • Link
    European Cinema Audiences is a comparative research project that explores European film cultures in the 1950s. ...
  • Understanding audiences from Independent Cinema Office
    • Link
    The key to making a cinema successful is having a strong feel for the range of audiences that it might attract: who are they, what do they want to see and how do you communicate with them?

Citing and Tracking Your Bibliographic References

Use this guide to help you learn how to correctly cite and keep track of the references you find for your research.

  • Cite & Manage Sources
    • Link

A short definition for "audience"

A body of individuals watching and/or listening to a show, concert, film, or speech. The cinema audience comprises people who assemble to watch films in cinemas and other venues, both public and private, as well as those who consume films via alternative platforms such as video, DVD, home cinema, and television. Quantitative data on attendances at cinemas and on cinema box-office takings are routinely gathered by the film industry, and in some countries by government bodies as well: data are normally published in the trade press and in government statistics. In film studies, the sociological or cultural notion of the cinema audience is commonly distinguished from the idea of the spectator, where spectatorship is understood as a relationship or engagement with the film text. Since the study of film spectatorship and the study of cinema audiences derive from distinct disciplinary approaches and methodologies, it is helpful to hold to a conceptual distinction between the two terms, spectator and audience. ...

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Audience. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 26 Apr. 2023

In the Library's collections

You can use the subject heading below to find resources for film audiences. There is also a keyword search for "film audiences" which will find different items.

  • motion picture audiences
  • film audiences
    This is a keyword search in the online catalog.

Introductory reading(s)

  • Cover artThe audience effect: on the collective cinema experience by Julian Hanich
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .A8 H36 2018
    ISBN: 9781474414951
    Is the experience of watching a film with others in a cinema crucially different from watching a film alone? Does laughing together amplify our enjoyment, and when watching a film in communal rapt attention, does this intensify the whole experience? Attending a film in a cinema implies being influenced by other people, an "audience effect" that is particularly noticeable once affective responses like laughter, weeping, embarrassment, guilt, or anger play a role. In this innovative book, Julian Hanich explores the subjectively lived experience of watching films together, to discover a fuller understanding of cinema as an art form and a social institution that matters to millions of people worldwide. ...
  • Cover ArtAudiences: defining and researching screen entertainment reception by Ian Christie, ed.
    • Open Access Icon
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9789048515059
    Moving away from the recent prevalence of text-based analysis in the field of film studies, Audience tackles one of the most important issues in cinema--how the audience engages with film. Ian Christie has assembled contributions from many of the major figures in media studies, including Gregory Waller, John Sedgwick, and Martin Baker, in order to provide a wide-ranging survey of viewers' relationships with the screen. ...
  • Cover artIn broad daylight: movies and spectators after the cinema by Gabriele Pedullà; Patricia Gaborik, tr.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .A8 P4813 2012
    ISBN: 9781844678532
    From plasma screens to smartphones, today moving images are everywhere. How have films adapted to this new environment? And how has the experience of the spectator changed because of this proliferation? In Broad Daylight investigates one of the decisive shifts in the history of Western aesthetics, exploring the metamorphosis of films in the age of individual media, when the public is increasingly free but also increasingly resistant to the emotive force of the pictures flashing around us. ...
  • Cover artThe SAGE handbook of film studies by James Donald; Michael Renov, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1994 .S325 2008
    ISBN: 9780761943266
    Film Studies has emerged as one of the most distinctive and exciting areas of study and research to be established in the second half of the twentieth century. Written by a team of veteran scholars and emerging talents, The SAGE Handbook of Film Studies maps the international traditions of the field, drawing out regional differences in the way that intellectual reflection on cinema and film has been transformed into a field of systematic inquiry. It reflects on the field's conceptual infrastructure, the dominant paradigms and debates, and evaluates their continuing salience. ...
  • Cover artScreen stories: emotion and the ethics of engagement by Carl Plantinga
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.5 .P52 2018
    ISBN: 9780190867140
    The way we communicate with each other is vital to preserving the cultural ecology, or wellbeing, of a place and time. Do we listen to each other? Do we ask the right questions? Do we speak about each other with respect or disdain? The stories that we convey on screens, or what author Carl Plantinga calls "screen stories," are one powerful and pervasive means by which we communicate with each other. Screen Stories: Emotion and the Ethics of Engagement argues that film and media studies needs to move toward an approach to ethics that is more appropriate for mass consumer culture and the lives of its citizens. Primarily concerned with the relationship between media and viewers, this book considers ethical criticism and the emotional power of screen stories that makes such criticism necessary....

Selected book title(s)

  • Cover art Cinema audiences and modernity: new perspectives on European cinema history by Daniel Biltereyst, Richard Maltby, and Philippe Meers, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .A8 C57 2012
    ISBN: 9780415672788
    This book sheds new light on the cinema and modernity debate by confronting established theories on the role of the modern cinematic experience with new empirical work on the history of the social experience of cinema-going, film audiences and film exhibition. ...
  • Cover art From Sweetback to Super Fly: race and film audiences in Chicago's Loop by Gerald R. Butters
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9780826273291
    Racial politics and capitalism found a way to blend together in 1970s Chicago in the form of movie theaters targeted specifically toward African Americans. In From Sweetback to Super Fly, Gerald Butters examines the movie theaters in Chicago's Loop that became, as he describes them, "black spaces" during the early 1970s with theater managers making an effort to gear their showings toward the African American community by using black-themed and blaxploitation films. Butters covers the wide range of issues that influenced the theaters, from changing racial patterns to the increasingly decrepit state of Chicago's inner city and the pressure on businesses and politicians alike to breathe life into the dying area. ...
  • Cover art House full: Indian cinema and the active audience by Lakshmi Srinivas
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .I8 S674 2016
    ISBN: 9780226361567
    India is the largest producer and consumer of feature films in the world, far outstripping Hollywood in the number of movies released and tickets sold every year. Cinema quite simply dominates Indian popular culture, and has for many decades exerted an influence that extends from clothing trends to music tastes to everyday conversations, which are peppered with dialogue quotes. ...
  • Cover art Live cinema: cultures, economies, aesthetics by Sarah Atkinson and Helen W. Kennedy, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .D57 A85 2018
    ISBN: 9781501324833
    Live Cinema is a term used to capture a diverse range of experiences that incorporate a 'live' element in relation to a film's exhibition. The live augmentation of cinema screenings is not a new phenomenon, indeed this tendency is present throughout the entire history of cinema in the form of live musical accompaniments to silent screenings, showmanship practices, and cult film audience behaviours. ...

Other library resource(s)

  • Resource logo Audience studies from Oxford Bibliographies Online - Communication by Philip Napoli, Steve Voorhees
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    ISBN: 9780199756841
    Audience studies is a broad and multifaceted area of communication research. It encompasses a wide range of theoretical perspectives, as well as a diversity of methodological approaches, that all share a concern with understanding how and why audiences engage with media, and the broader political, cultural, and economic implications of the media––audience relationship. These areas of focus distinguish audience studies from the related area of media effects, which is more explicitly focused on the impact that media content has on audiences. ...
  • Cover art The film audience: an international bibliography of research with annotations and an essay by Bruce A. Austin
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry Z 5784 .M9 A87 1983
    ISBN: 9780810816220
    An annotated bibliography of more than 1,200 film audience research studies. Includes an essay entitled 'The Motion Picture Audience: A Neglected Aspect of Film Research' that introduces the reader to the subject of film audience research.

Finding articles & journal titles

You can find articles about film audiences in a variety of publications. To make your searching easier, you can start your search in an index dedicated to the literature of film and television or use the search box at the top of the page.

  • Resource logoFilm & television literature index
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    This index covers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television. About half the journals and magazines are film periodicals and the other half cover film and television with some regularity. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
  • Resource logoWeb of science citation databases by Clarivate
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    The online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.

Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature

Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.

You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.

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  • Next: Mass media Industry >>
  • Last Updated: Jun 11, 2025 3:54 PM
  • URL: https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/filmstudies
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Subjects: Film and Media Studies
Tags: Arts, box office, festivals, FILM, film aesthetics, film color, film criticism, film music, film reviews, film studies, future of media, genres, LGBTQIA+, media industry, primary resources, queer cinema, representation in film, screenwriting, streaming film services, themes, women in film

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