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

Television Studies

This guide is an introduction to library and internet resources for Television Studies.
  • Introduction
  • TV courses
  • Introductory resources
  • Finding books about television
  • Finding television shows
  • Journals & magazines about television
  • History of television
  • Censorship
  • TV criticism
  • TV theory
  • Writing for television
  • Television adaptations
    • Shakespeare on television
  • TV ratings
  • TV audiences
  • TV advertising
  • TV reviews
  • TV genres This link opens in a new window
  • Quality television
  • Children's television
  • Sports on TV
  • Racial & ethnic representation on TV
    • African American diaspora
    • Asian American diaspora
    • Hispanic American diaspora
    • Native American & Indigenous diaspora
  • Women on/in/creating Television
    • Examples of women on television
  • LGBTQIA+
    • Examples of LGBTQIA+ on television
  • Television broadcasting & networks
  • Global television
  • Television in Europe
  • Chinese television
  • Spanish language TV
  • Public access television
  • Television news
  • Mass media industry
  • Transcripts
  • Television through the decades
    • 1950's Television & Earlier
    • 1960's Television
    • 1970's Television
    • 1980's Television
    • 1990's Television
    • 2000's Television
    • 2010's Television
  • Streaming television
  • Streaming film services
  • Internet resources
  • Future of Media
  • Back to Film & Media Studies
  • Scholarly communication This link opens in a new window
  • Feedback

Subject Librarian

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Lucinda M. Hall
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Subjects: Film and Media Studies, Geography, Polar Studies

Defining 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.

From its beginnings as a popular mass medium, the putative effects of films on audiences have aroused concern, often expressed as anxieties about the physical and moral health of cinemagoers, particularly the young and the lower classes. In the 1910s, for example, Britain’s National Council of Public Morals set up a Cinema Commission of Inquiry to assess the ‘physical, social, educational and moral influences of the cinema, with special reference to young people’, consulting experts ranging from senior police to local authority medical officers. Such pressure-group instigated investigations are typical of early inquiries into cinema and its audience, in that filmgoers were rarely called upon as witnesses. However, early scholarly ventures into the study of cinema did include some methodologically sophisticated independent research that involved actual audiences: in 1912 and 1913, for example, the sociologist Emilie Altenloh conducted a study of some 2,400 cinemagoers in the German industrial town of Mannheim, using interviews and questionnaires. Between the 1920s and the 1940s, the peak years of mass cinemagoing in many parts of the world, this kind of informant-based audience research by sociologists and social psychologists took place in Britain, the US, and elsewhere. Among the most influential of these are the Payne Fund Studies, conducted in the US between 1928 and 1932 and resulting in eight volumes published between 1933 and 1935 under the series title ‘Motion Pictures and Youth’. Because popularized versions of the findings became caught up in contemporary controversies around the effects of cinema on children and young people, as well as debates and policies on the censorship and regulation of films (see censorship; production code), the Payne Fund Studies’ groundbreaking developments in methods for researching cinema audiences, including the ‘motion picture autobiography’ (see psychology and film; sociology and film), were largely overlooked at the time.  ...

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Audience. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 31 May. 2023

In the Library's collections

  • television viewers
  • african american television viewers
  • minority television viewers

Selected book title(s)

  • Cover artAmerica, as seen on TV: how television shapes immigrant expectations around the globe by Clara E. Rodríguez
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry HE 8700.65 .R63 2018
    ISBN: 9781479818525
    The surprising effects of American TV on global viewers. As a dominant cultural export, American television is often the first exposure to American ideals and the English language for many people throughout the world. Yet, American television is flawed, and, it represents race, class, and gender in ways that many find unfair and unrealistic. What happens, then, when people who grew up on American television decide to come to the United States? What do they expect to find, and what do they actually find? In America, As Seen on TV, Clara E. Rodríguez surveys international college students and foreign nationals working or living in the US to examine the impact of American television on their views of the US and on their expectations of life in the United States. ...
  • Cover ArtThe future of audiences: a foresight analysis of interfaces and engagement by Ranjana Das; Brita Ytre-Arne, eds.
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9783319756370
    This book brings together contributions from scholars across Europe to present findings from a foresight analysis exercise on audiences and audience analysis, looking towards an increasingly datafied world and anticipating the ubiquity of the internet of things. The book uses knowledge emerging out of three foresight exercises, produced in co-operation with more than 50 stake-holding organisations and building on systematic reviews of audience research. ...
  • Cover artMillennial fandom: television audiences in the transmedia age by Louisa Ellen Stein
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9781609383558
    No longer a niche or cult identity, fandom now colors our notions of an expansive generational construct--the millennial generation. Like fans, millennials are frequently cast as active participants in media culture, spectators who expect opportunities to intervene, control, and create.
  • Cover artRatings analysis: audience measurement and analytics by James G. Webster; Patricia F. Phalen; Lawrence W. Lichty
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry HE 8700.65 .W42 2014
    ISBN: 9780415526524
    Publication Date: 4th ed.
    This 4th edition of Ratings Analysis describes and explains the current audience information system that supports economic exchange in both traditional and evolving electronic media markets.
  • Cover artReinventing the Latino television viewer: language, ideology, and practice by Christopher Chávez
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1992.8 .H54 C438 2015
    ISBN: 9781498506656
    Reinventing the Latino Television Viewer examines the relationship between language ideologies and the exploitation of markets within the television industry. Chavez explores how ideologies about language are reshaping the very concept of Hispanic television.
  • Cover artTelevision, ethnicity and cultural change by Marie Gillespie
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1992.3 .G7 G46 1995
    ISBN: 9780415096751
    For 'ethnic minorities' in Britain, broadcast TV provides powerful representations of national and 'western' culture. In Southall - which has the largest population of 'South Asians' outside the Indian sub-continent - the VCR furnishes Hindi films, 'sacred soaps' such as the Mahabharata, and family videos of rites of passage, as well as mainstream American films. Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change examines how TV and video are being used to recreate cultural traditions within the 'South Asian' diaspora, and how they are also catalysing cultural change in this local community. ...
  • Cover artTelevision 2.0: viewer and fan engagement with digital TV by Rhiannon Bury
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1992.55 .B87 2017
    ISBN: 9781433138522
    Television 2.0 sets out to document and interrogate shifting patterns of engagement with digital television. Television content has not only been decoupled from the broadcast schedule through the use of digital video recorders (DVRs) but from broadcasting itself through streaming platforms such as Netflix, Vimeo and YouTube as well as downloading platforms such as iTunes and The Pirate Bay. Moreover, television content has been decoupled from the television screen itself as a result of digital convergence and divergence, leading to the proliferation of computer and mobile screens. Television 2.0 is the first book to provide an in-depth empirical investigation into these technological affordances and the implications for viewing and fan participation. ...
  • Cover artTelevision audiences across the world: deconstructing the ratings machine by Jerome Bourdon; Cécile Méadel, eds.
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9781137345097
    This book is the first to deal with the world composition of television ratings. It focuses on the peoplemeter, a 25 year old technology which succeeds in homogenizing very different populations and television practices.
  • Cover artTV outside the box: trailblazing in the digital television revolution by Neil Landau
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9781138905269
    TV Outside the Box: Trailblazing in the Digital Television Revolution explores the new and exploding universe of on-demand, OTT (Over the Top) networks: Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Crackle, CW Seed, Vimeo, AwesomenessTV, and many more. ...

Other library resource(s)

  • Resource logoAudience 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. ...
  • Resource logoTelevision audiences from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Karen Buzzard
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    ISBN: 9780199791286
    Classical understanding of an audience assumed that it is composed of individuals physically co-present. With the interposition of a device or system between the source and the receivers, such as that made possible by the rise of mass communications technology in the 20th century, ideas of the audience changed over time from an audience as co-present to a mediated audience, one of disparate individuals often separated substantially in space and time.

Finding articles & journal titles

You can use a variety of sources to find articles about television audiences. One source is the index Film & Television Literature Index. It is a database dedicated to literature about film and television. There is a special issue from the journal Television & New Media on audience analysis.

  • Issue cover artA field in flux: the intriguing past and the promising future of audience analysis from Television & New Media by SAGE Publishing
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic journal issue
    A special issue from the journal on audience analysis. (2019, v. 20, 2)
  • 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 logoScreen studies collection by ProQuest
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    A comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
  • Resource logoThe web of science citation databases by ISI (Institute for Scientific Information)
    • 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.

Ratings Information on the Internet

There are many sites that have viewer ratings for television shows. However, they all get the information from Nielsen Media Research.

  • MarketingCharts
    • Link
    MarketingCharts considers themselves to be a one-stop source for marketing data, graphics and analyses, serving the needs of today’s data-driven marketer.
  • Nielsen Media Research
    • Link
    Nielsen Media Research tracks the television and media viewing habits of people across the country and the world. These are their Top 10 lists.
  • TV Parental Guidelines
    • Link
    With an increasing number of TV channels and programs, it can be hard for parents to monitor what their children are watching. The TV Parental Guidelines give parents more information about the content and age-appropriateness of TV programs.
  • Variety.com
    • Link
    Variety is the most authoritative and trusted source of entertainment business news, recognized and respected throughout the world. Since 1905, influential producers, executives and talent in entertainment and beyond have turned to Variety for award-winning daily breaking news reports, insightful award-season coverage, must-read feature spotlights and intelligent analysis of the industry’s most prominent players. ...

Internet resource(s)

  • OpenAP
    • Link
    Founded and owned by the largest TV networks in the U.S., they are a collective of seasoned leaders building a company that will fundamentally change the way advertising is bought and sold on television. Together with their partners they are powering a more sustainable model for ad-supported TV.

Keeping up with Television Studies journal literature

Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Television 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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  • Last Updated: May 20, 2025 4:52 PM
  • URL: https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/television
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Subjects: Film and Media Studies
Tags: censorship, children's television, chinese television, global television, humanities, LGBTQIA+, new_media, public-access television, quality television, radio, representation, reviews, sports, television ratings, television theory, tv, tv advertising, tv ratings, women, writing for television

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