Subject Librarian
Dartmouth College
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Definition for audience
A group of people assembled to watch and listen 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; and also 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 that 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.
Source: Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2012). "Audience." In A Dictionary of Film Studies. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 8 Sep. 2020
In the Library's collections
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.
- Nielsen's Weekly Top 10sNielsen 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 GuidelinesWith 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.
- TV Ratings GuideHistorical and current ratings for television broadcasting. This site replaces TV by the Numbers.
Selected book titles
Desperately seeking the audience by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780415052702Millions of people all over the world are avid members of the television audience. Yet, despite the central place television occupies in contemporary culture, our understanding of its complex and dynamic role in everyday life remains surprisingly limited. Focusing on the television audience, Ien Ang asks why we understand so little about its nature, and argues that our ignorance arises directly out of the biases inherent in prevailing official knowledge about it. ...
Rating the audience : the business of media by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781849663427Knowing, measuring and understanding media audiences have become a multi-billion dollar business. But the convention that underpins that business, audience ratings, is in crisis. Rating the Audience is the first book to show why and how audience ratings research became a convention, an agreement, and the first to interrogate the ways that agreement is now under threat. Taking a historical approach, the book looks at the evolution of audience ratings and the survey industry. ...
Reality TV: factual entertainment and television audiences by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780415261517Reality TV restores a crucial, and often absent, element to the critical debate about reality television: the voices of people who watch reality programmes. From Animal Hospital to Big Brother, Annette Hill argues that much can be learned from listening to audience discussion about this popular and rapidly changing television genre. Viewers' responses to reality TV can provide invaluable information to enhance our understanding of both the reality genre and contemporary television audiences. ...
Reinventing the Latino television viewer: language, ideology, and practice by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1992.8 .H54 C438 2015ISBN: 9781498506656Reinventing 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.
Television, ethnicity, and cultural change by Call Number: eBook availableISBN: 9780415096744For '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. ...
Television and new media : must-click TV by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1992.3 .U5 G55 2011ISBN: 9780415802383We watch TV on computers, phones, and other mobile devices; television is now online as much as it is "on air." Television and New Media introduces readers to the ways that new media technologies have transformed contemporary broadcast television production, scheduling, distribution, and reception practices. ...
Tracking the audience : the ratings industry from analog to digital by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780805858525In Tracking the Audience: The Ratings Industry From Analog to Digital, Karen Buzzard examines the key economic, political, and competitive factors that have influenced ratings methods dominant in each of the markets for radio, TV, and the Internet, tracing the practice¹s history from its early beginnings up to its most recent advances. ...
Other library resource(s)
Television audiences from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Classical 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.
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.