Any theory about the media is incom

Any theory about the media is incomplete if it does not take audiences (or “readers”) into account. We may analyze texts and the processes through which they are produced, but without understanding audiences, such analyses can imply more than they deliver. To fully assess the media’s role in society—its mediation, limitations, and sometimes unexpected implications—we need to study how people “read,” use, and respond to the media. This is perhaps the most difficult task of all. The audience is an ephemeral and inherently relational concept. Audiences are defined, at least initially, in relation to texts (films, news bulletins, soap operas) or objects (such as books, radio, or TV sets). Quite who constitutes the audience, as well as when, where, and under what circumstances, is necessarily elastic. There is a corresponding wide variety in the techniques used to study audiences, the contexts within which they are placed, and the meanings made out of such research. Anyone interested in audience research should also heed the warning offered by Nightingale (1996):

Just as people as audiences cannot be separated from personal, social and cultural continuity, so texts cannot be isolated from their broader cultural significance, or from the history of that significance. The audience-text relation is a chimera, which can only ever be apprehended partially. We think we are seeing reality when what we see is more like a holographic reflection, changing as our own point of reference changes and dependent on our ability to see—on the quality of our vision. Audience is a shifty concept. (p. 148).

When reviewing audience research, it is useful to reflect on who is interested in the audience, as well as how questions are framed and audiences envisaged. This chapter starts by outlining four different spheres of concern that prompt such research. It then focuses on debates between those investigating the media’s role in relation to politics, culture, and identity. This sets the scene for outlining how researchers select the focus of enquiry and the diverse data collection methods they use. The following discussion thus covers the following:
♦The impetus for audience research
♦Framing the question—a review of diverse approaches and disputes
♦Framing the audience—deciding who to study (when and where)