CMAf05 Making The Most Of Our Audiences. Theory, History and Practice of Empirical Audience Research

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2024

The course is not taught in Autumn 2024

Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
Martin Barker (lecturer), doc. Mgr. Pavel Skopal, Ph.D. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
doc. Mgr. Pavel Skopal, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.
Course objectives
The course will present what are the key challenges and purposes for academic audience research. On the case of the international projects focused on reception of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, students will be introduced to the methodological difficulties of the projects and their designing.
Learning outcomes
The students will be able to evaluate critically the demands of a project focused on international cinema audiences, to use significant methodological approaches, and to design a research project of their own.
Syllabus
  • 1. Audience & Reception Research: the State of the Field.
  • This first presentation will be a broad survey, trying to identify important trends and developments. What are the key challenges and purposes for academic audience research today, and (among other things) how should these relate to policy-makers?;
  • Reading:
    Sonia Livingstone. Audience research at the crossroads: the "implied audience" in media and cultural theory, 1996. (available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/392/1/EJofCulturalStudies1(2).pdf)
    Martin Barker. “I have seen the future and it is not here yet”: or, on being ambitious for audience research , Communication Review, 9:2, 2006, pp. 123-41. (Available herewith as PDF);
    2. Researching Screened Sexual Violence: the Last Taboo
  • In 2006, I was given the opportunity to lead funded research for the British Board of Film Classification into the most difficult topic: the responses of men and women to watching sexual violence on screen. In the UK, this is the ‘last taboo’ – it is the BBFC’s most significant reason today for banning or cutting films. What did we learn – and why did the BBFC, having commissioned us, then ignore our research?;
  • Reading:
    Martin Barker et al. Audiences and receptions of sexual violence in contemporary cinema, Report to the British Board of Film Classification. (Available at: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/Audiences%20and%20Receptions%20of%20Sexual%20Violence%20in%20Contemporary%20Cinema_0.pdf)
    Martin Barker. Embracing rape: understanding the attraction of exploitation movies, in Feona Attwood et al (eds.), Controversial Images: Media Representations on the Edge, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013, pp. 271-38. (Available herewith as PDF.)
    Martin Barker. Watching rape, enjoying watching rape: how does a study of audiences cha(lle)nge film studies approaches?, in Tanya Horeck & Tina Kendall (eds.), The New Extremism in Cinema: From France to Europe, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011, pp. 105-16. (Available herewith as PDF.);
  • 3. The Challenges of a World Research Project.
    In 2001-3, and then again in 2013-5, worldwide audience research projects were attempted, first into people’s responses to the films of The Lord of the Rings, then the same for The Hobbit. What were we trying to achieve, what problems did we meet, and was it all worthwhile?;
  • Reading:
    Kate Egan & Martin Barker. Rings around the World: Notes on the Challenges, Problems & Possibilities of International Audience Projects, Participations, 3:2, 2006. (Available online.)
  • Martin Barker & Ernest Mathijs. Researching world audiences: the experiences of a complex project, Participations, 9:2, 2012. (Available online.);
  • 4. What Did We Learn From The Lord of the Rings Project?
    The Lord of the Rings project managed to gather just under 25,000 responses to its questionnaire. The number is big – but what did it enable us to learn, that couldn’t have been learnt by a smaller project?;
  • Reading:
    Martin Barker. The Lord of the Rings and “identification”: a critical encounter, European Journal of Communication, 20:3, 2005, pp. 353-78. (Available herewith as PDF.)
    Martin Barker. Changing lives, challenging concepts: Some findings and lessons from the Lord of the Rings project, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 12:4, 2009, pp. 375-93. (Available herewith as PDF.)
    Martin Barker & Ernest Mathijs (eds.) Watching The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s World Audiences, New York: Peter Lang, 2007.;
  • 5. What’s “Live” About It?: Researching the Rise of Simulcasting.
  • In January 2006, the New York Metropolitan Opera launched a new initiative, as a main tactic in its bid to reverse a serious funding crisis. It filmed a live performance in its house, and broadcast it to cinemas across the north eastern USA. This was the start of what has come to be known (among other things) as ‘livecasting’, ‘simulcasting’, ‘digital broadcast cinema’, and ‘event cinema’, and which has now spread across the globe, for opera, theatre, ballet, classical and pop music (jazz was tried, but failed), museum tours, and sports. The launch was accompanied by a swirl of research into its audiences: who went, what they liked, what they were prepared to pay, and so on. It also raised complex questions about the meanings, today, of ‘liveness’. I was one of those researchers, and will talk about what we learnt about this new phenomenon.;
  • Reading:
    Martin Barker. Live To Your Local Cinema’: The Remarkable Rise of Livecasting, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012.
    Paul Heyer. Live from the Met: Digital Broadcast cinema, and opera for the masses (Available at: file:///C:/Users/Martin/Downloads/2090-5022-1-PB.pdf)
    Kay Armatage. Opera cinematics: a new view from the stalls, in Ian Christie (ed.), Audiences, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012, pp. 218-25.
Literature
  • Ian Christie (ed.), Audiences. Defining and Researching Screen Entertainment Reception. Amsterdam University Press, 2012
  • Watching the Lord of the rings : Tolkien's world audiences. Edited by Martin Barker - Ernest Mathijs. New York: Peter Lang, 2008, xiv, 297. ISBN 9780820463964. info
Teaching methods
Lectures.
Assessment methods
Written test.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
The course is taught only once.
The course is taught: in blocks.
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