Studying the Elusive Audience

Abstract

This introductory chapter outlines the recent evolution of audience research, focusing on the ways in which the field has addressed the theoretical, economic, cultural, and technological currents of the moment. I argue that audience studies has not only survived the backlash against its populist tendencies in the late eighties to mid‐nineties, but it has also thrived and expanded to include a range of audiences, media genres, modes of audience engagement, and institutional and international sites of reception. This chapter explains the volume's contributions, its organizational structure, and the intellectual and empirical terrain of audience studies that the book's remaining chapters cover.