I admire Wilson′s synthetic approach to audience study and the attention he gives to the burgeoning field of cell phones, computer screens, and video games since in the past most audience study material has been focused on film and television. (
PsycCRITIQUES, March 2009)
"As a pioneering study of phenomenological media analysis Wilson′s book serves as a useful introduction to this emerging field of research, as well as offering a brief and scathing overview of the wider context of audience studies in which his work is situated. As such, the book will be of interest to scholars from a wide variety of fields and disciplines." (M/C Reviews, February 2009)
Acknowledgments vi
Introduction 1
1 A Passive Audience? Structuralist and Effects Studies 7
2 The Active Audience: Speaking Subjects 29
3 Perceiving is Believing: From Phenomenology to Media User Theory 46
4 Meanings Are Ours: Reader Response and Audience Studies 59
5 The Projecting Audience: From Cinema to Cellphone 74
6 A Phenomenology of Phone Use: Pervasive Play and the Ludification of Culture 94
7 Selling on Screen: From Media Hermeneutics to Marketing Communication 112
8 Buying Brandscapes: A Phenomenology of Perception and Purchase 130
9 Consumer–Citizens: Crossing Cultures in Cyberspace 146
Conclusion: Media User Theory: Going Beyond Accumulation of Audiences 173
References 176
Index 204
Tony Wilson is Associate Professor, Faculty of Economics and Business, at University Malaysia Sarawak, and Associate Research Fellow, Global Cities Institute, at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Understanding Media Users: From Theory to Practice focuses on the blurred concept of the
active audience at the core of media studies. Charting the complex terrain of screen reception theory and applied research, this new volume offers wide–ranging criticism of media effects. It highlights connections and contrasts between European communications and US consumer theory, reading books and using screens, philosophy and new media research, and between the process and politics of viewing.
A philosophically informed pointer to the diverse thinking on audiences that has emerged over the past quarter century, Understanding Media Users is also a guide to qualitative investigation through focus groups and student–conducted interviews. Crossing cultures and generations, and enriched by Asian perspectives, the book examines Western hypotheses on media use.