Veidlapa Nr. M-3 (8)
Study Course Description
Media Audiences
Course Code
KF_021
Branch of Science
Library Science; Media and communications
ECTS
3.00
Target Audience
Communication Science
LQF
Level 8
Study Type And Form
Full-Time
Study Course Implementer
Course Supervisor
Anda Rožukalne
Structure Unit Manager
Ieva Puzo
Structural Unit
Faculty of Social Sciences
Contacts
Dzirciema street 16, Rīga, szf@rsu.lv
About Study Course
Objective
To motivate students to discuss theoretical views of different authors on the process of interaction between the media system and media audience. By evaluating the contribution and feasibility of normative media theories in understanding the phenomenon of the modern media environment, the media uses and gratifications theory, which explains the use of media and regularities in audience behaviour, will be emphasised among communication theories. By evaluating media audience research traditions and latest research methods, students will be able to select research methods and tools appropriate for their research goals.
Preliminary Knowledge
Course “Communication and Cultural Theories”.
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge
1.After mastering the course students obtain knowledge on media audience formation models, transformation trends; understand media audience formation regularities, typology, theoretical approaches to audience analysis; media use sociology.
Skills
1.After mastering the course students critically evaluate theoretical approaches in evaluation of media audience and use them for the analysis and solution of problems in research and media practice; evaluate phenomena and effects of media audience; interpret media audience perception phenomena and research data; integrate media audience data in the communication process; conduct media audience research for the achievement of different communication goals.
Competences
1.After mastering the course students analyse media audiences to reach different communication goals; discuss the interaction between the media system and media audience; analyse media audience research results.
Assessment
Individual work
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Title
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% from total grade
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Grade
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|---|---|---|
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1.
Individual work |
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-
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The student evaluates the latest literature on audience research, selects literature on a specific matter, which is necessary for his/her doctoral thesis, conducts an profound research and prepares an essay on it by critically evaluating contributions of authors. At a seminar the student offers audience data and their analysis in the context of challenges of his/her doctoral thesis. Explains how they can be used in conducting research under the doctoral thesis. Defines necessary audience research direction in the context of the problem of the doctoral thesis. Participates in a discussion. Prepares a presentation on what has been learned and what conclusions have been made.
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Examination
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Title
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% from total grade
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Grade
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|---|---|---|
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1.
Examination |
-
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-
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During the seminar the student offers audience data and its analysis in context with the problems of his / her doctoral thesis. Presents data and conclusions. Explains how they can be used in the research of the dissertation. Defines the required audience research directions in the context of the dissertation problem. Participate in the discussion.
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2.
Examination |
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-
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Assessment:
• selection of literature 30%;
• analysis of literature 50%;
• submission of an essay and a presentation 20%.
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Study Course Theme Plan
FULL-TIME
Part 1
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Concept of mass audience and changes in it. Mass self-communication.
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Media audiences in media eco-system. Research problems and trends.
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-
Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Interaction among users of media audience and social media. Trust and media audiences. Truth default theory.
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-
Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Media audiences and virtual communities: interactivity, participation culture and fans in the digital environment.
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-
Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Social media use effects: “information bubble, “echo chamber” and crystallisation theory.
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-
Lecture
|
Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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On site
|
Auditorium
|
2
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Topics
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Social media use effects: “information bubble, “echo chamber” and crystallisation theory.
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-
Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Audience research methods: traditions, research goals, data. Sharing pfenomena. " Folk theories" of media use.
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-
Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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|---|---|---|
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Discussion on the place of audience research in the process of creating a doctoral thesis. Creating a subsection of work using literature.
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Total ECTS (Creditpoints):
3.00
Contact hours:
16 Academic Hours
Final Examination:
Exam (Oral)
Bibliography
Required Reading
1.
Albarran, A.B. (2010) The Media Economy. New York: Routledge.
2.
Altschull J. H. (1990) From Milton to McLuhan: The Ideas Behind American Journalism, 1st ed., USA: Allyn & Bacon.
3.
Archetti, C. (2010) ‘Towards an interdisciplinary explanation of the construction of news Comparing international coverage of 9/11’ Journalism, 11(5) 567–588.
4.
Arnold S. de Beer, John C. Merrill. (2008) Global Journalism: Topical Issues and Media Systems, 5th ed. Pearson.
5.
Berger, Arthur Asa. (1998) Media research techniques. Thousand Oaks : Sage.
6.
Carpentier, N. (2001) „Managing Audience Participation: The Construction of Participation in an Audience Discussion Programme”, European Journal of Communication 16.
7.
Carpentier, N. (2003) „The BBC’s Video Nation as a participatory media practice. Signifying everyday life, cultural diversity and participation in an online community”, International Journal of Cultural Studies 6(4): 425–447.
8.
Croteau, D. (2000) Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences. 2nd ed. California: Thousand Oaks.
9.
Cushion, S., Lewis, J., Ramsay G.N. (2012) ‘The impact of interventionist regulation in reshaping news agendas: comparative analysis of public and commercially funded television’ Journalism 13: 831, doi: 10.1177/1464884911431536
10.
Dayan, D. (2001) „The peculiar audience of TV Media”, Culture&Society 23: 743 – 765.
11.
Gauntlett, D. (2002) Media, Gender and Identity. An introduction. London: Routledge.
12.
Gray, J. (2008) „New audience, new textualities. Anti fans and non- fans”, International Journal of Cultural Studies 6 (1): 64 – 81.
13.
Jenkins H. (2008) Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide. New York and London: New York University Press.
14.
Jenkins H. (2006) Fans, Bloggers and Gamers. New York and London: New York University Press.
15.
Levy M. R., Windahl, S. (1984) Audience activity and gratifications. A Conceptual Clarification and Exploration, Communication Research. Thousand Oaks : SAGE.
16.
Livingstone, S. (2004) „The Challenge of Changing Audiences Or, What is the Audience Researcher to do in the Age of the Internet?”, European Journal of Communication, 19(1): 75–86.
17.
McQuail D. (1997) Audience Analysis. London: Sage.
18.
McQuail, D. (2000) McQuails’ Mass Communication Theory. 4th ed. London: SAGE.
19.
Nithingale, V., K. Ross (2003) Critical readings: Media and the Audiences, England: Open University Press.
20.
Perse, E., D. Ferguson (2003) „Audience activity and the third generation of television”. Sk. internetā (2006.23.04) http://www.udel.edu
21.
Aalberg, Toril, Peter van Aelst and James Curran. (2010) Media systems and the political information environment: A cross-national comparison. The International Journal of Press/Politics 15:255–271.
22.
Boomgaarden, H.G. & Song, H. Köln Z Soziol. (2019) Media Use and Its Effects in a Cross-National Perspective
23.
Aalberg, Toril, Arild Blekesaune and Eiri Elvestad. (2013) Media choice and informed democracy: Toward increasing news consumption gaps in Europe? The International Journal of Press/Politics 18:281–303.
24.
Bartsch, Anne, Roland Mangold, Reinhold Viehoff and Peter Vorderer. (2006) Emotional gratifications during media use – An integrative approach. Communications 31:261–278.
25.
Blumler, Jay. (1979) The role of theory in uses and gratifications studies. Communication Research, 6: 9–36.
26.
Bright, Jonathan. (201) Explaining the emergence of political fragmentation on social media: The role of ideology and extremism. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 23:17–33.
27.
Castells, Manuel. (2011) The rise of the network society (2nd ed.). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons.
28.
Nielsen, R.K. (2016) ‘Folk Theories of Journalism: The many faces of a local newspaper’. Journalism Studies, 17(7), 840-848.
29.
Chadwick, A. (2017) The hybrid media system: Politics and power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
30.
Costera Meijer, I. (2020) Understanding the Audience Turn in Journalism: From Quality Discourse to Innovation Discourse as Anchoring Practices 1995–2020. Journalism Studies, 21,16, 2326-2342.
31.
Deuze, M. und Witschge, T. (2018) Beyond Journalism: Theorizing the Transformation of Journalism. Journalism, 19, 165–81.
32.
Hanitzsch, T., van Dalen, A., & Steindl, N. (2018) Caught in the Nexus: A Comparative and Longitudinal Analysis of Public Trust in the Press. International Journal of Press/Politics, 23, 3–23.
33.
Hopmann, D. N., Shehata, A., & Strömbäck, J. (2015) Contagious Media Effects: How Media Use and Exposure to Game-Framed News Influence Media Trust. Mass Communication & Society, 18, 776-798.
34.
Palmer, R., Toff, B., and Nielsen, R.K. (2020) “The Media Covers Up a Lot of Things”: Watchdog Ideals Meet Folk Theories of Journalism. Journalism Studies, 21(14), 1973-1989.
35.
Schrøder, K.C. (2019) Audience Reception Research in a Post-broadcasting Digital Age. Television & New Media 20(2), 155–169.
36.
Schrøder, K.C. (2017) Towards the “Audiencization” of Mediatization Research? Audience Dynamics as Co-Constitutive of Mediatization Processes. In: Driessens O., Bolin G., Hepp A., and Hjarvard S. (eds.) Dynamics of Mediatization: Institutional Change and Everyday Transformations in a Digital Age. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 85–115.
37.
Schwarzenegger, C. (2020) Personal epistemologies of the media: Selective criticality, pragmatic trust, and competence–confidence in navigating media repertoires in the digital age. New Media & Society, 22(2), 361–377.
38.
Toff, B., & Nielsen, R. K. (2018) “I just Google it”: Folk theories of distributed discovery. Journal of Communication, 68(3), 636–657.
Additional Reading
1.
Babbie, E. (2002) The Practice of Social Research. 6th ed. Belmont, California: A Division of Wadsworth, Inc.
2.
Badikian, B. (2004) The New Media Monopoly. Boston: Beacon Press
3.
Balcytiene, A. (2009) ‘MARKET-LED REFORMS AS INCENTIVES FORMEDIA CHANGE, DEVELOPMENT AND DIVERSIFICATION IN THE BALTIC STATES’ The International Communication Gazette , 71(1–2): 39–49.
4.
Berger, A. A. (1998) Media research techniques. 2nd ed., Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
5.
Siapera, E (2004) „From couch potatoes to cybernauts? The expanding notion of the audience on TV channels’ websites”, New Media&Society 6 (2):155–172.
6.
Stevenson N. (1997) Understanding Media Cultures. London: SAGE.
7.
Syvertsen, T. (2004) „Between Broadcasters and Their Publics Citizens, Audiences, Customers and Players: A Conceptual Discussion of the Relationship”, European Journal of Cultural Studies 7(3): 363 – 380.
8.
Taylor, K. (2006) Brainwashing. Oxford, NewYork: Oxford University Press.
9.
Tincknell, E., Raghuram, P. (2002) „Big Brother: reconfiguring the 'active' audience of cultural studies?”, European Journal of Cultural Studies 5(2): 199–215.
10.
Blumler, J., E. Katz (1974) The Uses of mass communications: current perspectives on gratifications research. Beverly Hills : Sage.
11.
Wandebesch, H. (2000) „Research note: A Captive Audience? The Media Use of Prisoners”, European Journal of Communication15 (4): 529– 544.
12.
Althaus, Scott L., and David Tewksbury. 2000. Patterns of Internet and traditional news media use in a networked community. Political Communication 17:21–45.
13.
Barnidge, Matthew, Brigitte Huber, Homero Gil de Zúñiga and James H. Liu. 2018. Social media as a sphere for “risky” political expression: A twenty-country multilevel comparative analysis. The International Journal of Press/Politics 23:161–182.
14.
Becker, Mark W., Reem Alzahabi and Christopher J. Hopwood. 2–13. Media multitasking is associated with symptoms of depression and social anxiety. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 16:132–135.
15.
Kostovska, I., Raats, T., Donders, K., and Ballon, P. (2021) Going beyond the hype: conceptualizing “media ecosystem” for media management research. Journal of Media Business Studies 18(1), 6–26.
16.
Loosen, W.; Schmidt, J.-H. (2016). Between Proximity and Distance: Including the Audience in Journalism (Research). In B. Franklin & S. Eldrigde II (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Digital Journalism Studies (pp. 354-363). London: Routledge.
17.
Peruško, Z., Vozab, D., and Čuvalo, A. (2013) ‘Audiences as a Source of Agency in Media Systems: Post-socialist Europe in Comparative Perspective’, Mediální Studia 7(2), 137–154.
Other Information Sources
1.
COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS ON NEW MEDIA (2011) ‘Draft Recommendation on a new notion of media’, Strasbourg, MC-NM010rev2.pdf, Pp.1-25.
2.
Reuters Institute for Journalism Research