The Audience in Everyday Life : Living in a Media World

The Audience In Everyday Life Argues That A Media Audience Cannot Be Studied In Front Of The Television Alone - Their Interaction With Media Does Not Simply End When The Set Is Turned Off. Instead, We Must Study The Daily Lives Of Audiences To Find The Undercurrents Of Media Influence In Everyday Life. S. Elizabeth Bird Offers A Series Of Empirically Based Audience Studies Of Phenomena That Include Media Scandals, Fan Culture, Representations Of Race And Ethnicity, Tabloid Journalism And Runaway Media Hoaxes. Bird Provides A Host Of Useful Tools And Methods For Scholars And Students Interested In The Ways Media Is Consumed In Everyday Life. Even as everyone appears to acknowledge Western culture's "media-saturated" reality, many of us tend to deny it in our own lives. We are aware that media images are everywhere, and we feel beleaguered by the onslaught of messages, but we find it difficult to acknowledge the degree to which media has been internalized in Western culture. The Audience in Everyday Life moves beyond traditional audience studies by arguing that media reception cannot be understood only in relation to specific texts. The "audience" has become problematic in media studies because we cannot dissect out media from culture; the "audience" is everywhere and nowhere, an ever-changing and fluid concept. In this book, S. Elizabeth Bird argues that we must study all facets of the daily lives of media users in order to understand media's integral role in everyday culture. Applying concepts from cultural anthropology and folklore to media studies, Bird offers a series of ethnographic studies that analyze how people live in a media-saturated world. With her savvy readings of phenomena that include media scandals, fan culture, representations of race and ethnicity, tabloid journalism, and runaway media hoaxes, this book provides a host of useful tools and methods for scholars and students interested in the ways media permeate everyday life. Argues that a media audience cannot be studied in front of the television alone--their interaction with media does not simply end when the set is turned off. Instead, we must study the daily lives of audiences to find the undercurrents of media influence in everyday life. Applying new developments in cultural anthropology and folklore to media studies, offers a series of empirically based audience studies of phenomena that include media scandals, fan culture, representations of race and ethnicity, tabloid journalism, and runaway media hoaxes. [publisher web site]. Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments 1 Beyond the Audience: Living in a Media World 2 Media Scandal Meets Everyday Life 3 Piecing a Cyber-Quilt: Media Fans in an Electronic Community 4 Imagining Indians: Negotiating Identity in a Media World 5 A Popular Aesthetic? Exploring Taste through Viewer Ethnography 6 CJ's Revenge: A Case Study of News as Cultural Narrative 7 Media Ethnography: An Interdisciplinary Future Notes Bibliography Index Introduction: The politics of audiences in America -- Theater audiences, crowds, and publics -- From crowds to masses : movies, radio, and advertising -- From cultivated individual to public citizen -- Broadcast publics -- Mass media, mass man -- Media effects and passive audiences -- Boob tube, fans, and addicts : pathological audiences -- Epilogue