Understanding Media Users: From Theory to Practice

by Tony Wilson

Overview

Understanding Media Users: From Theory to Practice focuses on the blurred concept of the “active audience” at the core of media studies.

• examines the relationship between media and audiences by one of the world’s leading media scholars
• provides a history of media effects’ and an overview of the current analytical approaches that constitute media reception theory
• charts some of the most important interfaces of media reception and interaction - TV, film, the Internet, advertising, journalism, and tourism studies
• concludes with additional insights into the future of media reception in a global age

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781405155663
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	09/22/2008
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

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

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"In this lively and original book, Tony Wilson captures the many critical claims and contestations that have shaped the field of audience research, bringing the story up to date with a phenomenological analysis of mass and personalised media users across the globe."
–Professor Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political Science

"Tony Wilson is one of the pioneers of phenomenological media analysis. In this book, he develops a distinctive media-user theory, engaging with important issues of philosophy and method."
–Professor Shaun Moores, Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Sunderland

Editorial Reviews

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)

From the Publisher