The Spectator and the Spectacle: Audiences in Modernity and Postmodernity

Spectators and audiences are everywhere in contemporary culture. However, even in conventional performance, whether in the theatre, in film or television, or at a sporting event, it is difficult to discuss spectators with any authority, since each of us experiences and understands the display in different ways and all methods of analyzing spectators are flawed or unreliable. This book provides instead a series of investigations into specific types of performance activity, and how they relat...