NA_MePu Media Publics

University of Finance and Administration
Summer 2024
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Guaranteed by
doc. Giuseppe Maiello, Ph.D.
Subdepartment of Management and Marketing – Department of Economics and Management – Departments – University of Finance and Administration
Contact Person: Dita Egertová
Prerequisites
Audience Studies in Media brings together key concepts exploring questions of reception and interpretation, reprinting forgotten pieces and combining key theories with new research. Lectures and seminars thematically address: the paradigm shift - from 'effects' to 'uses and gratifications'; moral panic and censorship; the active audience and reading as resistance; shifts in screen theory – the spectator and the audience; the fan and the audience; so-called female and male audiences; nation and ethnicity. The epistemological and ontological assumptions of critical audience studies are explained as well. Then the appropriate research designs are identified and described, in particular ethnography, audience-cum-content analysis, and participatory action research. In the next step the discussion focuses on methods for data collection that follow from the tenets of critical audience studies and “belong” to the respective research design.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is offered to students of any study field.
Course objectives
This course introduces students to the core concepts and ideas related to media audiences. Media audiences refer to people and their media practices. We focus on studies within media and culture that define audiences not as spectators, or passive subjects, but rather as people engaged in dynamic and creative practices, such as political activism, citizen journalism, fan activities, or television participants.
Learning outcomes
First, we consider theories of identities and subjectivities, including performance of selves, key concepts that are crucial to the study of individuals and social relations. The second concept relates to the study of media engagement, drawing on contemporary research on different stages of political and cultural engagement in social movements, news, or entertainment. Third, we examine the significance of situated audience research, where people’s practices are put into the context of fandom and intense kinds of engagement, or the context of everyday life and day to day routines. Finally, the course addresses qualitative methods used in audience research.
Syllabus
  • Cluster 1 – The History of the Audiences, Development of the Conceptions of Audience in Media Studies 1.1 From audince of an ancient amphiteathre to the users of the Internet 1.2 The audience as a mass, crowd, subculture and the users 1.3 Behavioral, structural and sociocultural conceptions of the audicences Cluster 2 – Active Audiences: Semiotic and Instrumental Activity of the Audiences 2.1 A status of the audience within the cultural studies: What the cultural studies are and why they analyze the audience? 2.2 Production of meanings in the process of reception of the media contents 2.3 Social using of media in everydayness Cluster 3 – The Audiences of New Media: New Configuration of the Relations Between the Participants of Media Culture 3.1 Second media age as the end of the imbalance between the producer and the receiver 3.2 Interaction, participation – from the audience to the users, user-generated content 3.3 New media and democratization of public space – digital public sphere x digital divide
Literature
    required literature
  • Massimo Airoldi (2021) Digital traces of taste: methodological pathways for consumer research, Consumption Markets & Culture, 24:1, 97-117, DOI: 10.1080/10253866.2019.1690998
  • Sílvia Majó-Vázquez, Rasmus K. Nielsen & Sandra González-Bailón (2019) The Backbone Structure of Audience Networks: A New Approach to Comparing Online News Consumption Across Countries, Political Communication, 36:2, 227-240, DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2018.
  • Sanguk Lee & Tai-Quan Peng (2023) Understanding Audience Behavior with Digital Traces: Past, Present, and Future, Digital Journalism, DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2254821
    recommended literature
  • Jiyoung Lee & Brian C. Britt (2023) Factbait: Emotionality of Fact-Checking Tweets and Users’ Engagement during the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and the COVID-19 Pandemic, Digital Journalism, DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2253859
  • Caliandro, Alessandro, and Alessandro Gandini. 2017. Qualitative Research in Digital Environments: A Research Toolkit. London: Routledge
Teaching methods
Lecture and exercise
Assessment methods
Methods of valuations: an examination (6credits) The examination has a form of a written test. There is also a requirement of awarding an inclusion and an exam admission - 75% presence at the exercises (in minimum). To get the credit successful defense of own elaborate via the presentation during workshops is required.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
The course can also be completed outside the examination period.
Information on the extent and intensity of the course: 12 hodin KS/semestr.
The course is also listed under the following terms Summer 2022, Summer 2023.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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