Regional film audiences : personal journeys with film / Bridgette Wessels.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wessels, Bridgette, author.

Merrington, Peter, author.

Hanchard, Matthew, author.

Forrest, David (Lecturer in film studies), author.

Contributor:

Beyond the Multiplex, research project.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion picture audiences.

Motion picture audiences--Psychology.

Motion pictures--Psychological aspects.

Motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : digital file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Manchester, UK : Manchester University Press, 2022.

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

data file

Summary:

The question of how audiences form to watch specialised and mainstream films within regional film provision goes to the heart of current debates in audience studies. Audience reception studies have made audiences increasingly visible, while audience surveys track trends and film policy makers gather information about audience preferences and demographics. Little attention has been paid to the specific contextual relationships and interactions between films and individuals that generate and sustain audiences. Online film consumption and an increasing array of cultural events mean that the nature and formation of film audiences is changing and that film watching is a diverse and extensive experience. This has sharpened the debate about how to conceptualise audiences and their formation. This monograph extends and develops the conceptualisation of audiences as being interactive and relational by introducing three innovative concepts: 'personal film journeys', five types of audience formation, and five geographies of film provision within new theorisation of audiences that sees them as a process. A challenge of audience research is how to capture the richness of people's social and cultural engagement with film that materialises in broader audience trends within contexts of provision; to achieve this, an innovative mixed-methods research and computational ontology approach is used. The book is significant because it develops new, ground-breaking theory and concepts and an innovative research methodology based on an extensive dataset derived from empirical research in the under-researched area of regional film audiences.

Contents:

1. Understanding audiences: conceptualising and analysing film audiences

2. Film audiences in English regions: research context and methodology

3. Film provision: film policy and film distribution

4. Geographies of film provision: places, venues and screens

5. Personal film journeys: engaging with film during the lifecourse

6. Finding and sharing meaning in specialised films

7. Five types of audience experiences: relations and interactions among audiences, films and screens

8. The audience as a process: concepts, relations and interactions.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Feb 2026).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher-supplied metadata; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9781526157843

1526157845

OCLC:

1363817604