Television and Ne Media Audiences [Paperback]

Why is talk about television forbidden at Montessori schools? Why does a mother feel guilty about watchingStar Trekin front of her four-year-old child? Why would retired men turn to daytime soap operas for entertainment? Cliches about television mask the complexity of our relationship to media technologies. Through a range of fascinating case studies, Ellen Seiter explains what audience research tells us about the uses of technologies in the domestic sphere and the classroom, the relationship between gender and genre, and the varied interpretation of media technologies and media forms.

Television and New Media Audiencesreviews the most important research on television audiences and recommends the use of ethnographic, longitudinal methods for the study of media consumption and computer use at home as well as in the workplace.

The book discusses reactions of audiences to such internationally known television program asThe Flintstones, The Jetsons, Street Fighter, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, X-Men, Sesame Street, Dallas, Star Trek, The Cosby Show, Teenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesandNational Geographic.

1. Introduction
2. Qualitative Audience Research
3. Feminist Methods: The Parent's Support Group
4. Lay Theories of Media Effects: Power Rangers at Preschool
5. Conflict Over TV amongst Fundamentalist Christians
6. Television and the Internet
7. Conclusion
Bibliography

Ellen Seiteris Professor of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. Her publications includeSold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture (1993) as well as numerous journal articles.