ERIC Number: ED336763
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1991-May-26
Pages: 14
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Raising the Level of Analysis in Media-Audience Studies.
Whitney, D. Charles; Ettema, James S.
Media sociology in the early 1980s was "rediscovered" by sociologists and political scientists. It was a discipline whose time had arrived. In much of the work in the field at this time the level of analysis dealt with individuals working within organizations. Since that time, media sociology has gone through paradigm debates, expanded theoretical horizons, and begun to hike levels of analysis higher than the individual-and-organization level. Where should media sociology be going? It will proceed best by systematic investigation of the organizational-institutional nexus, and it can do so by turning to studies of the audience. Media sociology should emphasize the socio-cultural dynamics of the process by which the media attempt to create, maintain--and profit from--their connections to audience. Its goal should be to explore the theoretical linkages between industrial or institutional studies of the media and cultural studies which now constitute a central focus of communication research. Specifically, this means 3 areas of inquiry: (1) critical reviews of where the field is and what is known; (2) images of audience at the organizational-institutional level; and (3) examinations of audience technology. (Twenty-eight references are attached.) (SR)
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A