Chapter 1

Media audiences and reception studies

Media audiences and reception studies is a shifting area of research in terms of theories and concepts, methodologies and methods. Audiences are on the move, and ways of understanding these transitions involves multi-faceted, pragmatic approaches to varieties of audience experiences in context, including contexts of distribution and media flows, genres and communicative form, and identities and everyday life. The range of methodologies and methods available to audience researchers are multi-form, mixing media, social and cultural theories, with flexible methods for capturing transforming audiences. Transnational audiences for global formats and local content signal an increasing range of audio-visual content available to consumers, fans and publics, including translations, subtitling and fan subbing of fiction and non-fiction television and social media. In relation to audience engagement with screen culture there is an increasing significance of distribution contexts, and the centrality of place and time, to research in transnational audiences. The case study of production and audience research of the Nordic noir television drama The Bridge highlights how engaging with multi-layered storytelling and reading subtitles makes for intensities of cognitive and emotional engagement with the drama, and suggests a sense of place and time is critical to understanding cultural engagement with transnational drama.