Book review: Media audiences / Analysing media texts

Gibbons, Tom ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1778-5997 and McDonald, Philip (2007) Book review: Media audiences / Analysing media texts. Sociology, 41 (6). pp. 1215-1218.

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Abstract

Both Media Audiences and Analysing Media Texts are part of a series entitled Understanding Media, which consists of four books that aim to introduce the study of the media to media studies students. Media Audiences is the second in the series and is, ‘about living with media. It’s about how audiences in different parts of the world use and interpret media, and how media affect our lives. It’s also about how we think about audiences, what audience research has achieved and how it might be done differently’ (p. 1). In ‘Media Audiences, Interpreters and Users’, Sonia Livingstone highlights the overriding amount of time individuals (especially in industrialized countries) spend with different and increasingly more mobile forms of media: ‘often more time than they spend at work or school or in face-to-face communication’ (p. 10). Livingstone successfully sheds light on the nature of the relationship between the media and audiences, particularly the discourse between the liberal-pluralist and the critical traditions. Overall, convincing arguments are built up to suggest that, ‘the myth of direct media effects and of passive vulnerable audiences should be laid to rest at last’ (p. 42).

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	Sociology
Publisher:	SAGE Publications for British Sociological Association
ISSN:	1469-8684
Departments:	Academic Departments > Institute of Arts (IOA) > Humanities
Additional Information:	Tom Gibbons, University of Teesside and Philip McDonald, University of Cumbria jointly review two texts: 'Media audiences', M. Gillespie (ed.), Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2005, ISBN: 0335218822) and 'Analysing Media Texts', Marie Gillespie and Jason Toynbee (eds), Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Education, 2006, ISBN: 0335218865.
Depositing User:	Anna Lupton
Date Deposited:	23 Mar 2017 14:34
Last Modified:	11 Jan 2024 20:16
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/2774

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