Understanding Television (The Psychology of Audience Interpretation)

Author: (English) Livingstone, Sonia, translated by Long Yun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Television has become so commonplace that its image and program types appear clear and certain to people, although in fact this is not the case. Sonia Livingstone's foundational research shows that audiences interpret television programs in multiple ways within their own sociocultural contexts. Understanding Television selects one of the most common yet thought-provoking types of television programs—soap operas—as a particularly interesting and challenging case study to explore these issues. The book focuses on the substance of the sociopsychological text role of the "active audience," delving deeply into the existing theoretical paradigms provided by sociopsychology, media studies, and cultural studies. The second edition has been comprehensively revised and updated, incorporating such new research findings as narrative psychology, social expression theory, ethnographic studies of audiences, and role development theory in audience research. This book will serve as a basic reading for students and teachers engaged in sociopsychology and media studies.