Aims

Learning Outcomes:

Typically, upon completion of this module, students will be able to:
- demonstrate knowledge of range of recent qualitative audience researches;
- critically evaluate these researches from the point of view of their methods of research, their generalisability, and their implicit or explicit models of the relations of text to audience;
- demonstrate awareness of the different purposes of research (for production planning, for policy-purposes, and for critical academic understanding);
- think critically about the differences between quantitative and qualitative research;
- conduct in a group a small piece of research, and begin the process of designing a piece of their own research.

Content:

This module will combine a critical examination a range of qualitative researches carried out since 1980 into the ways audiences use and make sense of different media, a consideration of the implications of these researches for our commonsense understandings of audiences, for methodologies of research, and for policy, with designing, carrying out and evaluating of a test piece of research.

Reading Lists