Brings together an introduction to academic study of audiences as 'readers' of films and an investigation into how the film industry perceives audiences as part of its industrial practices. The appraoch draws on ideas from film, media and cultural studies to present an insight to what makes the biggest box office films attractive to audiences.

Examines what Hoolywood knew about its audiences between the 1920s and 1990s. This book looks at the methods the American motion picture industry has used to identify and understand its customers, and the ways in which that understanding has shaped the movies it produced. The authors reassess what is known about the social composition of classical Hollywood audiences, the role of opinion leaders in forming viewer choices and the development of statistical audience research methods. It challengs the conventional wisdom that the classical motion picture industry knew little about its audiences. Looking at Hollywoods adaptation to demographics, the book details how Hollywood has repeatedly reinvented and reconstructed the identities of its audiences. It also examines how such groups as adolescent males and female horror movie fans use film-viewing to display and establish their cultural competence and subcultural identities. The book demonstrates the range of demands that audiences make in the movies they watch, and the complex ways in which viewers negotiate their own self-images and the meanings of the texts they consume.

Word-of-Mouth in Contemporary Hollywood provides a unique insight into the potential for online communication to enable audiences to exert a greater impact on film industrial practices than ever before. In an overarching analysis of contemporary Hollywood film financing, marketing, distribution, and exhibition practices, Simon Hewitt recontextualises word-of-mouth in light of social media and examines the growing impact of audience participation. Using a ‘Bourdieuconomic’ approach, he applies qualitative research methods to better understand the contemporary Hollywood film audience, the contemporary Hollywood film industry, and the mechanisms that connect the two. The book explores new film financing mechanisms that incorporate fans into the packages used to secure production funds. It assesses the role of ‘Grassroots Intermediaries’ in contemporary film marketing campaigns. It critiques ‘democratic’ crowdsourced methods of film distribution, and finally, it considers the possible future of Hollywood film exhibition. By helping to bridge the gap between the gift economy and commodity culture, this book will appeal to students and scholars of media industry studies, media finance and economics, fan and audience studies, film studies, film history, and media marketing.

Understanding Audiences helps readers to recognize the important role that media plays in their lives and suggests ways in which they may use media constructively. Author Robert H. Wicks considers the relationship between the producers and the receivers of media information, focusing on how messages shape perceptions of social reality. He analyzes how contemporary media--including newspapers, film, television, and the Internet--vie for the attention of the audience members, and evaluates the importance of message structure and content in attracting and maintaining the attention of audiences. Wicks also examines the principles associated with persuasive communication and the ways in which professional communicators frame messages to help audiences construct meaning about the world around them. Among other features, this text: * describes the processes associated with human information processing; * presents an analysis of the principles associated with social learning in children and adults and explores the possibility that media messages may cultivate ideas, attitudes, and criticisms of this perspective; * explains how most media messages are framed to highlight or accentuate specific perspectives of individuals or organizations--challenging the notion of objectivity in media information messages; * considers the effects of media exposure, such as whether the contemporary media environment may be partially responsible for the recent rash of school violence among young people; * analyzes the Internet as an interactive medium and considers whether it has the potential to contribute to social and civic disengagement as it substitutes for human interaction; and * evaluates the principles of the uses and gratifications approach as they apply to the new media environment, including traditional media as well as popular genres like talk shows and developing media systems such as the Internet. Intended for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students who need to understand the nature of the media and how they interact with these messages, Understanding Audiences promotes the development of media literacy skills and helps readers to understand the processes associated with engaging them in media messages. It also offers them tools to apply toward the shaping of media in a socially constructive way.

Looks at the often secretive process of audience testing Hollywood movies and how it can help shape movies, with first-hand accounts from directors such as Ron Howard, Cameron Crowe, Drew Barrymore and Ed Zwick.

Exploring the influence ""action"" films have on audiences, this book considers how people relate to and are influenced by such films as Judge Dredd.

"This timely volume engages with one of the most important shifts in recent film studies: the turn away from text-based analysis towards the viewer. Historically, this marks a return to early interest in the effect of film on the audience by psychoanalysts and psychologists, which was overtaken by concern with the 'effects' of film, linked to calls for censorship and moral panics rather than to understanding the mental and behavioral world of the spectator. Early cinema history has revealed the diversity of film-viewing habits, while traditional 'box office' studies, which treated the audience initially as a homogeneous market, have been replaced by the study of individual consumers and their motivations. Latterly, there has been a marked turn towards more sophisticated economic and sociological analysis of attendance data. And as the film experience fragments across multiple formats, the perceptual and cognitive experience of the individual viewer (who is also an auditor) has become increasingly accessible. With contributions from Gregory Waller, John Sedgwick and Martin Barker, this work spans the spectrum of contemporary audience studies, revealing work being done on local, non-theatrical and live digital transmission audiences, and on the relative attraction of large-scale, domestic and mobile platforms."--Publisher's website.