Researching Historical Screen Audiences - by Kate Egan & Martin Smith & Jamie Terrill (Paperback)

About the Book

Considers the challenges of historical audience research in the field of screen studies.

Book Synopsis

Showcasing current research and contemporary debate in the field of screen history and audience studies, Researching Historical Screen Audiences draws upon a wide variety of previously untapped sources - including photographs, maps, Mass Observation reports, diaries, fan letters, cinema records and original oral testimonies- to explore the challenges and pleasures of conducting research in this field. Containing twelve new essays from an international group of leading and emerging scholars, the book explores and assesses the current status and shape of the field of historical audience research, showcasing new research which foregrounds the transnational and multi-cultural dimensions of past cinemagoing, the roles played by management personnel and marketing campaigns, and the currently under-explored area of the past reception of home video.

From the Back Cover

Showcasing current research and contemporary debate in the field of screen history and audience studies, Researching Historical Screen Audiences draws upon a wide variety of previously untapped sources - including photographs, maps, Mass Observation reports, diaries, fan letters, cinema records and original oral testimonies- to explore the challenges and pleasures of conducting research in this field. Containing twelve new essays from an international group of leading and emerging scholars, the book explores and assesses the current status and shape of the field of historical audience research, showcasing new research which foregrounds the transnational and multi-cultural dimensions of past cinemagoing, the roles played by management personnel and marketing campaigns, and the currently under-explored area of the past reception of home video. Kate Egan is Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at Northumbria University, UK Martin Ian Smith is an independent researcher from Durham, UK. He has a PhD in Film Studies from Northumbria University Jamie Terrill is a Research Associate at Lancaster University, UK

Review Quotes

Egan, Smith and Terrill have produced an ambitiously constructed, extensively researched and a truly exciting edited volume. The book offers a wealth of invaluable insights into screen audiences and film cultures more broadly, while showcasing a rich and diverse range of methodologies, periods, settings and contexts. An indispensable contribution to audience historiography.

--Daniela Treveri Gennari, Oxford Brookes University

About the Author

Dr Kate Egan is Senior Lecturer in Film and Media at Northumbria University

Martin Smith is an independent researcher

Jamie Terrill is a Research Associate on the AHRC funded Cinema Memory and the Digital Archive: 1930s Britain and Beyond project