Media Reception Studies

Staiger (communication, U. of Texas at Austin) surveys the past century of scholarship on the ways audiences make meaning out of mass media. Her introductory text, with an emphasis on the reception of film and television, covers dominant theories and findings including the Chicago School, early psychological approaches, Soviet theory, the Frankfurt School, mass communication research and critical theory, linguistics and semiotic theory, social-psychoanalytical research, cognitive psychology, and cultural studies. She also explores issues such as the behavior of fans; minorities and media; the effects of violence, horror, and sexually explicit images; and the place of memory in spectatorship. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Janet Staiger teaches cultural, gender, sexuality, and media studies at The University of Texas at Austin. Her recent books are Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception and Blockbuster TV: Must-See Sitcoms in the Network Era (both available from NYU Press).