The Audience Studies Reader brings together key writings exploring questions of reception and interpretation, reprinting forgotten pieces and combining key essays with new research. Beginning with a general introduction to the Reader, each extract is placed in its historical context with specially written section prefaces and suggestions for further reading.
Organized chronologically and thematically, sections address: the paradigm shift - from 'effects' to 'uses and gratifications'; moral panic and censorship; the active audience and reading as resistance; shifts in screen theory - the spectator and the audience; the fan and the audience; female audiences; nation and ethnicity.

Essays by: Theodor Adorno, Ien Ang, Camille Bacon-Smith, Jacqueline Bobo, Martin Barker, Michel de Certeau, Dawn Currie, Barbara Ehrenreich, John Fiske, George Gerbner, Marie Gillespie, Larry Gross, Sara Gwenllian-Jones, Miriam Hansen, Richard Hoggart, Henry Jenkins, Sut Jhally, Elihu Katz, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Justin Lewis, Tamar Liebes, Angela McRobbie, Robert Merton, David Morley, David Muggleton, Laura Mulvey, Janice Radway, Philip Schlesinger, Esther Sonnet, Jackie Stacey, Frederic Wertham, Charles Winick and Gregory Woods