The Making of American Audiences
From Stage to Television, 1750–1990
$57.99 USD
Part of Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communication
- Author: Richard Butsch, Rider University, New Jersey
- Date Published: May 2011
- availability: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
- format: Adobe eBook Reader
- isbn: 9780511200977
Find out more about Cambridge eBooks
$
57.99 USD
Adobe eBook Reader
Other available formats:
Paperback
Looking for an inspection copy?
This title is not currently available on inspection
-
In The Making of American Audiences, Richard Butsch provides a comprehensive survey of American entertainment audiences from the colonial period to the modern day. Providing coverage of theatre, opera, vaudeville, minstrelsy, movies, radio and television, he examines the evolution of audience practices as each genre supplanted another as the primary popular entertainment. Based on original historical research, this volume exposes how audiences made themselves through their practices - how they asserted control over their own entertainments and their own behaviour. Importantly, Butsch articulates two long-term processes: pacification and privatization. Whereas during the nineteenth century, overactive audiences represented a threat to civic order through their unruly behaviour, in the twentieth century, audiences have become more passive, dependent upon and controlled by media messages. This timely study serves as an important contribution to communication research, as well as American cultural history and cultural studies.
Read more- A first history of audiences
- It provides deeper understanding of categories used to describe audiences
- It provides thorough historical research to replace the mythic pasts typically invoked in debates about audiences
Reviews & endorsements
'… substantial and absorbing … it appealing style will draw a wide range of readers with an interest in the many facets of entertainment.' Library Journal
See more reviews'A masterly study that should become a standard text.' Sight and Sound
'Butsch's thoroughly researched, critically informed and vividly written accounts of other 'popular' media and their audiences' socio-economic 'making' provide extremely useful comparative material for research into cinema audiences' constructions.' The English Association
'This fascinating book is also an impressive piece of scholarship.' Ethics, Place and Environment
Customer reviews
Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review
Review was not posted due to profanity
×Product details
- Date Published: May 2011
- format: Adobe eBook Reader
- isbn: 9780511200977
- contains: 18 b/w illus. 8 tables
- availability: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: participative public, passive private?
1. Colonial theater, privileged audiences
2. Drama in early Republican audiences
3. The B'hoys in Jacksonian theaters
4. Knowledge and the decline of audience sovereignty
5. Matinee ladies: re-gendering theater audiences
6. Blackface, whiteface
7. Variety, liquor and lust
8. Vaudeville, incorporated
9. 'Legitimate' and 'illegitimate' theater around the turn of the century
10. The celluloid stage: Nickelodeon audiences
11. Storefronts to theaters: seeking the middle class
12. Voices from the ether: early radio listening
13. Radio cabinets and network chains
14. Rural radio: 'we are seldom lonely anymore'
15. Fears and dreams: public discourses about radio
16. The electronic cyclops: fifties television
17. A TV in every home: television 'effects'
18. Home video: viewer autonomy?
19. Conclusion: from effects to resistance and beyond
Appendix: availability, affordability, admission price
Notes
Selected bibliography
Index.
Sorry, this resource is locked
Please register or sign in to request access. If you are having problems accessing these resources please email [email protected]
Register Sign in» Proceed
You are now leaving the Cambridge University Press website. Your eBook purchase and download will be completed by our partner www.ebooks.com. Please see the permission section of the www.ebooks.com catalogue page for details of the print & copy limits on our eBooks.
Continue ×Are you sure you want to delete your account?
This cannot be undone.
Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.
If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.
×