The audience as a process

Abstract

Chapter 8 develops a new theory of film audiences in particular – which is that the contemporary audience is a process that results in five types of audiences and audience experiences. The audience as a process involves the ways people develop relationships with film and the level and types of provision open to them. This process is realised through key relations with: screens; venues and places; audience types; and other people, socially and culturally, in lived film culture and through interactions with: friends, family and wider communities; screens and venues; film throughout the lifecourse; film stories through interpretive work; and the practices of audiences. These relations and interactions form audiences as a process. Film audiences’ relations and interactions are interwoven and come together in varying ways, depending on: audience members’ personal life experiences; life stage and circumstance; access and engagement with culture; the media (broadly defined) and screens; and with place-based film culture at the local level. These relations and interactions are composed of: personal film journeys; geographies of film provision; a mixed economy of film provision and policy; types of audience experience; lived film culture; and the social and cultural value of film. Together, these aspects coalesce to form a process that underpins and characterises audience formation.