Audience Research Articles

“But first let’s have a dance”: Music in Aphra Behn’s Plays

ABSTRACT This quantitative analysis of Aphra Behn’s musical terms demonstrates that her comedies need to be understood in the context of seventeenth-century music. As a Restoration dramatist, Behn experienced the early phase of the Baroque. Despite the considerable presence of music in her works, scholarship on Behn and music has been neglected. Nodes of her preferred terms—dance, sing, song, and musick—are mapped and analyzed, focusing on four of the most musical plays: The Revenge (1680), The Roundheads (1682), The Luckey Chance (1687), and The Emperor of the Moon (1687). As a collaborator with professional musicians, dancing masters, and actors, Behn demonstrates facility with instrumentation and a range of musical affects, dance forms, and song types. Her comedies exemplify a theatrical phenomenon that had an intelligible, palpable, but ephemeral impact on characters and audience members alike. Her original comic musicals provide keys for understanding how music functioned in art and culture.

Development and refinement of a communication guide to help young adults in Texas reconnect and reduce loneliness

ObjectiveLoneliness among young people is a contemporary public health crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The present research examined the development of a modest yet meaningful health communication intervention resource that would become an asset in a larger health campaign: a communication guide aimed at helping young people reach out and reconnect with others. MethodsStudy One established the need for a loneliness intervention in Texas with survey data (N = 795). A communication guide was developed based on research and theory. Study Two employed focus group interviews with potential audience members (N = 31) to critically assess and inform revisions to the communication guide. ResultsStudy One results indicated that a substantial proportion of young adult Texans felt as though their social connection had decreased and their loneliness had increased since the onset of the pandemic. Themes in focus group responses from Study Two suggested several strengths of the communication guide and some opportunities for revision. ConclusionA communication guide with tips for reconnecting could be a valuable tool to empower young people and promote social connection. InnovationThis study involved the development and refinement of a new communication resource that was informed by a priority audience of a major health communication campaign.

Audience labour, discourse dynamics and challenges for analysis

ABSTRACTThis paper theorises and exemplifies the place of audience labour in the propagation of Discourse and discourses. Audience labour is simply the work of people engaged in mediation processes as they gather themselves into groups defined by specific media events (sport, music, news, movies and so on). It compares the environments and practices of the mass media era and those of the current era to show that the most economically valuable work in media is done by audiences, and that that work is becoming more direct in its orientation and effects, even as it gets cheaper for advertisers and more immersive for audience members. A social media view of audience labour shows up the intensely intimate nature of personal commodification: feelings, attitudes, opinions, outrages, general states of mind and being are all grist for the digital economy mill. Outrage systems are especially profitable. They provide grounds for what I call ‘discourse industrial sectors’, or, those groups of people making a living and sometimes a fortune fighting on one side or another of the so-called culture wars. I argue for a conception of rhetorical purpose as a guide for analysing current media environments that depend on social media.

Trust Signals: An Intersectional Approach to Understanding Women of Color’s News Trust

Journalism scholars have increasingly become concerned with how our changing media environment has shifted traditional understandings of how news outlets create trust with audiences. While many scholars have focused on broad avenues of building trust with audiences through transparency, community engagement, and funding, arguably less attention has been paid to how audience members’ social positionality—determined by factors such as race, class, and socioeconomic status—can shape their varying understanding of what makes a news source trustworthy. Thus, in this study, I conducted focus groups with US women of color, a community marginalized minimally along race and gender, to understand how their positionality shapes how they conceptualize news trust. Through eight focus groups with <em>N</em> = 45 women of color, I found while participants used known antecedents of news trust, these were often more specifically rooted in their own experiences with racism, heterosexism, and classism. Further, participants had varying conceptualizations around antecedents of trust, such as accuracy and bias. Through these findings, I suggest how news organizations can better establish trust across marginalized communities.

The Waltz: Theatre of The Real, Grief, and Immigrant Narrative

This reflection examines the Filipino-based play The Waltz, performed at Factory Theatre (Toronto, Ontario) in the fall season of 2022. The Waltz, like many other local plays, exemplifies the Canadian immigrant narrative, navigating between ethnic origins and newfound spaces. In this performance, Theatre of the Real, as proposed by Carol Martin, is evident when the connection with audience members and hidden grief due to immigration statuses is exemplified. Productions of ethnic local theatre shows in Canada told from an immigrant narrative perspective validate feelings of otherness in Canadian citizens, which is a component of understanding one’s own identity.

Inclusive Social Marketing: Representation and Diversity in Brand Campaigns

Over the past two decades, many marketing strategies have emerged around the world, as sales professionals have been searching for a universal language that millions of potential buyers can understand. Inclusive marketing has become a real breakthrough in this area, combining the social and consumer needs of the target audience in advertising campaigns. That is why today companies use inclusive marketing tools in order to attract the attention of various audiences and form a friendly target audience. The purpose of the study was to substantiate the peculiarities of inclusive marketing and to assess the possibilities of using the inclusion to create a positive image of a brand. In the course of the study, it was proved that, a necessary condition for modern companies’ development is the creation of a friendly and inclusive marketing campaign that would take into account the specifics of the entire target audience and allow them paying attention to each potential client. Inclusive marketing has been proven to present products, services, or applications in a context that evokes a deep emotional response from people and makes them feel noticed and understood. It can emphasise or address issues related to ethnic, gender, and socio-cultural differences. The goal of inclusive marketing is to understand and meet the needs of the target audience, attract potential buyers by increasing empathy, and solve life problems. At the same time, each member of the target audience should feel in the centre of attention and feel that their needs can be met, and their wishes can be taken into account, without focusing on their characteristics or disabilities.

Closely Reading Community Audiences: A Simple Twist of Faith and Site-Specific Community Plays

This article offers a close reading of audience member reflections of A Simple Twist of Faith, a Canadian play that uses community-engaged theatre practices and site-specific dramaturgy. What can we as scholars, researchers, and artists learn from long-form audience responses? How does site, time, identity, and community infiltrate and overlap in this play? By centering audience reflections, this article offers a critical case-study in ethnographic audience research.

Worthy of your love: Queerness and ghosting in Assassins and Company

How would the plot of Assassins shift if Squeaky Fromme was singing to Jodie Foster in the song ‘Unworthy of Your Love?’ Or if Bobbie from Company does not want to get married because her girlfriend, Rifkele, is waiting for her offstage? Marvin Carlson’s concept of ghosting explains how an audience’s previous experience with a person or object can carry a trace into subsequent roles, which explains how these readings were possible for a certain portion of those watching Erin Markey as Squeaky Fromme in the 2017 City Center Encores! production of Assassins and Katrina Lenk as Bobbie in the 2022 production of Company. Although there was nothing inherently queer about these two characters within their respective Sondheim productions, Markey’s performance history and Lenk’s well-known role as Manke in Paula Vogel’s Indecent ghosted prior performances of queerness onto Markey’s Squeaky Fromme and Lenk’s Bobbie. This reading provides a way for a queer viewer to find representations of queerness in Assassins and Company that live outside of the gay male experience, which ends up being particularly inclusive for bisexual and lesbian women audience members and performers. By following the author’s phenomenological experience of reading these two roles as queer women within their specific musicals, this article posits that spaces for queer women, non-binary people and trans people can and should be explored in the works of Stephen Sondheim.

Indigenously Doing Disney

In its hundred-year history, the Walt Disney Company has created multiple projects featuring characters from various minorities and indigenous groups. The purpose of this essay is to examine the later films of Walt Disney Animation Studios, beginning in the often-dubbed “Disney Renaissance” with Pocahontas and concluding with Frozen II, and analyze the portrayal of the native groups being featured within the narrative. Beyond this, the secondary aim of this paper is to determine whether or not any significant development has been made in said depictions in the studio’s projects, both as it pertains to narrative and visual representation, as well as reception from audience members, critics, and community leaders of said ethnic groups. Beyond the analysis of the chosen films and their reception, this essay will touch upon the potential conflicts which may arise when potentially vulnerable or traditionally ignored aboriginal groups see their culture commodified by corporations such as Disney. The findings of this essay are that while Walt Disney Animation Studios still struggles with representation and commercialization of indigenous groups, the company has evidently made efforts to respond to criticism, and increase its cooperation with aboriginal populations when developing featurefilm projects. For the most recent example, while the company’s immensely successful Frozen utilizes multiple facets of Sámi culture, it does not directly feature any characters of Sámi origin. For the sequel, however, the company made efforts to work with indigenous groups to ensure a more favorable representation, resulting in largely positive reception from Sámi audiences. Whilst there are still problematic elements present, and the company’s commitment to fair, accurate representation is likely motivated more by financial incentive than anything else, some progress has undoubtedly been made.

장애인 관객의 공연장 접근성 향상을 위한 연구

This study employs universal design principles to enhance the house management strategy of theater venues, aiming to bolster accessibility and service delivery for vulnerable groups. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, encompassing in-depth interviews with disabled audience members, Customer Journey Mapping, and Focus Group Discussions with house management experts. The research underscores the critical role of house management in rectifying venue accessibility challenges faced by vulnerable groups due to financial constraints and lack of awareness. Furthermore, it introduces a novel framework based on the seven principles of universal design, serving as a guide for enhancing in-venue services. This research uniquely situates universal design within the realm of theater information services, highlighting house management's pivotal role in offsetting facility access shortcomings.

Does a Five-Day Drama Program Support Men in Prison to Develop Their Self-Confidence?

This paper evaluates an established five-day drama project, designed, and delivered by a professional company, aimed to support the development of self-confidence of seven men with a history of substance misuse in a category C prison. The project involved creation of a safe space, improvised role-play, development of communication skills, and exploration of substance misuse, culminating in a performance. Audience members included prison staff, governors, healthcare staff, and prisoners. A mixed method approach was used to evaluate the project. Participant's pre and post project self-confidence and feelings of positivity were collated by a questionnaire compromising of closed questions and measured using a Likert scale. On the last day of the project qualitative interviews were conducted using open ended questions. The findings conclude that the use of drama can support development of self-confidence in men in prison. The project encouraged skills such as, commitment, communication, collaboration, and motivation enhancing the likelihood of rehabilitation and promoting crime abstinence. Further research with a larger sample size will identify if the changes the men experienced were statistically significant and maintained.

How travel vlog audience members become tourists: Exploring audience involvement and travel intention

Drawing on the authentic happiness theory, this study proposes a model that links audience involvement, hedonic happiness, eudaimonic happiness and travel intention to better understand how travel vlogs stimulate online users to travel offline. The model conceptualizes three dimensions of audience involvement, namely narrative involvement, media personae identification, and parasocial interaction, based on the social characteristics of travel vlogs. Data collected from 454 participants were used to test the proposed hypotheses. The results show that (1) travel vlog audiences members’ authentic happiness has a hierarchical structure, with narrative involvement, media personae identification, and parasocial interaction all having a positive and significant impact on hedonic happiness and eudaimonic happiness; (2) narrative involvement and media personae identification have a stronger impact on hedonic happiness, while parasocial interaction has a stronger impact on eudaimonic happiness; (3) hedonic happiness and eudaimonic happiness fully mediate the impact of narrative involvement, media personae identification and parasocial interaction on travel intention. This study enriches the literature on audience involvement and deepens the theoretical understanding of authentic happiness in the context of tourism social media. It also provides guidance to tourism destinations on how to engage in vlog marketing.

“From the Series, I See that LGBTQ+ Characters are Ordinary People”: An Audience Study on Netflix Series with LGBTQ+ Themes in 2020–2022

The research focused on how the audience of gender-diverse series in Indonesia reacted to the LGBTQ+ themes broadcasted in some Netflix series aired from 2020 to 2022. It was interesting to discuss, considering that LGBTQ+ issues were still taboo, and that Indonesian society was known to be conventional and religious. By examining the audience’s reactions to the narration of LGBTQ+ themes, the research delved deeper into how Indonesian audience members problematize the LGBTQ+ issues in the Netflix series. The research was conducted with the qualitative research method by asking 70 participants, from whom validated informed consent was retrieved in advance, to answer the questions posed in the online questionnaire employed herein and by inviting them to join Zoom-mediated interviews. Three problematizations are found: Netflix’s ideology related to its LGBTQ+ content, audience perception about the LGBTQ+ community, and audience religiosity before and after watching such a series. There are also varying views on these problematizations according to the various manners in which audience members are reasoning, which are subsequently assigned to several clusters. Ultimately, such problematizations help shed light on how Netflix and its LGBTQ+ content is dynamically perceived by the audience.

Using Culturally Adapted Theater Outreach to Promote Cancer Screening Among Medically Underserved Minority Communities.

Black, Hispanic, and Asian individuals, the three largest US racial/ethnic minorities, continue to suffer disproportionately from breast, cervical, and colon cancers largely because cancer screening continues to be underutilized even after decades of availability. This study examined the utility of theoretically grounded and culturally adapted in-person theater monologues aimed at promoting early detection screening among the three highest population racial/ethnic groups in Harris County, Houston, TX. Nine monologues were created to promote cancer screening and early detection for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers in three different languages (English, Spanish, Vietnamese) and targeting underserved Black, Hispanic, and Vietnamese adult Harris County residents. From January 2014 to March 2020, 265 live monologue outreach events were held with 110 focused on prevention and screening for breast cancer, 75 for colorectal cancer, and 80 for cervical cancer. A total of 5989 individuals attended these outreach events and 86.3% completed the post-performance evaluation survey. Overall for all monologues, 6.6% of participants reported a positive change in their intent to screen from 75.7 to 82.3% after intervention (p < 0.001) and audience member scores on knowledge questions for all three cancers were mostly positive. Importantly, early detection questions for all three cancers were over 90% correct for all respondents, and well over 70% for the various groups. The findings revealed opportunities for improving monologue content to cultivate cancer early detection and screening knowledge. Results suggest that a theater-based approach may be an effective strategy to disseminate cancer screening education, improve knowledge, and increase intent to obtain screening among medically underserved communities.

Bias Cuts and Data Dumps

Bias Cuts and Data Dumps

Revisiting Benjaminʼs aura in the age of mediatisation – the digital aura of megachurches

ABSTRACT This study employs Walter Benjamin’s aura framework as a theoretical lens to look at religious consumption in virtual worlds, via a case study of the London megachurch Kingsway International Christian Centre. Findings suggest inter-personal authenticity contributes to authenticity in online religious consumption and emphasise the need to re-sacralise space and de-sanctify time to help congregant-audiences access sacred experiences. We also highlight the importance of re-mooring traditions and transformable rituals in replicating essential components of real-world worship gatherings through media and technologies. Proposing that the digital imbues its own aura, we develop the concept of ‘digital aura’, characterised by hypermediacy in media usage and remediation, which leads to the refashioning of certain practices and, ultimately, changes the way that audience members engage in ritual events.

Audience Response to COVID Monologues: Research-Based Theater on the Societal Impact of COVID-19.

Research-based theater uses drama to communicate research findings to audiences beyond those that typically read peer-reviewed journals. We applied research-based theater to translate qualitative research findings on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on different segments of U.S. society. Theater artists and public health researchers collaborated to create a collection of eight monologues from systematically sourced, peer-reviewed publications. Following three virtual performances in Spring, 2021, audience members were invited to complete a survey. Audience survey respondents (n = 120) were mostly U.S.-based and were diverse in terms of age, race/ethnicity, gender, profession, and experience attending theater. We summarized closed-ended responses and explored patterns by demographic characteristics. We synthesized themes of open-ended responses with inductive coding. Audience members somewhat/strongly agreed that COVID Monologues increased their knowledge (79.4%), represented the reality of the U.S. COVID-19 epidemic (95.7%), and offered new perspectives on what people had been experiencing (87.5%). Most also agreed research-based theater is an effective means of understanding health research (93.5%) and can promote community resilience in times of public health crisis (83.2%). Mann-Whitney U tests suggested less positive reactions from demographics that were not well-represented in monologue characters (cisgender men, Hispanics). Qualitative comments suggested audience members valued monologues that offered self-reflection and validation of their own COVID-19 experiences through relatable characters as well as those that offered insight into the experiences of people different from themselves. This work adds to evidence that research-based theater can help build knowledge and emotional insight around a public health issue. As these elements are foundational to pro-social, preventative health behaviors, research-based theater may have a useful role in promoting collective response to public health crises like COVID-19. Our method of systematically-sourcing research for theater-based dissemination could be extended to target more specific audiences with actionable behaviors.

The role of the arts on community mental health and cultural understanding in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

In low-and middle-income countries, there are rising rates of depression and anxiety. In Ethiopia, depression and anxiety rates were rising before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the country faces ethnic discord and armed conflict. Novel community-based strategies are needed to improve mental health and cultural unity. The purpose of this research was to describe the role of a cultural center's art programming in mental health and cultural unity. This qualitative study conducted interviews and focus groups with audience members, artists, and staff at Fendika Cultural Center, Addis Ababa, in January 2023. Participants were recruited via word of mouth and purposive sampling. Focus groups and interviews led in English or Amharic were recorded, transcribed, and translated as needed. Questions included participant experiences with Fendika Cultural Center and how experiencing the arts at Fendika influences wellbeing. We used deductive analysis, guided by the Arts and Culture in Public Health Framework. Two focus groups (n = 11 participants, five females and six males) and five key informant interviews (three females and two males) were completed. Findings suggested that the activities at Fendika were important for addressing individual depression and anxiety through the social and physical environments as well as the inherent cultural support and unity expressed through the arts. The themes were consistent with the Arts and Culture in Public Health Framework. The arts play an important role in positive mental health and cultural unity. Further research is needed to establish the generalizability, reach, and persistence of the impact of cultural centers on mental health cultural understanding.

The NERLE model–a tool for assessing the quality of intralingual subtitles at live events

AbstractFor many years, the NER model has been used to assess the quality of live subtitles created by respeaking on television. In this article, I present and explore the NERLE model, an adaptation of the NER for use at Live Events (LE). This new setting is a dynamic one. When subtitles created within it were assessed with the NER model, many new categories of error were seen which proved complicated to classify, rendering the regular pathways of analysis offered by the NER model insufficient. Some errors resulted from the new, more complex, workflow and set up required at events and others from the new communicative possibilities that live events offer: audience members and people speaking at events are able to interact with respeakers and react and respond to the subtitles they produce in a way that people in a television programme cannot. This change, combined with the more complex access provision and accuracy assessment that live events entail demand that additional steps are incorporated within the NER model analysis workflow to make it applicable to this setting. The article begins with a review of how the NER model developed within the landscape of subtitle accuracy analysis; next the process involved in using the scoring system of the NER model, as the basis for the NERLE model, is examined; finally, the refinements of the NERLE model are presented and the scoring of a number of scenarios is also discussed. It concludes with suggestions for further exploration and applications of the model.

Voices of Musicians: Virtual Live Bedside Music Concerts in Inpatient Care.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges to patients, family members, and healthcare staff that resulted in increased stress and isolation and decreased quality of life. We evaluate the impact of a novel virtual concert program, the Vital Sounds Initiative (VSI) of Project: Music Heals Us (PMHU), which began at the beginning of the pandemic to combat patient isolation and provide employment to professional musicians. Using a qualitative analysis of VSI data, we examined post-concert written responses by musicians. These responses were coded by independent coders via inductive coding and thematic analysis. Between 7 April 2020 and 20 July 2022, 192 musicians played 2203 h of music for 11,222 audience members in 39 care facilities nationwide. A total of 114 musicians submitted a total of 658 responses. Three main themes (with corresponding subthemes) arose: (1) Patient Experience; (2) Musician Experience; (3) Caregiver (family or staff) Experience. The responses offered valuable insight into the overwhelmingly positive aspects of the virtual concerts. Overall, we found that VSI favorably impacts individuals at every level, including the patients, musician, and caregivers. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the benefits of virtual music concerts. Upscaling similar virtual music interventions/programs should be considered.