Module: MCO4112-20 - Audiences and Fans

Level: 4

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Matthew Freeman

Module Tutor Contact Details: M.Freeman@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

The module provides students with the conceptual and research skills to define, characterise and investigate methods of researching contemporary media audiences and fans. Amidst shifts towards Web 2.0 and wider technological advances, what is means to an ‘audience’ has been redefined in recent decades, gradually moving away from notions of audiences as passive consumers of media and increasingly as active users of personalised digital content. As such, understandings of the role, form, function and behaviour of media audiences have shifted too, raising challenges about how audiences can be researched, defined and categories in a digital landscape.

The first half of this module introduces students to methods of defining, categorising and research media audiences, introducing a number of research methods that can be explored across the module. Students will also consider the challenges of rigorously researching and studying online audiences, exploring emerging issues to do with algorithms and data bias, as well as cutting-edge ethnographic methods.

In the second half of the module, students will move on to studying the form and function of a ‘fan’ in this context of online audiences and digital media ‘prosumers’. This is important particularly in light of the emergence of new media production tools and distribution networks that see a shift from ‘material’ to ‘digital’ fandoms.

Key to this module is the negotiation of your positions as audiences and fans, aca/fans and anti-fans - operating at the interface between critically-detached researchers of media and personal consumers of media. In this way, the module encourages you to pose broader questions about doing media research.

2.Outline syllabus

● Module Introduction: what is an audience anyway?

● Categorising media audiences

● Audiences and digital media

● Approaches to audience research I

● Approaches to audience research II

● Defining media fans

● Fans and/as producers

● Studying fans and studying as a fan

● Fandom, authorship and intellectual property

3.Teaching and learning activities

In the opening block of the module, lectures will introduce key themes and theories from the extant research on media audience studies and will map the territory of the subject. Seminars are structured around key activities and exercises. These sessions allow you to explore methods of audience research in greater depth and to demonstrate knowledge and understanding through exploration of methods.

The second block of the course focuses on the practicalities of doing fan studies research in support of your Research Portfolio (S1). This involves working through a series of case studies including investigations of specific media fandoms, technologies and platforms. These sessions will also draw out key issues of ethics, legality, authorship, intellectual property and ownership in relation to audiences.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Research Portfolio (4000 words)

• % Weighting: 100%