Rethinking Audiences for Cultural Industries: Implications for Canadian Research

Abstract

Within the broad theme of cultural development in an open economy, two models—market and public—are introduced to distinguish research approaches focused on economic or cultural aspects of audiences. Drawing on a review of Canadian and international research, this article identifies six fundamental questions raised over the past decade by institutional, commercial, and scholarly researchers. These questions concern the limitations of measurement techniques, current understanding of audience activity, fragmentation of the mass audience, search for a public calculus, new ethnographic approaches that emphasize the active nature of audiences, and posited linkage between media and cultural or national identity. The article concludes by briefly drawing out the implications for Canadian research of this worldwide rethinking of audiences for cultural industries. Further research is clearly indicated, and a combined market and public model approach is suggested.

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