Representing Audiences: Audience Research, Public Knowledge, and Policy

Abstract

This article explores some of the dilemmas and difficulties encountered by academic researchers (and specifically those who work on media audiences) in presenting their work in the public domain. It considers some examples of media coverage of debates about media audiences, raising questions about academic authority, research evidence and public knowledge. It points to the limitations of a view of such debates as “moral panics” and proposes a different approach based on social constructionist analyses of “social problems.” It concludes by considering some of the ambivalence and uncertainty that surrounds the increasingly common requirement for academics to become engaged with the public at large.

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