Volume 1, Issue 1

November 2003

Editorial

Barker, Martin (Editor) & Ernest Mathijs (Chair of Editorial Board). Introduction: Maintaining a Sense of Wonder

The Conduct of Exploratory Research into the Social Origins of Broadcasting Audiences

Blumler, Jay G., Denis McQuail & J. R. Brown. The Conduct of Exploratory Research into the Social Origins of Broadcasting Audiences. Originally written in 1970/71.

This paper describes research conducted by the then Television Research Unit at the University of Leeds in 1969 and 1970.  It was composed as a report to the Social Science Research Council, which funded the work. 

Material from this research subsequently appeared in a paper: ‘The Television Audience: A Revised Perspective’, by Denis McQuail, Jay G Blumler & J R Brown, in Denis McQuail (Ed.): Sociology of Mass Communications. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972.

Foreword. Why we are publishing this article – Martin Barker (Editor)

Chapter 1. Introduction: Approaching the Study of Audience Gratifications

Chapter 2. The Dales: A ‘Uses and Gratifications’ Investigation of a Daytime Radio Serial

Chapter 3. The Second Survey: Television Quiz Programmes and Coronation Street

Chapter 4. The Third Survey and its Typological Implications: Television News, The Saint, and Callan

Chapter 5. The Development of an Instrument Designed to Investigate the Gratifications Sought from Television in General

The St Louis Court Brief. Debating audience ‘effects’ in public

No. 02-3010, United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

Brief Amici Curiae of Thirty-three Media Scholars* in Interactive Digital Software Association, et al. v. St. Louis County, et al.

On Appeal From a Judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division

September 24, 2002

Part 1 *Scholars joining the Brief

Part 2 Table of Authorities

Part 3 Interests of the Amici Curiae & Summary of the Argument

Part 4 Argument

  • I: Research on violent video games has not demonstrated real-world harm
  • II: Media-effects research overall has not demonstrated that violent entertainment causes real-world harm
    • Most studies have negative results
    • Occasional positive results do not establish real-world harm
  • III: The functions of fantasy violence
  • Conclusion

Part 5 Footnotes

Part 6 Appendix: Bibliographies of the Amici

Kline, Stephen. Media Effects: Redux or Reductive? – A Reply to the St Louis Court Brief

Reviews

Mark Jancovich & Lucy Faire with Sarah Stubbings. The Place of the Audience: Cultural Geographies of Film Consumption. BFI Publishing (2003). ISBN 0-85170-943-5 (hbk), 0-85170-942-7 (pbk), pp. vi + 281

Kim Schrøder, Kirsten Drotner, Stephen Kline & Catherine Murray. Researching Audiences. London, Arnold (2003). ISBN 0-340-76275-6 (hbk), 0-340-76274-8 (pbk), pp. vii + 422