Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Research on exposure to →  Television builds a large and heterogeneous field with one common denominator. Studies of television viewing try to provide evidence on the question: What do people do with television? Exposure to television has developed as a major research field since we cannot understand television as a medium of public communication without considering those who actually watch it. In particular, the television industry has an existential interest in finding out how many people watch its programs; it is exactly this kind of audience data that it can sell to the →  advertising industry (→  Media Economics ). But even beyond this economic interest, information on exposure to television is a necessary condition for any statement on the role of television in people's everyday lives and on potential social and individual consequences of television (→  Exposure to Communication Content ; Audience Research ). The field of research on exposure to television can be structured according to several levels of analysis. The main differentiation refers to the level of aggregation : at one end of the spectrum, the dominant line of research on exposure to television aims to describe and explain the viewing behavior of “aggregate audiences.” If we see television as a mass medium, we can conceptualize exposure as behavior of aggregate audiences (→  Audience ). We cannot regard these ... log in or subscribe to read full text