Overview

This unit uncovers the vital role of audiences in screen culture. It introduces students to how viewers, fans, and gamers have been theorised by scholars and understood by the creative industries. Students explore audiences for film, TV shows, games, and broader screen culture to understand global consumption practices, cross-generational trends, and overlooked screen communities. Students develop an understanding of how audience practices are shaped by technology, media policy, and industry regulation. Crucially, this unit will instruct students in key audience research methods, equipping them with skills that are in demand across a range of screen culture roles.

Requisites

Prerequisites

100 Credit points

Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Semester 1
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
01-March-2027
30-May-2027
Last self-enrolment date
14-March-2027
Census date
30-March-2027
Last withdraw without fail date
20-April-2027
Results released date
06-July-2027

Unit learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  1. Critically examine scholarly and industry approaches to identifying and researching screen audiences
  2. Analyse audiences across platforms, generations, and global contexts
  3. Evaluate how audience behaviours are shaped by technology, media policy, and industry regulation
  4. Apply the best methods for audience research and communicate insights to industry and community stakeholders

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)

On-campus 

Lecture

 1.50  12 weeks 18

On-campus

Class

 1.50  12 weeks 18

Online (Asyncronous)

Modules

 2.00 12 Weeks 24

Specified Activities

Various

 2.00  12 weeks 24

Unspecified Activities 

Independent Learning

 5.50  12 weeks 66
Total     150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULOs
Assessment Individual 25 % 1,2,3,4
Presentation Individual 25 % 1,2,3,4
Project Group 50 % 1,2,3,4

Content

  • Reception, spectatorship, publics 
  • Audience Research Methods  
  • Platforms, algorithms, and streaming
  • Cinephilia and review culture 
  • Moviegoing, co-viewing and fragmented audiences 
  • Marginalised and overlooked audiences  
  • Fandom and Participatory Culture 
  • Watching, interacting, and playing  
  • Screen audiences and media policy  
  • Spectatorship and screen technology  
  • Experience economy 
  • Datafied audiences 
  • Parasocial relationships and celebrity culture 
  • Graduate Attribute – Communication Skills: Verbal communication
  • Graduate Attribute – Communication Skills: Communicating using different media
  • Graduate Attribute – Teamwork Skills: Collaboration and negotiation
  • Graduate Attribute – Teamwork Skills: Teamwork roles and processes
  • Graduate Attribute – Digital Literacies: Information literacy
  • Graduate Attribute – Digital Literacies: Technical literacy

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.