Course: Media Audiences (MKVN08)

"Assume less, investigate more" was the perfect mantra for Media Audiences, and one I won't forget! It is not only fitting to the KOM programme experience but undoubtedly suited to the course. I felt that key concepts studied were equally important including identity and subjectivity, everyday life, engagement, fandom, and the interview method.

The online structure unique to this semester included a live online lecture followed by an online seminar later in the day. This allowed for a break from online learning and to reflect on the lecture. Seminars provided a chance to really dive into concepts through discussions in smaller groups. Practicing the interview method together in a group project and then being able to do the method alone for the essay was extremely constructive as well.

Annette is an incredible professor and her passion for the subject areas was very apparent during Media Audiences which made taking the course an overall enjoyable experience. I can highly recommend this course. 
 

What I liked the most about Media Audience course was the atmosphere of discussion, that there is no such thing as a stupid question, and you will always have to 'assume less and investigate more.' Annette is really passionate about audience studies, and her own interpretations were truly fascinating and inspiring. I enjoyed her lectures, her ways of delivering knowledge as she made abstract and difficult theories accessible for everyone. Moreover, I like her British humour that pops up during the seminar. 

Overall, I think Media Audiences is a perfect introduction course for someone who does not have an academic background in media studies, and someone who wants to gain a more commercial and cultural awareness of media. It is challenging but rewarding and enriching at the same time.

Media audiences is a really intriguing course. This course provides insights and knowledge on how to understand media through audiences’ perspectives. This course offers relevant theories in media engagement from many topics, starting from everyday life to identity. It is practical and resourceful for those who want to study more about audience engagement towards the media, from TV shows to digital applications.

Furthermore, the tips and tricks to learn deeply about understanding the audiences’ perspectives through an interview were also learned from this course, especially during this pandemic. One can learn how to compose a useful interview guide consisting of questions related to the theories and research questions. It is helpful to get more empirical data. Therefore, this course is really applicable to a wide range of researches.

The teaching and learning activities were fun and engaging. Even though the class was conducted online, the lectures were not boring. Annette Hill, together with Hario Priambodho and Christine Sandal, gave us opportunities to dig more about the course, and they are really supportive. The seminars were lively, and one can get new understandings from other classmates who come from diverse backgrounds. Overall, studying in this course felt like sharing and telling about our own stories rather than merely reading and doing assignments.

The Media and Audiences course has been a challenging, fun, interesting, and mind-opening course that we, Lund University Media and Communication Masters students, will carry along the rest of our professional lives. This course was an excellent opportunity to bring many elements of media studies by ‘assuming less, investigating more’ as John Corner pointed out in his book Theorising Media (2011) and our incredible teacher Annette Hill pointed out countless times. 
 
Apart from the priceless academic gain, this course taught us a lot about the new ways of learning and adaptability with assistance from our Professor Annette Hill, Christine Sandal, and Hario Priambodho. During the time of COVID-19, they have been incredibly supportive to provide us the best learning experience. I consider myself very lucky for having Media Audiences as the first course of my masters. I do recommend this course for students who are interested in learning more about the media from a unique angle! 

The study of media audiences was an extraordinary experience. Professor Annette Hill is an educator who is intellectual, poetic, knowledgeable and attractive. She has a wealth of teaching experience, and you will get new inspiration from her considerate and enthusiastic encouragement.

Compared to my previous study experience in China, I was inspired to think more about the audiences and extend past insight by its dynamic and challenging course settings, interactions and group projects on various subjects, and abundant and in-depth reading materials.

More significantly, the spectrum of engagement theory not only allows me to use it in media studies but also provides new methods to observe daily life. Furthermore, I was exposed to qualitative research and fascinated by interviews and coding, which are full of unexpected challenges and passions. In short, if you are interested in media audiences, this is a course that you will benefit from it for the whole life.

As the first course in my journey for a Master's in Communication and Media Studies, Media Audiences is a fantastic course at Lund University. The subject broadened my understanding of media and their audiences. It imbued my knowledge with historical and theoretical frameworks of how media-audience relationships have been in the past and now. You will be left to critically think about how to situate the future of the media and audiences in an ever technologically advancing world.

It was a rare experience writing my first academic essay at Lund University about Media Audiences, just as it was an excellent opportunity to listen to Professor Hill and the teaching assistants. There are lectures; there are seminars and group assignments; there is one-on-one tutoring; then, there are the mentors helping everyone catch up. You can't afford not to pass the course.  

As a media practitioner in Liberia for over a decade, I knew the importance of the media and their relationship with audiences, but not as profound as I learned in this course – media audience theories, types of audiences, spectrum engagement, transnational media, transnational audiences, identity in media studies, media in everyday life, media experiences, fandom, among others. You have to flip approximately 2,000 pages to get there! The course showed my pathway into the future. My result from the course serves as a springboard to get me going more in-depth into media studies. 

"Assume less, investigate more". This is the central tenet of the Media Audiences course, and once you grasp that concept, you start seeing audiences in a strikingly different way.
Because audiences are not some monolithic, uniform entity - they are as diverse and in flux as everything else around us.

This course provides you with a toolkit to help you identify how audiences interact with - and, in turn, affect the production of - media products. You also address the relationship between media texts and their receivers, all within an interdisciplinary framework and anchored solidly on a theoretical foundation.

The 2020 course was, of course, impacted by public health precautions, but still consisted of a balanced mix of lectures, group work and individual work. The instructor, Annette Hill, had a great ability to present complex, specialized knowledge in a coherent, digestible manner. The academic level is high, but rewarding, the potential field of application is wide, and I can most definitely recommend this course to any and all postgraduate students who wish to broaden their horizons and strengthen their research and analytical skills, even if your background is not within the field of media studies. It is a most rewarding course.

Goethe says, "all theory is gray, my friend. But forever, green is the tree of life." But in this course, you can blend theory and practice very well. It is a valuable course for media and communication students to understand different approaches in media and communication studies and use them in the socio-political analysis of contemporary issues. This course will not only broaden your academic horizons but also lay the building blocks of better communication and a better analysis of what is happening around you in a society where the media is increasingly involved in our lives. In other words, it will change your "way of seeing". As a result of this approach, this course should also be considered as a cultural studies course. As Raymond Williams said,     "[T]here are in fact no masses, but only ways of seeing people as masses."

If this is your first year in this program, this course provides an excellent base for getting into media and communication studies. At the same time, it is also significant for those who want to continue their doctoral studies or work in the field of communication or media. Annette, Christine and Hario's teaching style is quite delightful, stimulating and innovative. Considering that it is a lesson conducted under pandemic conditions, I have to say that this is not only a academic course but also a meeting and sharing place as a public sphere that empowers us. 

Taking the course “Media Audiences” means you will have an incredible experience which combines theory and practice. The lectures are well summarized and can be used as a guide for going over your readings.

Since the beginning, you will hear about the “importance of investigating more rather than assuming” however, as the course flows, you will gradually comprehend the essentiality of it. Therefore, you are not merely finding out right or wrong answers, but you are being conducted to critically analyse concrete experiences as well as intertwine it with the knowledge you have been acquiring.

For me, the best part was carrying out my own interviews based on previous group work. Hence, when working together, you are given an opportunity to attempt, fail, and attempt again. You get to learn with your colleagues how to successfully complete the research process (sampling, methodology, analysis…). The challenges you face in the group work are kind of a springboard to your individual essay - a rewarding experience.

Another highlight is the opportunity to share ideas through seminars with peers who carry diverse cultural backgrounds. In addition, among the contents, I particularly have been highly interested in the engagement surrounding media, producers, audience and how a parallel can be made when perceiving engagement in everyday life, for example during our classes. All in all, it is a challenging and insightful course which allows you to improve a range of academic skills. Let yourself engage with Media Audiences!

As a first-year-student I was impressed - but also slightly intimidated - when I looked into the outline of the Media Audiences course. However, any uncertainties of mine vanished after the first few lectures. The attentive and kind teaching styles of our course leaders Annette, Christine, and Hario gave us space to explore new theories independently while simultaneously offering their support. Most outstanding to me was experiencing how much each of them cared about every student’s learning success.

While the COVID19 pandemic posed a unique challenge for the 2020 Media Audience course, the course leaders were able to make the best out of it and gave the course a new perspective - what better way to learn about media, while using the media? 

We learned about new concepts like audience identities, media engagement, everyday life and fans – the schedule secured an optimal learning outcome as the theoretical knowledge obtained in the morning lectures could be put into use in the afternoon seminars. The days before and after the lectures provided enough time to digest the newly gained information and deepen your understanding of key concepts by reading the course literature.

Particularly the chance we were given to explore a topic of our choice for our final essay offered me to gain deeper insight into the culture of rewatching and enabled me to discover new approaches to academic research and qualitative data analysis in the field of media audiences. Most importantly, the course was the perfect start into the Media and Communications Degree, and I am very thankful for this experience.

Media audiences was a challenging and mind opening experience for me. The course gave me a complete and deep academic insight in studying audiences. In two months of media audiences our course leader Annette Hill put an enormous effort in teaching us the principles of audience research and motivated us to find our own voices and ideas in this field. Annette was eager to pass her knowledge to us and to help us evolve to competent researchers with our own ideas and visions.

The model of the course is perfectly designed in a way that readings, lectures and seminars complete one another and all the core concepts of the audience studies is covered. Despite zoom classroom and pandemic conditions, this course was successful in engaging the participants in group discussions and reading groups. Therefore, our learning progress grew extraordinary fast. I always awaited the lectures and seminars with great anticipation. I not only could improve my interviewing method but also feel a boost of motivation in my general research career. It was in particular Annette Hill’s supervision that helped me overcome common stereotypes in my research approach and grow a critical thinking for my future works on media studies.

Media Audiences is an integral module in media studies. Annette Hill brought to fore her experience in making complex theories and concepts extremely simple. I am impressed with the structure of the course, leaving out ambiguity and making sure you understand the empirical and theoretical approaches of researching media audiences within Media and Communication Studies.

The course is an eye-opener for me as the mantra “assume less, investigate more” is important in taking every detail you come across through thorough scrutiny not just for the course but in your everyday dealings. The seminars were quite important in applying the concepts to the case studies. The seminars will bring to life the lectures when you connect the concepts with practical examples. Learning from classmates with diverse backgrounds will widen your horizon. 

The fun part is when you see yourself emerging in the concepts and you realise “oh, I am even exhibiting the engagement concept in relation to my positive and negative engagement with a TV series”. Annette does give everyone a voice as she is always open to new ideas so it is a very interactive class that you should not miss.

Media audiences helped me to explore variety main concepts about audiences in media research. It was beneficial for us to learn and read different underpinnings and theoretical paradigms from professional researchers. Whats' more, we also grasped qualitative methodologies and empirical data analysis skills to do a case study and write essays. It was a fascinating experience for me to share my personal ideas and listen to different concepts from our classmates coming from more than ten countries.

We also had a lot of free time to be immersed in reading thesis and books. Annette gave us chance to access profound theories and paradigms about media audiences. In my previous study, I forced myself to be objective and be rational to face my study and working. However, media audiences provided me with new sight which focus on the self, identity, media and our everyday life. It is worth mention that this course give us chance to know more about ourselves and also the world around us. Something we took for granted before are not as the same logic as we thought. I began to form the the habit of critical thinking and theoretical analysis. As John Corner said,‘assume less, investigate more’. In this way, as a student majoring in journalism before, I was very happy that we used one-on-one interviewing and coding which gave us practice to do qualitative research systematically. I believe these methods will also help me to thinking deeply and investigate more in the future.

At last, Annette always encouraged us to ask questions and she was happy to give us wisdom suggestions. Hario and Christine also always accompanied with us when we had seminars or took class. In a word, It is a such rewarding and memorable learning process!

MKVN08 Media Audiences is an inspiring course that provides you both theoretical knowledge and practical methods. You will gain an in-depth understanding of critical concepts in the field of audience studies, such as subjective and identity, everyday performance, spectrum of engagement, and fandom. During the learning process, you are able to practice qualitative semi-structured interview and coding approaches to examine the affective and cognitive work of the media audiences, which will lay a solid foundation for other course modules and master thesis.

There are various chances to participate in this enriching course, including lectures, seminars, group discussions, writing workshops, and individual essays. The course leader, Annette Hill, is really considerate and enthusiastic, and she values everyone's ideas and efforts. Also, it is attractive to share opinions and exchange experiences with your classmates from different cultural backgrounds. In a word, I strongly recommend this rewarding course.

Media Audiences was the first course in the master’s programme, which has laid a solid theoretical foundation for my future study. Due to the epidemic, the course was conducted online, but the quality of it was still good. The length of each lecture was not too long so that it was easy to concentrate. Annette elaborated the theory in combination with specific cases to make the key concepts easier to understand. The seminars were very interesting as well. What impressed me was “how to do a bad interview” and we learned from the negative examples to conduct an interview correctly.

Before starting the individual essay, there was a group assignment to make students familiar with the interview and coding process and it was a chance to make mistakes so that we were more confident when we wrote the essay independently. About 5 interviews are required to complete the essay, but there was a great sense of accomplishment after finishing it, which I could not imagine before. In the end, Annette’s evaluation of my paper was very personalized, clarifying my strengths and weaknesses, which is so helpful to my future academic writing. In general, this course makes me more confident to continue my studies.

Assume less investigate more ! This is the first thing you will learn in this course. This line will not only help you within the media audience module but will enable you to become a brilliant researcher. The media audiences module I believe is one of the main bases in becoming a great researcher. It has both a theoretical and a practical approach that will enable you to apply what you learnt in a research question of your choice. The professor and the teachers are with you in every step, I felt that they had my back while conducting my own research. Every email , question or concern was taken care of by the teachers. The confidence and experience that you gain from this course is huge. I can say I really enjoyed it!