Audiences

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Audience: General definition

The terms, derived from the Latin audire (to hear) and its derivative audientia, are used in two general ways today :

1. Most frequently used in various contexts to refer to assembled spectators, viewers or listeners at a public event such as a play, film, concert, lecture or meeting.

2. Largely used in the British/European context, to refer to a formal interview with a person in authority, e.g. the King or Queen, the Pope, the President, etc.

This article focuses on the first meaning.

As used in South Africa

The English word audience, though strictly speaking meaning "a group of listeners", is broadly used in South Africa in the sense outlined above. However, radio listeners are more usually called listeners and viewers of TV and film often as viewers.

As elsewhere, the related term spectators is normally reserved for sporting events, parades, ceremonies and other visual spectacles.

Like the English term, the Afrikaans equivalent term gehoor, strictly speaking meaning "to have heard" (from the verb "hoor" - i.e. "to hear"), tends to be used for theatrical performances of all kinds, sometimes also for other forms of entertainment. However, radio listeners are more usually called luisteraars (literally "listeners") and viewers of TV and film as kykers ("viewers").

In earlier periods of SA history, both English term public and the Dutch/Afrikaans term publiek (German Publikum, French were also used with the same general meaning when referring to theatrical presentations and events.

Sepedi: batheeletši

Sotho: bamameli

Xhosa: abaphulaphuli

Zulu: izethameli

Theatre audiences

The nature and role of the audience

Audience participation

Film Audiences

The nature and role of the audience

Radio audiences

The nature and role of the audience

Television audiences

The nature and role of the audience

Audience studies

Audience studies in South Africa

Theatre audiences

Film Audiences

Radio audiences

Television audiences

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audience_reception

https://www.google.co.za/#q=Audience+studies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_audience_theory

Susan Bennett 1990. Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception. London and New York: Routledge.


Hauptfleisch 1997.

Snowball et al.

Sources

Go to South African Theatre/Bibliography

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