Audiences

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Audience: General definition

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

1. Most frequently 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 word audience, though strictly speaking meaning "a group of listeners", is broadly used in South Africa in the sense of a group of assembled spectators or listeners at a public event such as a play, film, concert, or meeting. The term spectators however is reserved for sporting events, the term listeners for radio and the term viewers for TV.

The Afrikaans equivalent term gehoor, like the English term refers to hearing, strictly speaking meaning "to have heard", but is nevertheless used for theatrical performances of all kinds, sometimes also for other forms of entertainment. However, radio listeners are more usually called luisteraars and viewers of TV and film as kykers

Audience studies

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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