Audiences
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Audience: General definition
Broad meaning
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/events 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 public) were also used with the same general meaning when referring to theatrical presentations and events.
Equivalent words referring to audiences/listeners/viewers/spectators used in a similar way by other South African languages include bamameli (in Sotho), abaphulaphuli (Xhosa) and izethameli (Zulu)
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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