Book description
Knowing, measuring and understanding media audiences have become a
multi-billion dollar business. But the convention that underpins that
business, audience ratings, is in crisis. Rating the Audience is the
first book to show why and how audience ratings research became a
convention, an agreement, and the first to interrogate the ways that
agreement is now under threat. Taking a historical approach, the book
looks at the evolution of audience ratings and the survey industry. It
goes on to analyse today's media environment, looking at the role of the
internet and the increased difficulties it presents for measuring
audiences. The book covers all the major players and controversies, such
as Facebook's privacy rulings and Google's alliance with Nielsen.
Offering the first real comparative study, it will be critical for media
students and professionals. Rating the Audience provides a useful and
entertaining look at the history of audience measurement. -- Jonathan D.
Levy, Federal Communications Commission, USA This is a really important
intervention that explores a vital, although largely ignored, aspect of
the media industry. It is painstakingly researched and powerfully
conceptualized. It requires one to seriously re-examine everything that
one thinks one knows about this crucial aspect of the shaping of media
cultures. -- Professor Mark Jancovich, University Of East Anglia, UK
Professor Mark Balnaves is Senior Research Fellow in New Media, in the
Department of Internet Studies in the School of Media, Culture and
Creative Arts, Curtin University of Technology, Australia. Professor Tom
O'Regan was the Head of the School of English, Media Studies and Art
History at University of Queensland from 2005-2008, Director of the
Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy (1999-2002, Griffith
University) and the Centre for Research in Culture and Communication
(1996-1998, Murdoch University). In 2002 he was elected a Fellow of the
Australian Academy of Humanities. From 2002-2003 he was the Australian
UNESCO-Orbicom Professor of Communication. Ben Goldsmith is a Research
Fellow at the University of Queensland.
