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A New Crossroads for Audiences and Audience Research: Frameworks for a Foresight Exercise

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The Future of Audiences

Abstract

What futures can be envisioned for audiences and users of emerging media technologies, and how can audience analysis respond to the challenges of the future, in exploration of uncertainties yet to unfold? This chapter introduces CEDAR—Consortium on Emerging Directions in Audience Research—a team of audience researchers from 14 countries across Europe, funded (2015–2018) by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK, which came together to conduct a foresight analysis exercise on developing current trends and future scenarios for audiences and audience research in the year 2030. The chapter positions this work in the context of longer and shorter histories of interest in audiences and locates the network’s critical, agenda, trans-media framework in the context of the rise of datafication and technological intrusions in the context of emerging technologies and the internet of things.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK

    Ranjana Das

  2. Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Brita Ytre-Arne

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  1. Ranjana Das
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  2. Brita Ytre-Arne
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Correspondence to Ranjana Das .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom

    Ranjana Das

  2. University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Brita Ytre-Arne

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Das, R., Ytre-Arne, B. (2018). A New Crossroads for Audiences and Audience Research: Frameworks for a Foresight Exercise. In: Das, R., Ytre-Arne, B. (eds) The Future of Audiences. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75638-7_1

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